On the 18th November 1942, three days after the sinking of the sixth British carrier of the war, the Royal Navy's Future Building Committee delivered an interim report. This committee had been set up to digest the lessons of the war, and determine the future direction of the British fleet. The interim report made strong statements about the utility of the aircraft carrier, and its likely place in the Royal Navy. However, they were strongly positive. The Committee's key conclusion on how the war had changed naval warfare was that:

the Carrier must be the core of the Fleet, and the deployment of aircraft both Carrier borne and shore based, must be the king pin of Naval strategy.

To this end, the carrier was to become a much more significant part of the fleet.

This conclusion, despite the losses suffered by the British carrier force, and those of the US and Japanese Navies, was easy to justify. Aircraft had proven to be a highly effective weapon of war. By the end of September 1942, the RN had lost two capital ships, a carrier, eight cruisers and forty-one destroyers to aircraft, plus many more ships damaged to a greater or lesser extent. At Taranto and Pearl Harbor, they had showed that they could devastate a fleet at anchor. At Matapan and against the Bismarck, they proved they were a useful part of a battlefleet, slowing an enemy so it could be caught. Off Crete in May 1941 and Malaysia in December 1941, they showed that they could devastate a fleet. Battles like the Coral Sea and Midway, meanwhile, showed that carriers alone could swing the course of a battle. Aircraft were so effective because they could deliver a large amount of ordnance at a much greater range than was previously possible.

The carrier was vulnerable, certainly. It carried large stocks of highly flammable aviation spirit, a large quantity of munitions, and its ability to generate strikes was dependent on a flight deck that was easily damaged by bombs and the like. However, unlike other classes of ships, the carrier could carry an effective defence. The Royal Navy's pre-war doctrine for air defence saw the fleet's anti-aircraft gun armament as its main defence. This was swiftly proved to be the wrong choice, contributing to the many losses to aircraft. Only fighters could provide a capable defence, and for a fleet that was out at sea, these could only come from a carrier. A carrier could also provide defence against the other major threat a fleet faced. Submarines sank four of the six British carriers lost to enemy action during the war - but a carrier's aircraft could, when provided with effective weapons, fend off subs as well.

However, this opinion was not universally held within the Royal Navy. Aircraft were seen as a key weapon, certainly, but opinions varied on the carrier. One suggestion was the idea of the hybrid ship or 'battle-carrier', which had both heavy guns and a flight deck. This could carry enough fighters to protect it in the approach to a surface action. A paper on the topic was prepared by the staff of the Mediterranean Fleet in early 1942, with the support of Admiral Cunningham. The concept was examined by British naval designers, but ultimately discarded. The problem was that designing such a ship required too many compromises. For the price of five 'battle-carrier's, three conventional battleships and three conventional carriers could be built. The conventional ships would have more (and heavier) guns and more aircraft than the hybrids, a much more efficient use of construction time and materials.

Another option was to move towards an entirely shore-based force of aircraft. Carrier-borne aircraft required serious compromises in their construction. Operating from a carrier imposed maximum size and weight limits, due to the need to fit into a ship's lifts and hangars. The need to make a landing on a tiny strip imposed a requirement for a strong structure due to the vast forces involved. All of these put carrier-based aircraft at a disadvantage compared to land-based aircraft, which could be as large as they needed to be and had less stringent structural requirements. The carrier was also much more complex and expensive than an airbase on land. In July 1942, the Fifth Sea Lord (the official in charge of the RN's aircraft and carrier force), Rear Admiral Lumley Lyster, wrote a memorandum arguing for the development of new aircraft to replace the carrier at sea. Lyster, an experienced carrier captain who had made the original plan for the Taranto raid, looked forward to the development of new higher power aircraft engines and of technologies like inflight refuelling. These would allow the new shore-based aircraft to reach out to ranges that previously would only be possible using a carrier as a base. To provide a fleet with fighter protection, it was to be capable of 'towing' fighters in flight. Lyster's memorandum called for the development of an aircraft with 5,000 nautical miles of range, an armament of four torpedoes and cannon, as well as the capability to tow four fighters. This new aircraft was to be delivered within two years. Lyster's memorandum was given some serious consideration, but it was discarded. It was felt unlikely that such an aircraft could be produced in time to affect the war. It was also felt that carrier-based aircraft would benefit just as much from the process of developing technology as shore-based aircraft and remain competitive.