Jacko,
I'm not familiar with the £155m / 6 MRA4s figures; but be careful in bewailing the National Audit Office (NAO). NAO is an auditing organisation - it reviews the decisions made by others, rather than making the decision in the first place - that's MoD's turf. So not quite sure why you're being cynical about the NAO.
To directly answer your question: no, at the moment, I don't think that the hand of BAES would be bitten off - it supposedly wasn't for the £100m to upgrade the three prototype MRA4s to join the operational fleet.
But look at Tuc's point: the MoD have consistently let BAES off the contract. Why? Why on earth would the customer sell itself out by letting a non-performing contractor out of their contract? If I were with a competitor, how pi$$ed off would I be that I lost a contract that was deliverable on price to one that has been a sink-hole for cash and which BAES have consistently run rings around the MoD for?
Perhaps those who would blame the Treasury for all of the MoD's problems would care to explain what happened here, then?
S41