MoD urged to consider scrapping Nimrod
Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:02am GMT
LONDON (Reuters) - The Ministry of Defence must decide whether it should "cut its losses" and abandon the Nimrod programme after a delay of some eight years and a near billion-pound overspend, a group of MPs said on Thursday.
The Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft, which has been blighted by development problems, will have racked up a further overrun of 100 million pounds in 2007/8, bringing the total over-budget figure to 800 million pounds.
The aircraft was originally announced in 1992 as a replacement for the Nimrod MR2, but has suffered technical problems.
The Commons Defence Committee said the MoD must "carefully examine whether it should cut its losses and withdraw from this sorry saga".
"The committee calls on the minister for defence equipment and support to assess whether the programme will ever deliver the capability required within the timescale needed and, if not, to withdraw from it," it added in a report.
Nimrod is one of a number of projects criticised by the MPs for overrunning on budget or deadline.
The committee reflected how "disappointing" it was that the first of the Navy's two new aircraft carriers will be without the new Joint Strike Fighter aircraft when they are expected to enter service in 2014 because of delays.
The A400M transport aircraft is also expected to enter service two years late.
The MoD's equipment programme was "unaffordable" and sacrifices needed to be made as part of the Planning Round, the MPs said.
Cutting whole equipment programmes, rather than just delaying orders or making cuts in the number of platforms ordered across a range of equipment programmes, had to be made.
Committee Chairman James Arbuthnot added: "For too long the MoD has had an unaffordable equipment programme and needs to confront the problem rather than giving the usual response of salami-slicing and moving programmes to the right.
"A realistic equipment programme will give confidence to our Armed Forces that the programmes that remain will be delivered in the numbers and to the timescale required, and will also allow industry to make informed investment decisions."
Following the Comprehensive Spending Review, the defence budget in 2008/09 will be about 34 billion pounds.
Baroness Ann Taylor, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, said in a statement: "We keep spending plans under regular review, as we are doing in the current planning round for both equipment and the wider defence programme, to ensure that we continue to spend money on the right priorities and balance our current commitments with those that may arise in the future."
(Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Steve Addison)
My thoughts to all still at ISK as they wake up to this.