"The carriers ... enable us to deliver increased strategic effect and influence around the world at a time and place of our choosing," the British defense secretary said.
"This Comprehensive Spending Review means an additional 7.7 billion pounds for Defence by 2011 - the longest period of sustained real growth in planned defence spending since the 1980s," Des Browne said.
The new 65,000-ton carriers, to be commissioned in 2014 and 2016 and described by Browne as a "step change in our capability," will be christened the HMS Queen Elizabeth and the HMS Prince of Wales.
The order, worth 3.8 billion pounds (nearly $8 billion), will be given primarily to domestic producers, he said, involving about 10,000 specialists across the economy and creating many jobs in the country.
One of the largest contractors is likely to be BAE Systems, a company that was recently embroiled in a corruption scandal, specifically about the methods it used to win a contract to supply warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
