The Ministry of Defence has cancelled a planned contract for artillery and armoured vehicle weapon system components, according to an updated procurement notice.

The requirement, which had been intended to cover the supply of military vehicle spares over a seven-year period, was expected to be awarded to BAE Systems Global Combat Systems International Ltd under a single-source arrangement. The contract had been valued at up to GBP 10.4 million.

However, an addendum to the notice confirms that the procurement has now been abandoned following a review. “Having reviewed the procurement, a decision has been made to cancel this activity against this requirement,” the update states, adding that the notice is issued for transparency and is not a request for expressions of interest.

The original requirement was advertised in October 2024 via the Defence Sourcing Portal and Find a Tender service, with Babcock Land Defence Limited acting as agent on behalf of the MOD. The procurement fell under the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations and had been justified as a single-source award on technical grounds.

According to the earlier notice, BAE Systems GCS International was considered the only supplier with the necessary specialist expertise, knowledge and experience to manufacture, test and supply the required components.

Despite that rationale, the MOD has now opted not to proceed with the contract in its current form. No replacement procurement approach or revised timeline has been outlined.

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      • Migrant Hotels
        Foreign aid
        Green initiatives
        Payments to France to stop those boat crossings that they don’t seem to be able to stop (£700 million plus by the way)

        You know, all those popular things that people would rather be spent on the military instead 🙂

        • Agree with Clunker, I’m fed up of people picking on the disabled and being too scared to mention migrants. If you think migration isn’t a far bigger problem than we already know, you simply don’t live in an area with a lot of migrants. The scale of the immigration system is absolutely staggering, and no-one is allowed to report it.

        • Peanuts (tiny percentage less than 0.3%) vs the tax revenue is paid on immigration, which is more than balanced by the tax raised by the immigration NHS surcharge tax. A fair bit of distraction going on, either to cover for racism or avoid difficult questions on other areas.

          Most of the tax revenue goes to NHS/schools/state pension/local services and covering the interest on the national debt.

        • Liberal? The conservatives have been in charge for the vast majority of the last century. They are very much right wing capitalists and not liberals.

    • About 60% of the world’s state benefits are spent in Europe. That’s why migrants come here. The problem is that Europe’s economy (including the UK) is about 17% of the global economy and shrinking fast. The question is, how do we reduce that financial burden (to spend more of defence, industrial competitiveness, cheap energy, etc) without causing social instability? No one has an answer, that’s why all the main political parties basically have the same policies and nothing changes.

      • The question is really two fold. Decreasing state spending and stopping illegal immigrants from absorbing state revenues without producing concomitant revenue has to be tied to growing the economy. You can reduce spending and remove people from the dole but that will only be successful if you can provide them with an alternative means of support. Unfortunately, all four main British political parties are tied to state socialism and will not adopt economic policies to grow the economy. The UK is in a death spiral.

        • Migrants who don’t pay their way are an unaffordable luxury. Same with the “bad backs” and “social anxieties”. Genuinely disabled need to be found work they can do and supported if there is no other option. We have been extremely complacent about our priorities and we aren’t living in a world where we can take the military inferiority of our potential enemies for granted any more.

          • Tomartyr, I think he means having a ‘free at the point of use’ NHS instead of paying for healthcare out of an enormous salary.

      • The whole immigrants /non nationals stealing state benefit has been soundly debunked time and time again by actual research. Since they on average pay significantly more tax than the average domestic national, and use it far less as they are on average younger, they actually contribute significantly more than they take. Combined with the likes of the NHS are reliant on them for staff because the last government cut the funding for training and generally local nationals don’t like doing manual labour.

        If we want to fund the military go after the big companies that are tax dodging like Amazon/Facebook etc and the massively wealthy that own almost all the land in the country pushing up housing prices. Focusing on the poorest and most in need of support isn’t going to solve the problem.

        • For example looking at farage, he gets all his income paid into an offshore company to avoid UK tax, that’s hundreds of thousands of missed tax revenue.

        • Well said. Reform can pee off.immgramts are more likely to start their own business and contribute to the economy. It’s migrants doing all the work. And yes there are exceptions but let’s face it, it’s nationals that are claiming benefits, I don’t blame it on then, I blame the system.

    • So much taxpayers money is simply being wasted:

      ‘In the period 2002 to the present, the total cost to the electricity consumer of those renewable electricity subsidy schemes that we can quantify has amounted to approximately £220 billion (in 2024 prices), equivalent to nearly £8,000 per household.

      The annual subsidy cost is currently £25.8 billion a year, a sum equivalent to nearly fifty per cent of UK annual spending on defence.

      Subsidy to renewable electricity generators now comprises about 40% of the total cost of electricity supply in the United Kingdom.

      The total subsidy cost per unit of renewable electricity generated has risen by nearly 50% in real terms since 2005 and now stands at approximately £200/MWh. This contradicts government and industry claims that renewables are becoming cheaper but is consistent with expectations from the physics of energy flows, the empirical study of the capital and operating costs of both wind and solar, and the grid expansion and reinforcement and system management costs known to be imposed by renewables…

      Renewable electricity generators have now enjoyed generous financial support for over twenty years without showing any significant progress towards independent economic viability. On the contrary, the requirement for such support seems to be rising.

      The public is surely entitled to ask when government will bring this extraordinary and insupportable level of subsidy to an end.’

      • Tax the Uber rich.
        They can spend big money buying politicians. They can spend it on this country instead.
        Big up the key workers.

        • That idea has already been tested to destruction in the Britain of the late 1960s/1970s. It resulted in the IMF having to be called in to rescue Britain’s economy.

          ‘It is difficult to make the case that an annual tax on wealth would be a sensible part of the tax system even in principle…In practice, implementing a wealth tax would be difficult. It would require the government to set up a new administrative apparatus to value wealth – and valuation would be extremely difficult for some assets, such as private businesses…International experience of annual wealth taxes is not encouraging: they have been abandoned in most of the developed countries that previously had them.’ IFS 2025

          A good example is this government’s mansion tax. It will raise only £400m. It will cost more than that to assess and collect.

          • You can tax the rich without crashing the economy. Many countries have successfully done it. Like everything you have to do it in moderation. A rich billionaire doesn’t add much to the economy themselves, so who cares where they live, it’s their economic interests that generate money and jobs (companies they invest in). As long as them companies still make profit from the UK, they will remain. The likes of Facebook or Amazon aren’t going to exit the UK just because they paid standard corporate rate on their UK generated profits (if you closed the loop hole of them moving profits abroad). The issue is closing all the loop holes takes time to do it properly without companies just moving to another avoidance scheme.

            • The issue is the media is all owned by a handful of very rich individuals that have their assets offshore to avoid tax and have a vested interest in the public focusing on immigration and not the real tax Dodgers.

            • We are already taxing the rich without crashing the economy.

              The problems with specific wealth taxes are, however, well understood.

              ‘France’s total capital flight between 1988 and 2007 at 200 billion euros owing to the policy, potentially dragging GDP growth down an average of 0.2% each year.’

              ‘From 2000 to 2017, around 60,000 millionaires opted to leave the country’

              Britain is about to repeat this absurdity with a ‘Mansion tax’. The mansion tax will raise £400m. It will require HMRC to employ specialists to administer it which, together with legal challenges, valuation costs, will cost the treasury more than the tax raises.

              In order to raise significant sums, a wealth tax has to apply to large numbers of people. ‘In practice, implementing a wealth tax would be difficult. It would require the government to set up a new administrative apparatus to value wealth – and valuation would be extremely difficult for some assets, such as private businesses: it is much easier to observe and tax the stream of income they generate. An annual wealth tax would need to apply broadly to all assets to ensure that it was not easy to avoid. Such a tax could raise significant revenue if it applied to the bulk of the UK’s wealth – that would include the homes and pensions of the middle class.’

              Everyone is in favour of increased taxes, provided they don’t have to pay them.

              • Barely they pay less UK tax than someone with equal wealth does in the US. Not to mention US citizens pay US tax no matter where in the world they live. If the US can do it, so could we.

                But agree no easy answers, there will be people and companies that leave but something like it is needed to fix the mess that is the UK government accounts.

                • ‘In the US, the highest federal tax rate is 37pc, but only after $609,351 (£451,000) of earnings. This compares with the UK’s additional rate of 45pc, for which the threshold was lowered from £150,000 to £125,140 in 2023.’

                  • I don’t know how it was calculated but you have to take account of all taxes including council tax, NI etc. last I saw if you earned a million plus in the UK Vs US you paid less here on average due to various legal loopholes. See

                    • “From 2018 through 2020, the richest 400 Americans paid an effective tax rate of about 23.8%, and the top 100 paid even less: just 22%. In comparison, the average tax rate for the total U.S. population was 30%. High earners who mostly make money through wages paid 45%, the paper found.
                      This gap exists because the wealthiest individuals report less taxable income and earn more through investments, which are often taxed at lower rates than regular income.’

      • Those are already topped up by minimum wage, living wage, universal credit, council tax support, discretionary housing payments, tax free pension contributions, PIP, motability, employment rights act, Uncle Tom Cobley…

    • What platforms though? Warrior and AS90, or Boxer and Archer? It makes a big difference. I think Warrior will keep going for some time, despite the fact that Ajax will be declared “awesome” several more times over the next 3 years.

    • Hi Andrew, I was an Equipment Support Manager (ESM) in the Tanks Systems Support IPT in DLO Andover in 2002-2003. I was ESM for many mostly ancient and ageing tracked AFVs – Centurion BARV, Chieftain AVRE & AVLB, CRARRV, Challenger 1 (in disposal mode). As you can imagine getting spares from manufacturers for the older vehicles was impossible to challenging. Nonetheless cannibalisation was the very last resort. There are several ways to keep ageing kit on the road before resorting to cannibalisation. It seems that perhaps cannibalisation is resorted to more freely nowadays.

  5. These maintenance and support contracts are one of the reasons UK and especially US military spending is becoming unsustainably expensive. The forces have lost the ability to operate and repair their equipment and rely on an ever growing army of civilian contractors which become ever more expensive.

    The USA is even worse and congress won’t stop it because the piggy’s have to be fed and that MIC gravey is the sweetest of them all.

  7. As I have said before, the government has no intention of spending money on Defence, let the Americans defend us, and once they stop, then let Europe defend us and the final line..appeasement 2.0 ..at least that’s how I see it

  8. No need for weapons, we just have to say to Putin that to attack/ invade Britain is illegal and he will stop immediately, as he is a law abiding person.

  9. So we have saved £10 million by not repairing existing equipment. To be fair though, we do have half a dozen tanks, a few artillery pieces we don’t want to carry on with, a cavalry mount that makes you sick and a load of clapped out warriors. What a success story to tell. 🫣🙃

  10. April Fools Day news: “UK builds this, UK has that”
    Actual news: “UK cancels this, UK declines that”

  12. 5.56mm is the answer, liberally sprinkled by kind hearted patriots who wish our country to stay ours. If you have a toilet to clean, first you have to remove all the shit. I’m prepared to do that And I can gather many like minded folk to help in that task, all of whom are not too squeamish to undertake the task, don’t wait too long to call. King and Country, the government must be removed and replaced with a better system

  15. For something you expect to be replaced in a couple of years, this is not a bad strategy. Perhaps where the tech is advancing so fast it’ll be obsolete in six months, like drone tech is right now. MOD can pay tenfold for contracts with maintenance and spares. The two Peregrines they bought to operate on HMS Lancaster cost about £22m for two years rental (including a £2m integration contract with BAE), with options to exend. Fully serviced, spares, run by contractors, skills transfered to the Navy. However, the underlying hardware and software would have cost a tiny fraction of that. Just buying 5 systems and cannabalising from broken parts might have been the smarter, cheaper play. The two years are up. We got about a year’s operation out of them, at most. We started testing late through not getting our act together, retired the platform before the end, and (apparently at least) in typical MOD fashion made no systematic decisions on what to do with the Perigrine rentals during 2025 when it was obvious that Lancaster was going to be withdrawn, and we are still planning what to do with them (probably put them on an OPV next, but possibly on Lyme Bay if things go badly in Iran). Are we paying Thales/Schiebel for the maintenance and operation support during 2026? Probably, yes. In February this year, Schiebel announced that they and Thales got another contract of undisclosed value and created Schiebel UK, an entity to service the contract in the longer term. When we have our ducks in a row and are ready to widely roll out use, that’s when we need a package. Are we there yet? Debateable.

    In this article we read the opposite situation. With stuff that isn’t short time limited. Where we expect the same systems to be in use for decades, perhaps with a handful of hardware upgrades over decades, like artillery or armoured vehicles. That’s where you shouldn’t use cannibalisation. Where you need the spares package, where you want the whole thing to be as off-the-shelf upgradable as you can get them, and you need it all tied up with a bow on. Whether that’s internally run by military engineers or externally through contractors — a different debate. You don’t want to be cannibalising as that’s going to run down the numbers too quickly (relative to service life) and you didn’t overbuy the provision to begin with.

    • There is often spare parts by the pallet load for sale at Witham Specialist Vehicles. There 15 L60 Chieftain MBT Engines for sale at L.Jackson and Co at the moment . were did they come from ?

  16. Well, if you don’t have any armoured vehicles, you don’t need any spares do you. All seems very logical.

  17. Here we go, bae again. Considered the only supplier with the necessary specialist expertise, knowledge and experience to manufacture, test and supply the required components.

    To rely so heavily on one manufacturer is sheer folly.

    • Tom, a few decades ago there were five British AFV manufacturers – there was choice and competition for vehicles and spares.
      Today, if you disregard GDUK, who have not been in the AFV business for very long and their first AFV product, Ajax, is very controversial, then we only have one AFV manufacturer – BAE. BAE is the OEM for nearly all British Army AFVs and have Design Authority status for their products. It is not surprising that we buy components from the OEM.
      Aside from AFVs then BAE make a lot of other British Defence equipment.

      • Exactly… relying so heavily on bae for most everything. Back in the day (when I worked in a toolroom) lots of companies went through allsorts, to be accredited as suppliers to the MOD. bae and no doubt others have crushed that ‘competition’.

        It is not good for competition, not good for competitive tendering, and certainly not good for the end user… the MOD!

    • They tell us they’ve added billions to the defence budget, not that we’re getting any more numbers or capability apparantly. All RN new builds are to replace old worn out or already retired ships.Though the Tories were as bad over 14 years, leaving us in the dire tradegy we’re stuck in. If I was on the brink of a world war this is the last place I’d want to start from.

      • I agree.

        Generally speaking they are only building new ships to replace worn out, or already retired ships.

        But quite a lot money is being invested into improving the existing fleet.

        No use having thirty odd frigates if only a few of them actually work when you need them to.

        It is also cheaper to improve the functioning of the existing fleet rather than to build entirely new ships. There is also a problem with dealing with all the old ships once they have been retired.

      • Frank, Labour added £5bn to the Defence budget a while ago. None of that was to buy new platforms. It was mostly for the Defence Nuclear Enterprise and to replenish munitions sent to Ukraine.

  19. The deal fell through…

    … Not much money lost, only time …

    … Supposedly different supplier for equivalent spares already found…

    … The hope is that it’s a supplier who can deliver this time.

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