MoD should ditch key arms projects, say MPs
• Committee says cutbacks needed to make ends meet
• Report questions need to build new aircraft carriers
• Richard Norton-Taylor
• The Guardian,
• Thursday March 27 2008
• Article history
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...fence.military
About this article
This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday March 27 2008 on p2 of the Top stories section. It was last updated at 00:07 on March 27 2008.
Pressures on the defence budget are so great that ministers should consider sacrificing one of its most prestigious projects - the £4bn replacement of two aircraft carriers - rather than simply delaying or cutting back planned new weapons systems, a powerful scrutiny committee will say today.
In a report critical of how the government procures new weapons, the cross-party Commons defence committee will challenge it to explain "what roles the two future carriers will perform ... and what capabilities these ships will give us that could not be provided in other ways".
Two carriers, the largest ships ever built for the navy, are due to be completed in 2014 and 2016 at an estimated cost of £3.9bn. Delays are likely to increase the costs while separate delays in the US Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme mean the first carrier will make do with ageing British Harriers, the committee notes.
Many British companies which will provide steel and other products for the ships, as well as BAE and VT, the two companies that would build them, have welcomed the project. However, the plan is questioned within and outside the MoD. Defence sources say it has become "political" rather than based on Britain's defence priorities. The carriers are due to be assembled at Rosyth dockyard in Scotland.
"The MoD needs to take the difficult decisions which will lead to a realistic and affordable equipment programme", the MPs say. They add: "This may well mean cutting whole programme, rather than just delaying orders or making cuts to the number of platforms ordered across a range of equipment programmes".
In a startling admission, General Sir Kevin O'Donoghue, chief of defence materiel, told the committee earlier this year: "I don't think we've had a properly affordable programme for many years."
However, ministers are expected to ignore the committee's advice as they struggle to make ends meet in this year's spending round. They are expected to delay the navy's shipbuilding programme, cut the RAF's order for Eurofighter/Typhoons and the army's delayed order of a new family of armoured vehicles known as Fres (Future Rapid Effects System).
Defence officials say it would be impossible to go ahead with all planned equipment programmes and pay for the basic needs of British soldiers and their families, including accommodation.
The MPs suggest plans to replace the RAF's Lynx helicopter could be vulnerable. They also urge the MoD to consider whether the time has come to "cut its losses" and abandon the updated Nimrod MRA4 maritime reconnaissance aircraft, which is running eight years behind schedule and nearly £800m over budget.
They say senior MoD officials told them problems with the Nimrod were "predictable". They add: "We are deeply concerned that they nevertheless seem to have come as such a surprise to the MoD."
James Arbuthnot, the committee chairman, said: "For too long the MoD has had an unaffordable equipment programme and needs to confront the problem rather than the usual response of salami-slicing and moving programmes to the right."
Baroness Taylor, the minister for defence equipment, said spending plans were kept "under regular review" to ensure priorities were right.