The Naval Defence Act did not satisfy every political constituency. Some critics thought the program spent too much, while others wanted to restore annual control over naval estimates and designs. In this interpretation, yearly opportunities to insert new favored ideas repeatedly altered requirements. Those interventions drove up the cost of individual warships, linking procurement stability directly to affordability.
Notable Point · 10:40-11:08
Annual political intervention could drive up warship costs
Opposition to the Act came from both spending critics and advocates of the older annual-control system, whose changing demands made individual ships more expensive.