MoD criticised over its £1bn overspend

Nuclear upgrades are £1.35bn over budget

DEFENCE: The Ministry of Defence has been criticised after a series of “avoidable mistakes” resulted in a huge increase in costs to the taxpayer.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said key projects to upgrade the infrastructure which supports Trident nuclear deterrent were more than £1bn over budget.

THE MINISTRY of Defence has been accused of an “unacceptable” failure to learn from past errors after a series of “avoidable mistakes” resulted in a huge increase in costs to the taxpayer.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said a series of key projects to upgrade the infrastructure which supports Britain’s Trident nuclear deterrent were running years behind schedule and were more than £1bn over budget.

The MoD told the committee that it “immensely regrets” the amount of money which had been lost but warned that costs could continue to increase.

A report earlier this year by the National Audit Office (NAO) found the three programmes to upgrade ageing facilities in the Defence Nuclear Enterprise – originally put at £2.5bn – were facing cost overruns of £1.35bn with delays between 1.7 and 6.3 years.

The projects are:

■ Project Mensa to construct a new nuclear warhead assembly and disassembly facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Burghfield.

■ The building of a new core production capability (CPC) at the Rolls Royce site at Raynesway to produce the latest nuclear reactor core designs.

■ The primary build facility at the BAE Systems shipyard at Barrow-in-Furness where the new

Dreadnought class submarines to carry the Trident nuclear missiles will be built

The NAO said the MoD was continuing to repeat mistakes made in the last cycle of investment in the nuclear enterprise in

The department knows it can’t go on like this.

Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee. the 1980s and 1990s while failing to learn from experiences in the civil sector or from overseas.

In its report, the committee said: “It is unacceptable that the department in other areas has repeated past mistakes, and has failed to learn lessons from elsewhere.

“The department cannot explain why its leadership has not ensured that it learned from these experiences.”

The committee chairwoman Meg Hillier added: “To utterly fail to learn from mistakes over decades, to spectacularly repeat the same mistakes at huge cost to the taxpayer – and at huge cost to confidence in our defence capabilities – is completely unacceptable.

“The department knows it can’t go on like this, it knows it must change and operate differently. The test now is to see how it will do that, and soon.”

When the NAO report was released in January, the head of the organisation Gareth Davies said: “Although it has recently introduced changes to enhance its oversight of the projects and improve its contracts with suppliers, it should have learnt earlier from past mistakes and the experience of others in the nuclear sector.”

An MoD spokesperson previously said: “As the National Audit Office has acknowledged, nuclear infrastructure projects are often large and complex with niche designs.

“We are carefully examining the conclusions in their report.”