The Ministry of Defence has said that General Dynamics is not currently in breach of its contract for the Ajax armoured vehicle programme, despite renewed concerns over safety, vibration issues and operational viability raised in Parliament.
Appearing before the Defence Committee, the National Armaments Director Rupert Pearce told MPs that investigations into recent incidents involving Ajax vehicles were still ongoing and that any contractual action would depend on their findings.
“At this stage, General Dynamics is not in breach of its contract,” Pearce said. “The investigation will give us further facts and details, which may give us rights under the contract. We will cross that bridge when we get to it.” Pearce added that the Ministry would not pre-judge the outcome. “We rule nothing in and nothing out. We have strong rights in our contract, and we will enforce those rights in the relevant circumstances.”
The comments came after MPs questioned how Ajax vehicles had been declared operationally capable given reports of severe vibration, illness among crews and equipment failures. Pearce confirmed that deployments had been halted after personnel were injured.
“When we saw our colleagues injured, we immediately stopped the deployment and brought the Ajaxes back to base,” he said. “We are very committed to safety and looking after our warfighters.”
The MoD has launched four parallel investigations into the issue, including reviews by the Army, the Defence Accident Investigation Branch, a ministerial review and independent oversight. According to Pearce, the aim is to build a clear, verified picture of what went wrong. Lieutenant General Anna-Lee Reilly told the Committee it was too early to draw conclusions. “We need to wait for those investigations to bear fruit and then we can make a judgment on next steps,” she said, adding that work with General Dynamics was continuing as part of what she described as a “whole-force effort” involving industry and academia.
Pressed on who would ultimately bear the cost of fixing any defects, Jim Carter, Director General Commercial and Industry at the MoD, said the Ajax contract was firm-price. “General Dynamics is responsible for delivering,” Carter said. “Subject to the investigation, we will be applying the contract terms to make sure that it is carried through.”
Pearce also cautioned that safety alone would not be sufficient if the vehicle proved impractical in combat. “It is not enough that the Ajax is safe; it also has to be operationally capable,” he said. “We are putting brave men and women on to the battlefield in this vehicle, and they have to be able to deliver their operations effectively and safely.”
The Ajax programme, valued at around £6.5 billion, has faced repeated delays and scrutiny over testing and reporting culture. Pearce acknowledged criticism from previous parliamentary inquiries into what was described as a culture of over-optimism within both the department and industry.
“It is very easy to get over-optimistic on long-term programmes,” he said. “We must have a culture where people are actively encouraged to stick up their hand and say, ‘We have a problem.’”
The MoD has said it will return to Parliament once the investigations conclude, at which point it will decide whether contractual remedies are required.
Meanwhile Labour spunks £570m a year on Erasmus, despite us being on a war footing and all.
If there is that on a money tree the army could get 50 CB90s per year or some other needed kit.
Yep, but it’s only £8.5 billion so that students can tarvel abroad !!! Also gives Starmer an excuse to fly off somewhere.
It brings in a lot of money and talent for universities but I guess that doesn’t conform with your world view.
Wait and see, the modern Britain motto. Waiting has become a national pastime.
May be they should ask Scania or Ford design engineers to take a look too! The motor industry know how to sort NVH issues better than most and how to search out banks and rattles. One option could be to find a base vehicle that can fit the Ajax gun turret temporally (if such a vehicle exists) that is available on the reserve lists such as the US Bradley? In the short term, only a cobbled up solution appears to be feasible if the CVT function is to be quickly restored to the field units.
To go for Bradley we would need the M3 scout not the M2 IFV! Apparently there are around 800 M3s in storage! Would the cousins allow many of them to go?
Scrap Ajax and go for CV90 like every sensible European nation has already done!!
I would guess there is no CV90 capacity due to their current order book, and establishing a manufacturing plant in the UK would take at least two – three years, and another eighteen months before the vehicles could be issued to units. Can the Army function without the recon element for four + years?
BAE offered to manufacture the CV90 near Newcastle during the initial competition
Coll, my understanding is that BAE offered to build CV90 Recce in this country after the contract had been awarded to GDUK!! Dozy beggars missed the boat.
BAE offered to manufacture the CV90 near Newcastle during the initial competition..
Bit late now
Apologies for the duplication.
Colin, who is going to ask the Treasury for another c£5.5bn?
That’s actually really quite strongly worded.. if I had written that in a report on a provider that was failing, they would know that that they were just about to get their ass handed to them and to be found in breach and issued a formal breach notice… and that I was just dotting my i’s and crossing my T’s ready for legal proceedings.
Indeed – curiouser and curiouser.
All we need is a White Rabbit and a Top Hat….maybe a small bottle labelled ‘drink me’ and a key.
I’ve gone into more detail below, but to summarise: after years of ongoing issues, the MoD surely knows where they stand legally, so coming out with “At this stage, General Dynamics is not in breach of its contract” doesn’t look good for us taxpayers.
I’d -yet again- just like to point out that it’s almost 2026 and we are still discussing this issue on here- seemingly ad infinitum..It’s like de ja vue all over again.
Indeed, the initial deliveries were supposed to be in 2017. Since they are eight years late perhaps some lawyer here or someone with more up to date knowledge of the law of contract can explain why GD are not in breach since they are so late in delivery
Can’t upset the MIC can we?
Wtf do they have to do in order to be in breach then? Second question which halfwit signed this contract?
it was said by John Hartley on one of the other threads about Ajax , that is 2016 the Army decided on a change of specification. not good it that is the case
General Dynamics are of course in breach of contract, unless that contract had a built-in clause, allowing them to injure/kill or maim the ‘end-user’.
The MOD will however continue to accept this wreck into service, as there are no funds available to do otherwise.
To clarify once and for all, the defence review that liebour carried out last year, was to determine where and how £2billion worth of savings could be made.
If the contract is ‘firm-price’, and GD are ‘*not currently* in breach’ (i.e. status is still officially an overrun/failure to meet IOC, further evidence pending) I would venture:
a) GD are liable for any and all program costs,
b) due to there being 4 separately targetted inquiries, there might be a lot of blame to go around
c) It is highly likely that GD will be the genesis of some of these failings as they designed and built the thing
The program has been a disaster, but there’s hope it might at least be one the taxpayer won’t have to fund.
Nate, MoD declared IOC barely a fortnight ago!
Which is why I included b) in my list above – blame to go around in many departments no doubt and for many different reasons, but the fact remains that the vehicle doesn’t work – GD designed and built it
Nate, I’m not sure it’s quite that straightforward. Even with a firm-price contract, liability depends on whether the vehicle demonstrably fails to meet contracted requirements, not simply whether the programme has had problems or public setbacks. As Graham mentions, declaring IOC, even recently, complicates the argument that the platform “doesn’t work” in contractual terms.
It’s also worth separating design responsibility from requirements and risk ownership. GD designed and built the vehicle, but they did so against MoD-defined requirements and constraints, including the decision to base Ajax on an ASCOD-derived chassis and push it into a much higher weight and capability class.
Whether the taxpayer avoids further cost will depend less on optics and more on what the contract actually specifies around performance, mitigation, and remediation. If the MoD truly had this fully covered contractually, you would expect vehicles to be rejected or returned. Instead, the MoD has absorbed costs associated with mitigation measures, extended trials, and programme delays, while also accepting vehicles and declaring IOC.
Finally, these issues have been ongoing for years, so legal teams have had plenty of time to review the situation. Surely both sides know who took on the risk legally. I would argue that the MoD accepted the risk at the time, rather than paying for a clean-sheet design and all the R&D that would have come with it.
In my view, the core problem with Ajax stems from the decision to adapt the ASCOD chassis (adding 12–14 tonnes) rather than start with a clean-sheet design. Compressing development onto a pre-existing platform meant R&D was limited and, by the looks of it, relied on optimistic assumptions. A purpose-built design, though more expensive upfront, would have been engineered from the ground up to carry the additional weight they wanted over ASCOD.
Hindsight is a great thing. If the vehicle had no serious issues now, cutting corners might have been justified. But that is the risk the MoD went with at the time.
Follow the money and see who took it to overlook this blatant theft.
Start sacking generals, civil servants and politicians banning them from the industry completely
Can’t say I know anything on the contractual side of things. But tbh regarding IOC acceptance MOD should recind it due to ‘ further testing shows significant safety issues etc etc’. Then hit GD for breach of contract and such.
Then this is yet another fracked MoD contract managed (sic).
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Give the Services a Merry Christmas and sack the complete MoD, splitting the defence budget on 40% RN, 25% BA & 25% RAF. Simple solution.
The power of non executive Directorships