Ajax Programme

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind) [V]]

There are reports in the media citing the leaked Government report on the procurement of Ajax tanks and stating that

“the problems were known to the army as early as 2017, but they”—

the MOD—

“didn’t admit them due to embarrassment.”

Does the Minister agree that it would be far more embarrassing, and a failure in the duty of care to our defence personnel, if the Ajax programme went ahead without finding the root cause or mitigating these serious defects?

[Jeremy Quin]

I agree with the hon. Lady that we need to find the root cause of the defects—that is absolutely right—or at least, we have to first identify that there are defects and then make certain that we have resolved them. I think that would be a fairer way to put it, and that is what a lot of the testing is doing right now. On when these problems first occurred, I do not think awareness of them came from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority report. I have been aware from social media sources of a suggestion that the Army was aware back in 2017. That has not been my experience, having looked into it. The concerns over vibration are a far more recent occurrence.