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Ministers were accused today of failing to ensure Britain's main defence equipment programme delivers the kit needed for soldiers in Afghanistan.
A damning report by businessman Bernard Gray also blamed internal battles between armed forces chiefs for staggering delays and cost over-runs in defence projects.
And in Parliament today Speaker John Bercow rebuked Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth for publishing the report only an hour before MPs had a chance to debate it in the Commons.
Mr Bercow told Mr Ainsworth it was a “rank discourtesy” to the House, claiming the report had been completed “some time ago”.
Mr Gray, who compiled the Review of Acquisition for the Ministry of Defence, warned of the dangers which equipment problems could pose for soldiers on the front line. He said: “Where we have been called upon to use our military capabilities in anger, we have been at risk because our plans have not, in some cases, brought forth the equipment needed for the battle.”
He stressed that a large amount of the equipment used by British forces in Afghanistan had been bought through urgent supplementary schemes rather than from “core army stocks”.
“That might be at least partly excused by the fact that we had not anticipated fighting this kind of campaign in this kind of terrain when we set our plans,” Mr Gray added. “But the UK has now been in Afghanistan for more than seven years, and sooner or later the extraordinary ought to become business as usual.
“Yet the mainstream programme to equip our land forces does not yet reflect this position.”
The report said defence procurement projects were on average about five years late and cost about £300 million too much, and that the “frictional cost” of systematic delays was £900 million to £2.2 billion a year.
The estimated total cost of the delays was £35 billion.
He rejected claims that Britain's defence procurement record is no worse than that of other countries such as America and France.
“It would seem a rum argument to assert that being crushed by a falling piano is not really a problem because your friends have also been crushed beside you,” the study added.
Reader views (1)
Britain's defence procurement record may not be any worse than that of other countries, but what sort of an excuse is that? Our troops should be equipped with the very best to provide for their own protection and to do the job, irrespective of cost and irrespective of what other countries issue their troops with. Ministers seem to have no trouble sticking their noses in the trough when it comes to lining their own pockets, so they can think of the troops instead of themselves for a change.
- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands
