Armoured Vehicle Contract

Thursday 1st July 2010 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Peter Luff)]

: I am pleased to announce a major contract award in favour of General Dynamics (UK) for the prototyping and demonstration of a new armoured combat vehicle intended to replace the existing combat vehicle reconnaissance (tracked) (CVR(T)). This award represents a major step towards equipping the British Army with a fleet of new highly capable, modern specialist tracked combat vehicles, able to conduct a wide range of military tasks representative of both current and anticipated operational scenarios. Initially this contract will focus on an improved reconnaissance variant called Scout but will also demonstrate a common base platform which will be the basis for other essential variants, and offer logistical commonality and benefit.

We have chosen a tracked vehicle design, that builds upon a mature platform already in service with other European nations, but which offers growth to meet the UK’s current and anticipated requirements over the next 30 years. As a result, the specialist vehicle family will benefit from increased protection, modern systems, improved fire power and, importantly, greater survivability over existing vehicles, and will be optimised for deployment world wide.

GDUK is based near Newport, Gwent, where the main programme management team will be situated; their proposed manufacturing solution has a high UK content (over 70%) with many UK-based subcontractors involved. Skills required are largely high-value engineering design skills, which will help sustain and develop the UK defence engineering sector.

This contract only commits MOD to the demonstration phase at this time. Commitment to full production will not happen until around the middle of this decade, when sufficient evidence has been gathered from the trialling of prototypes and other demonstration work to ensure the vehicle designs are optimised and fully fit for purpose. This second decision point also allows SDSR to inform whole fleet numbers, based on the future size and shape of the British Army, before the major investment decision is taken.

The award of this contract, to progress the replacement of the current CVR (T) fleet, demonstrates commitment to long-term equipment planning for the Army. This will be welcome news to our soldiers.