Ajax Programme

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

The hon. Gentleman asks serious questions. I just reiterate that there is a difference between what a vehicle can do and what it is certified to do. With things like fire or manoeuvre and the speed limitation, we should not read into them that the vehicle is incapable either of firing on the move or of going above 20 mph. That is not the case; it is simply that that is not what it is certified to do at the moment.

The hon. Gentleman also highlights, perfectly reasonably, the issues that I touched on about noise and vibration. On noise, there are mitigations in place at the moment, and there are further mitigations in terms of the headsets. When we introduced Ajax, the problems occurred in using the standard British Army headset for use in armoured vehicles; the concern that we came across in testing the inner ear was that that was not adequate for the task.

There are two issues that we are therefore looking at: the headset and the noise of the vehicle itself. The noise can have two components; it can be mechanical, but it can also be the electronic noise generated by the aircraft that is communicating with the headsets. I wish that I could tell the hon. Gentleman that a week on Tuesday it will all be resolved. I cannot, but I can tell him that there are issues that we are seriously working through with the suppliers to ensure that we get there.

With vibration, General Dynamics has not had the same experience that we have had, apparently: over many thousands of miles of driving, it has not seen the same issues. That is why we are going to Millbrook, which will have sensors all over the vehicles to test where the vibration is happening and whether we can isolate it. It may be resolvable quickly; it may not be. I can commit only to telling the hon. Gentleman that we will do the work and that I will ensure that people are aware of how it progresses.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

It is encouraging that General Dynamics has been able to make a vehicle work satisfactorily in the United States, so will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government will not be rushed into bringing this already much delayed vehicle into service until these problems are solved to the satisfaction of the people in the armed forces who will have to fight in it?

[Jeremy Quin]

I am so glad that my right hon. Friend asks that question, because it requires a very simple answer: absolutely. Unfortunately, as he rightly says, there has been a long pattern of delays with the project, but we are not going to take into service something that does not meet our requirements. It is a firm price contract; we need to have it right, and take it into service when it is right to do that. We are not going to obfuscate in order to do so.