John Cooper
Main Page: John Cooper (Conservative - Dumfries and Galloway)Department Debates - View all John Cooper's debates with the Ministry of Defence
Ajax Armoured Vehicle
John Cooper Excerpts(1 day, 10 hours ago)
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Luke Pollard
Every single day, brilliant people in defence companies large and small deliver incredible capabilities for the UK’s armed forces. In many cases, we are using faster procurement and new permissions for our friends in Ukraine. There are lessons that we are learning from the experience of supporting our friends in Ukraine, including on speeding up the delivery of systems. We are also looking at how we can reduce the contracting time and enable platforms to be spiral-developed faster than what we have today. There are lessons to be learned, and the defence industrial strategy sets out a number of them. We will look carefully at the reviews to see what lessons can be applied to the Ajax platform, and if there are wider lessons that need to be learned, we will take them seriously.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
Civilians talk tactics and veterans talk logistics. Although the MAN trucks might not be as sexy as Ajax, their loss, however temporary, will be keenly felt. Can the Minister outline what practical steps are being taken to make sure that the wheels are not coming off—so to speak—any other mission-critical equipment?
Luke Pollard
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of logistics. I am reminded that without Colonel James Sunderland—a logistics colonel who sat on the Conservative Benches—the House is slightly light on that expertise at the moment. It is important that we look at whether the system is working properly. When faults were identified in the MAN support vehicle, the correct mitigations were put in place and then rolled out. I make a clear distinction between understanding what has happened and knowing what mitigations are required and how we will roll those out. That is how the system should work, but with the Ajax we are not yet certain what has happened. We have a number of investigations that will hopefully soon provide us with the clarity and the answers that we require.