Why existing light carriers weakened Malta's case

Why build Malta when Britain already had so many light-fleet carriers under construction?

The existing backlog made Malta politically difficult, but many light carriers were later exported and could have been traded for a smaller, more capable fleet.

Britain already had numerous light-fleet carriers under construction, which made a new large-carrier commitment appear redundant. Many Colossus- and Majestic-class hulls were subsequently sold abroad rather than retained as the core of the Royal Navy's carrier force. In this account, those exports helped other navies sustain British naval-aviation development. The counterfactual is to sell more of the wartime-derived backlog and concentrate British resources on a smaller number of adaptable Malta-class ships. The immediate political appeal of hulls already under construction is set against the longer-term value of displacement, sortie capacity, and growth margin.