Having read the full report, it's grim.
Carrier Enabled Power Projection (CEPP) is progressing on a wing and a prayer. There's lots of things that are unfunded and lots of increasingly urgent questions that can't be answered.
Resources are spread absolutely paper thin. There is no wiggleroom anywhere.
Some examples.
Unfunded capabilities needed by the Carrier Enabled Power
Projection programme
The Ministry of Defence continues to have unfunded capabilities.... US/UK interoperability... Additional equipment and training to
enable United States’ Lightning II jets to fly from UK carriers and vice versa.
This is set out in a table which is difficult to replicate here. But basically the integration of US Marine jets and their associated equipment including weapons onto the carriers is still unfunded. And the carrier's maiden deployment complete with US Marine jets is meant to happen next year.
On Crowsnest, time for a bit of tragi-comic relief:
The helicopter needed for trials, which was the responsibility of Leonardo
Helicopters, had received insufficient care during outdoor storage, leaving
it unsuitable for flying. It needed substantial maintenance to make it
airworthy for flight trials and, instead, will be used for testing. The Navy
has reassigned Merlin helicopters to support the flight trials but, in doing
so, reduced its fleet availability. The compressed timeline and accelerated
activity for testing Crowsnest has also created additional pressure on the
provision of Merlin spare parts.
Yep, the trials aircraft got knackered because someone left it parked outside unmaintained in all weathers, leading to further fleet overstretch in a fleet that is already tiny and overstretched. And it's responsible for some of the delays to Crowsnest which is crucial to meeting operational capability deadlines.
Then this.
... the Department will have restricted options
for deploying the carriers for much of 2022 because RFA Fort Victoria will be
unavailable due to major planned maintenance work.
You know how we occasionally snigger at the French for only having one carrier, and when she's in for repairs they don't have any carrier. Duh, how dumb is that???
Well we only have one solid support ship, which is approaching 25 years old, to support two carriers. And that's essential for delivering CEPP. And in 2022 it's going to be mainly unavailable so no carrier strike. Duh... ?
I won't copy and paste the bits about there not being enough spares for the F-35s, with less being bought than recommended and them being used faster than planned. It's on page 44 if you want to read it.