Defence Procurement

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Michael Fallon)]

I am pleased to announce the successful contract award worth £3.5 billion (Ex VAT) to General Dynamics UK (GDUK) to deliver a minimum fleet of 589 Scout specialist vehicles (Scout SV) to the British Army. This will sustain a minimum of 1,300 jobs across the UK. Deliveries of the Scout SV are planned to commence in 2017. The training establishment and first squadron will be equipped by mid-2019 to allow conversion to begin with a brigade ready to deploy from the end of 2020.

Scout SV will transform the Army’s combat capabilities and will introduce new and very advanced intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance capabilities. These vehicles will be the eyes and ears of commanders on the battlefields of the future and will carry a revolutionary and highly effective cannon.

Vehicle development has drawn on the lessons of recent operations. Scout SV will be a modern, tough, well-protected, highly mobile and agile tracked vehicle, able to cope with the most difficult terrain anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day and able to hold its own against the threats we foresee. It will replace the Army’s existing force of combat vehicle reconnaissance (tracked) vehicles which have given exemplary service for the past 40 years all over the world, most recently in Afghanistan.

Scout SV will fulfil nine different roles from six variants: a turreted variant mounting a 40 mm cannon fulfilling the Scout, ground-based surveillance and joint fire control roles, a protected mobility reconnaissance support (PMRS) variant providing an armoured personnel carrier and formation reconnaissance overwatch, command and control, engineer reconnaissance, recovery and repair variants.