Ajax Armoured Cavalry Programme

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, Ajax is now a programme on an end-of-life watch. Clearly things have gone from bad to worse, with the Public Accounts Committee pursuing an inquiry, the National Audit Office accepting the need for an urgent investigation, and the Government’s own Major Projects Authority saying that delivery appears to be unachievable. Now the Government themselves in their own Statement say that it is not possible to determine a realistic timetable for the introduction of Ajax vehicles into operational service. Some £3.5 billion of money has been spent so far, for the delivery of just 14 Ajax vehicles.

My first question to the Minister is: what is actually going on? Can the Minister now guarantee that the problems of noise, instability, inability to fire if moving—among others—will be fixed, and tell us what the timescale is, or is it just trials, trials, and more trials followed by evaluation with no end? If all of this goes wrong, who picks up the bill—the taxpayer or General Dynamics? With noise and vibration issues still not resolved, despite the Government being warned in 2018, the number of personnel needing assessment has doubled to 310. Can the Minister tell us how many of the 248 Army personnel tested so far needed medical treatment, and for what? Will the Minister commit to the health and safety director’s report being published this year?

With the chair of the Defence Select Committee himself recently describing in the other place the Ajax procurement plan as a “dog’s dinner,” can the Minister tell us what alternatives to Ajax are being looked at, since Warrior is being scrapped and replaced with Boxer, which has no turret? Is it the CV-90, or an upgraded Warrior, or a Boxer with a turret? It must have a gun, as the Minister will know, to protect dismounted troops on the battlefield. What is it going to be?

The reality is stark, with jobs at risk in South Wales as the Government will know, troop numbers being cut—the decision partly based on the delivery of all Ajax vehicles—but 575 out of the 589 have yet to be delivered. And yet the £5.5 billion ceiling, which the Government tell us is an absolute maximum, is fast approaching. The £3.5 billion was spent for 14, with 575 outstanding, but not a significant amount of the budget is left.

In closing, I ask the Minister: the Government’s plan A for our armoured fighting vehicles looks like failing, so where is the plan B, and when will we get it?

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister in the other place said

“I have previously described Ajax as a troubled programme.” —[Official Report, Commons, 9/9/21; col. 487.]


I could not have put that better myself.

One of the changes since Covid is that Ministers are no longer required to read out Statements from the other place, which might be a great relief to the Minister concerned, but perhaps means that noble Lords do not always hear the detail which is enshrined in the Statements we are debating.

The devil very much is in the detail here. As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has pointed out, a few details need to be explored in some depth. So far, £3.5 billion has been spent, and the Minister has said that the upper limit is still £5.5 billion. Defence procurement has long been a troubled area, with projects going overtime and overbudget. The Minister in the other place has said very clearly that this project will not go overbudget; it is very clearly going to go overtime. Can the Minister tell us whether she believes that the project is actually achievable at all?

The Minister in the other place said that the problems are not “irresolvable”, but how do we know? The problems are apparently electrical and mechanical. Do we know if there is a solution to them and, if so, what that solution might be? Has General Dynamics been given any timeline for resolving these problems, or is it just being left for it to come back at some vague date in the future to tell us there are going to be yet more trials? What assessment have the Government made of the gaps in our own capabilities if the Ajax programme is not delivered in a timely fashion—indeed, if it will not be delivered at all?

Beyond that, we have already heard that 310 people are deemed to be in need of urgent assessment. Is that the total number of people who have been involved in the trials, or are there more people? Do we have any sense of the duty of care we should be thinking about when we consider who we are asking to be part of these trials, particularly given that some of the concerns about noise appear to have arisen before the trials started? If the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, were here, he would probably jump up later to explain that, actually, during trials you have teething problems. That is fine, but in this case we knew there were problems before the trials started. Can the Minister give us some indication of when the Government knew of the problems? What action are the Government planning to take to ensure that the 310, or however many people have so far been involved in trials, are not put further at risk? This procurement project seems at the moment to be a failing project, and that is clearly to the great detriment of this country.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, for their questions. To put this in context, the Chamber will understand that Ajax is a complex, fully digitised land vehicle project delivering transformational change to the Army’s armoured vehicle fleet. It is providing a step change in capability to the British Army and is a core part of our future soldier vision. But, yes, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness are absolutely correct: this has not been straightforward. I am not going to stand at this Dispatch Box and pretend otherwise, but I shall try to deal with the points that have been raised.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, alluded to the problems and asked, effectively: where are we going and what are we doing? As he is aware, a safety panel has been appointed. It was established to oversee Ajax and, following its approval, trials have now restarted at the independent Millbrook Proving Ground. To reassure the Chamber, the panel consists of expert representatives drawn from the Defence Equipment & Support organisation, General Dynamics itself, Millbrook Proving Ground, an independent safety and environmental auditor and the MoD’s director for health and safety. I have to make clear that the panel must be left to do its work. I know that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness were anxious to draw me on a time but, quite simply, whatever the panel needs to do at the proving ground with Millbrook to test what is causing the noise and vibration, it must be left to do. I cannot be drawn further on that.

The noble Lord and the noble Baroness also asked about personnel. Three hundred and ten personnel have been identified as requiring hearing assessments. Of these, 304 have been contacted successfully and the remaining six are UK service personnel who recently left service. I may be able to provide an update on the figure, and I undertake to write to the noble Lord and the noble Baroness about that. So far, 248 people have been assessed and, naturally, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness wanted to ascertain what is happening to them. I wish to reassure them both that we will update the House on the number of personnel affected by noise and vibration in due course, including if any trends become apparent once the data has been analysed, but we are absolutely clear about our support for those who have been affected, and that support will provide whatever is necessary to address any issues which they are experiencing.

I think it was the noble Lord who asked about the review publication date. I am unable to give him a precise date for that, for reasons that he will understand, but I can reassure him that the review is very extensive. He is probably aware of what it is looking at: the whole history of this difficult period for the MoD. It wants to do that objectively and analytically, so that it can come back with a meaningful report, and it is looking at a number of issues.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked me about the timeline and when we knew that there was a problem. I would ask her to be patient about all these issues because I do not want to pre-empt the health and safety review. It is doing excellent work and is well ahead with that. We have undertaken to publish the reports of the health and safety department within the MoD when we have that information, and we shall do that.

The noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked about the contract itself. As I think they will both be aware, it is what we call a firm price contract. That means that the price of £5.2 billion is to buy and support 589 Ajax vehicles in six variants. As of June 2021, we have spent £3,167,000. I reiterate that the focus of the MoD and General Dynamics is on resolving the problems. That is what we are focused on doing; no one is denying that issues arose with noise and vibration, but excellent engineering minds are now being directed to these matters. We await the outcome of the safety panel’s tests and trials to inform further on what is happening.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked whether we can achieve progress. We are certainly all focused on doing that; we want to resolve these issues. I said earlier that Ajax is a complex but very important part of our future capability. It will be an asset for the military and make a singular difference to our capability. We want that to succeed and to be able to take delivery of these vehicles. But again, to reassure the Chamber, I wish to make it crystal clear that we will not take delivery of anything not fit for purpose.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, asked about capability gaps. Again, I wish to reassure her that we do not anticipate any compromise on capability. A range of capabilities can be flexed to meet the required operational scenario as we know it now, and there will be a range of choices available to meet defence needs. I think the final thing that she asked was: when did problems emerge, and when were matters referred to the health and safety review? That is all within the broad umbrella of everything that the health and safety review is looking at. As I say, in due course we will publish the outcome of its inquiry. We hope that will better inform the Chamber and provide fuller information on exactly what the history of this matter is.

The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked whether we have a plan for the future. It is rather a reprise to say to him that because the focus is on sorting this and getting it fixed, that is a plan for the future and we know that there is a sense of urgency and purpose. All those deployed to address this challenge are working hard to resolve the difficulties.