Ajax Programme

John Healey Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)]

(Urgent question): To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will make a statement on what progress has been made with the Ajax armoured vehicles programme.

[The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)]

The Ajax family of vehicles will transform the British Army’s reconnaissance capability. As our first fully digitalised armoured fighting vehicle, Ajax will provide crews with access to vastly improved sensors, and better lethality and protection. Maingate 1 approval was granted in March 2010. Negotiations with the prime contractor to recast the contract were held between December 2018 and May 2019. The forecast initial operating capability, or IOC, was delayed by a year to 30 June 2021—later this month—at 50% confidence, with 90% confidence for September 2021.

Despite the ongoing impact of covid, we have stuck by that IOC date, but of course, it remains subject to review. By the end of next week, we will have received the requisite number of vehicles to meet IOC. The necessary simulators have been delivered and training courses commenced. These delivered vehicles are all at capability drop 1 standard, designed for the experimentation, training and familiarisation of those crews that are first in line for the vehicles. Capability drop 3, applying the lessons of the demonstration phrase, is designed for operations.

We remain in the demonstration phase, and as with all such phases, issues with the vehicle have emerged that we need to resolve. We were concerned by reports of noise issues in the vehicle. All personnel who may have been exposed to excessive noise have been tested, and training was paused. It now continues with mitigations in place as we pursue resolution. We have also commissioned independent vibration trials from world-class specialists at Millbrook Proving Ground, which should conclude next month.

I assure the House that we will not accept a vehicle that falls short of our requirements, and we are working with General Dynamics, the prime contractor, to achieve IOC. Similarly, we are currently working with General Dynamics to ensure that we have a mutually agreed schedule for reaching full operating capability. That is subject to an independent review, which we have commissioned. This is an important project for the British Army, delivering impressive capabilities and employing thousands of skills workers across the UK. We look forward to taking it into service.

[John Healey]

That was a statement of astonishing complacency. We have seen £3.5 billion paid out, four years late, and just 14 vehicles delivered, light tanks that cannot fire while moving, and vehicle crews made so sick that the testing has been paused. If this is defence procurement that the Minister is content is broadly on track, how badly has it got to go wrong before he will admit that the contract is flawed? This project has been flagged red by the Government’s own Major Projects Authority. The Defence Committee calls it

“another example of chronic mismanagement by the Ministry of Defence and its shaky procurement apparatus.”

Yet the Defence Secretary is failing to get to grips with the failures in this system and failing our frontline troops as a result. He is breaking a promise he made to them in this House when he said:

“When it comes to equipment, the first thing is to ensure that we give our men and women the best to keep them alive and safe on a battlefield.”—[Official Report, 7 December 2020; Vol. 685, c. 556.]

He has been in post for two years now. Since then, the black hole in the defence budget has ballooned by £4 billion up to £17 billion. Ministers are failing British forces and failing British taxpayers.

Have the Ajax problems of noise and vibration now all been fully fixed? How many personnel are under medical treatment following the Ajax testing, and what are the conditions they are being treated for? Can the Ajax now in fact fire while moving? Where will the gun turret be manufactured? What is the full updated cost of the Ajax programme? When will all these vehicles be delivered in full?

This is the largest single procurement contract outside nuclear, and it requires independent scrutiny, so will the Minister invite the National Audit Office to do an urgent special audit?

The Minister says that this is an important project for the British Army. He is right. The defence Command Paper makes it clear that the rapid further cut in Army numbers is directly linked to more advanced battlefield technology based on the Ajax. So will Ministers now halt the plans to cut Army numbers and focus instead on fixing this failing procurement system?

[Jeremy Quin]

I had imagined that whatever my response, the right hon. Gentleman would accuse me of being complacent. That is the expectation I had and I was not disappointed. We are not in any way complacent about our nation’s defence and security. That is why we are investing another £24 billion in our defence and in our security over the next four years. We are absolutely on top of and getting to grips with our equipment programme and what will stem from it.

The right hon. Gentleman raised a number of issues. I can assure him that I am absolutely focused on this project achieving its IOC. I will not hide from him, as I have not from the House, that we have two primary concerns: noise and vibration. On noise, we have mitigations currently in place to enable a certain element of training, albeit reduced training. We are looking at two headsets that hopefully, within the next few weeks, will be approved for use, further extending what we can do in terms of training. But that does not get us to the root cause of the noise. We need to get to the root cause of the noise issues within this vehicle, be they mechanical or indeed electronic; this is, after all, the first digitalised platform of its kind anywhere. We need to resolve those issues.

We are concerned about vibration. I have to say that over many thousands of miles of testing GD has not had the same experience of vibration, but I absolutely trust the reports that have come to me from our service personnel. We are determined to get to the bottom of this. That is why we are using Millbrook, a world-class proving ground, to check exactly what noise comes back on vibration. It may come back with a good answer, but we await that answer. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman —I understand his concerns—that we will not take anything into IOC until we are satisfied that we are getting the kit that we require.

I can reassure the right hon. Gentleman on a host of other issues that he raised. I do not deny that we have serious issues that we need to resolve, but there are a number of points where there is a difference between what is certified and what the vehicle is capable of. I can reassure him that the vehicle is capable of going well ahead of 30 km per hour, but with newly trained crews, a certification has been placed restricting speed, and I would expect that to be lifted during the course of next month. There has been a restriction in terms of going up over a reverse step. This is a vehicle that is capable of reversing over a 75 cm object. A restriction has been placed, and I expect that to be lifted shortly too. This is a vehicle that is capable of firing on the move. That is not something that we have certified it to do as yet. We are working through the demonstration phase, but we will continue to advance that demonstration phase. There will be issues; there always are in demonstration phases.

We do have issues to resolve, but as I say, the key ones are noise and vibration, both of which we are very focused on. I hope that we will be able to get resolution on all these issues, but it is what we are working with, with General Dynamics. It is a firm price contract, so £5.5 billion is the maximum that is payable, including VAT. Currently, we are at just under £3.2 billion spent. There is a heavy incentivisation on our suppliers to ensure that they get this over the line. We are working very closely with them at the very top level of their organisation. The joint programme office was delayed by covid, as the right hon. Gentleman will be aware. There were significant covid issues in Merthyr, and they did brilliantly through them. We have a joint programme office on the ground, and a combination of top-down and bottom-up will, I hope, enable us to make ongoing progress.

In terms of the reporting, as the right hon. Gentleman may be aware, an Infrastructure and Projects Authority report has been requested by the senior responsible owner, which was helpful. These things are helpful. It is helpful that SROs and their teams can speak honestly to the IPA and get proper independent assessments. That was conducted back in March, and it has certainly helped. I look forward to making further progress and reporting back on that to interested parties as we resolve the issues that are outstanding.

I reiterate that this is a first-class vehicle. It is the first of its kind. It has an important job to do. It is currently employing around 4,100 people across the length and breadth of the UK. I visited Merthyr, and I am proud of what they are doing there. We will, and we must, get this right and get it delivered.