And of course not helped by the fact that HMT will only allow the recognised rate of inflation to be factored into the the Planning Rounds, despite the fact that "defence inflation" often runs at 3 or 4 times the HMT recognise rate. In general a programme has no chance of meeting its budget, particularly if it takes a long time to procure or is large and complex. I am surprised that Sec Def didn't know that.