Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what estimate his Department has made of what the whole life cost of the Ajax Programme will be, including the contract cost and support costs.

The whole life cost of any platform includes the initial procurement, support, maintenance, associated infrastructure and disposal costs over its decades-long life cycle. An estimate of whole life costs was provided to the NAO and is set out on Page 23, Paragraph 1.20 of the NAO report.