Ajax Armoured Vehicle

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

I do not know the absolute answer to the noble Lord’s last point, but at some point there will be a significant number of debates and questions that will explore in much more detail the whole Ajax programme since 2014 up to the present day. As I say, we are in a slightly difficult situation because we are waiting for the outcome of those investigations to inform the way forward. The budget of £6.3 billion was set in 2014 and is the same budget now, but I take the noble Lord’s point. Let us come back to it at a future debate when we have the results of the investigations.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a chief engineer working for AtkinsRéalis. We have a difficult history of armoured fighting vehicle procurements in this country. The TRACER programme was a failed procurement, as was the multi-role armoured vehicle, MRAV, and now we have issues with the Ajax programme. What lessons learned from Ajax are being brought forward into future procurements, such as Boxer and Challenger 3?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

Without being flippant, I am fed up with lessons learned from various reports over a period of time. The bigger question is why the lessons learned so often do not translate into something that makes a fundamental difference. The noble Baroness worked in the MoD, and the noble Lord works in the way that he suggested. I do not think that the vast majority of people set out to do a bad job; they work with dynamism, principle and determination to do their best. But somewhere along the line, we do not seem to be able to procure the equipment that we should, at the pace we should and for the price we should.

I hope that the defence reform that the Secretary of State has implemented—the establishment of a new National Armaments Director Group, with a new National Armaments Director at the top who is directly accountable for what happens with respect to procurement —is a reform that, in a year, two years or whenever, the noble Lord will be able to describe as a reform that worked. He will be able to say that lessons were learned and actions taken that made a fundamental difference.

We have to get our defence industry working, whether across Europe or fundamentally within our own country, because the defence and security of our nation depend on the sovereign ability of our own industry to produce and develop the goods, ammunition and war equipment that we need to support our soldiers.