Boris Johnson to take aim at MoD over wasted cash

Boris Johnson’s most senior aide is to overhaul the way the Ministry of Defence spends billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money in a move expected to alarm military chiefs and mandarins.

Dominic Cummings, regarded as a key architect of the prime minister’s election victory, will tackle military procurement as a priority for next year, allies have said. He is expected to audit recent purchases and review the development of costly military equipment, having previously described MoD procurement as “disastrous”. The aide has scorned “mediocre” officials and alleged corruption within the system. The acquisition of two aircraft carriers, at a cost of £6.2 billion, has been a specific focus of his concern.

One cabinet minister sought yesterday to play down the significance of Mr Cummings’s involvement in the defence review, but the revelation is likely to cause anxiety among senior military figures. A defence source said last night that although there was agreement that the processes needed reform, the armed forces would be concerned by Mr Cummings taking a leading role. “We have an early 20th-century system for a 21st-century world,” the insider said. “It requires review, but that should be carried out by people with expertise in procurement rather than in politics.”

Procurement will be one pillar of the defence and foreign policy review that the prime minister announced during the general election campaign. Mr Johnson signalled that it would be the most comprehensive evaluation since the Cold War of Britain’s defence capabilities and emphasised the need for a technological upgrade of the armed forces........

A second key figure in the review has also been named. John Bew, a foreign policy expert who joined the No 10 policy unit this year, will report on Britain’s place in the world.

Mr Johnson’s robust rhetoric about the review has raised eyebrows among mandarins, and the involvement of Mr Cummings, who has sketched out some views on defence in a private blog, is likely to be met with trepidation. In a post published in March, before he joined the government, the former Vote Leave campaign director hit out at the programme to build the carriers, the second of which was commissioned last week. Calling the scheme a “farce”, he added that it “has continued to squander billions of pounds, enriching some of the worst corporate looters and corrupting public life via the revolving door of officials/lobbyists”. Scrutiny by MPs had been “contemptible”, he said, adding that the vessels “cannot be sent to a serious war against a serious enemy”.

Advocates of the carriers reject concerns about their vulnerability, insisting that they are crucial to Britain’s projection of hard power. Mr Cummings’s involvement in the defence review is likely to bring their future into question and revive rumours, recently dismissed by Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, that at least one carrier could be sold to an ally or put into storage.

The Downing Street chief adviser has also written in support of greater investment in high-risk, high-impact research and development in science and technology. He is thought to have been behind the inclusion in the Tory manifesto of a pledge to create Britain’s first space command and the vow to boost public spending on research into space, computing, robotics and AI — all of which have crucial military, as well as civilian, functions. In his March blog he also pinpointed the military potential of drone swarms and AI robots. His posts praise the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which claimed credit for inventing an early version of the internet and GPS. Mr Johnson has pledged to create a funding agency modelled on Darpa.

The civil service is also likely to scrutinise the work of Professor Bew for clues as to his foreign policy views. An Atlanticist and follower of Henry Kissinger, he has criticised the EU’s drive to uncouple from Washington, arguing that it has undermined the cohesiveness of Nato.

The defence review was welcomed by Michael Clarke, a former director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. “A review of MoD procurement processes is long overdue,” he said. “Nobody in the government, the MoD or the armed forces thinks the present arrangements are satisfactory.

“But good luck with that,” he added. “Numerous attempts at reorganisation in recent decades have failed. Despite small improvements, the fundamentals of the system are no different now from 30 years ago.”......

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