I believe it was the other way around - as designed they would have had catapults but the aircraft they will initially operate doesn't need them so they were never installed.
Not really. When the project started the idea was always to continue with the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) form of operation as had been perfected on the Invincible class. It was a requirement, however, that they be designed for conversion, should the need arise in the future, to conventional catapult assisted take off but with arrested recovery (CATOBAR) as found on US carriers and previously used by the RN up until Ark Royal (R09) decommissioned in 1979.
Design (and indeed initial construction) proceeded merrily along this path through the 1990s into the 00s and all the way through to the Defence
cuts review of 2010 when the Tories decided instead to have one of the carriers converted to CATOBAR and the other was left with a rather uncertain future.
Now until this point the UK had signed up to the F-35 programme and intended to procured the B variant of that jet which is a STOVL capable aircraft. With the change of plan the Tories instead decided to buy the C variant which is not STOVL capable and is designed for CATOBAR operation (and has various advantages over the B variant but that discussion could fill its own thread).
We then get to around mid-2012 and the Tories, probably shocked by the costs of converting half-way through build from STOVL to CATOBAR and also faced with the development risk of the Electromagnetic Catapults, changed their mind again and went back to STOVL and the F-35B.
What is definitely true is that operating CATOBAR does open up a wide range of aircraft types to you (most of which can be bought off the shelf from the US). Using STOVL the only real choice of fighter is the F-35B (it's basically the only game in town) and you're limited otherwise to helicopters.
With CATOBAR you can pick from the F-35C or various versions of the F-18 (including electronic warfare specialists) as well as E-2s to give you radar coverage (something that we do with helicopters but that a fixed wing aircraft is better at) and C-2s for delivering supplies from shore to the carrier over long distances.
Of course, whilst all that is lovely in theory, the reality is that not only is CATOBAR more expensive to operate day to day the likelihood of the UK ever spending sufficient sums to procure and operate a host supporting aircraft is slim to none.
But it doesn't change the reality that operating STOVL does considerably reduce the range of aircraft you can pick to operate from your aircraft carrier and has tied us pretty much totally to the success or failure of the F-35B.
Whether that's a good or bad thing is up to the reader! Personally I would like for us to operate two CATOBAR carriers with full air wings but I accept that I'm a minority when it comes to that view in the public at large so STOVL with F-35B seems an acceptable alternative to me.
Surely the decisions on the fleet carriers have to be read in light of the spending review deciding that the focus of the navy at that time ( and for lots of the time since) was in identifying, classifying, trailing and, if the time came, destroying soviet SSN/SSBM AND protecting our own SSBN from similar detection and prosecution.
Rather than just the focus of the RN at that time I'd suggest it was the focus of the UK Armed Forces as a whole on continental Europe. Running around the world fighting wars was something that, by the 1970s (and even to an extent the 1960s), just wasn't on the radar anymore. The focus was on defending Europe from the Warsaw Pact and fleet carriers do not contribute anything much to that effort particularly when the US can provide fifteen of their own.
Of course events rather showed that that wasn't a wise decision!
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