Anger at MoD plan to spend more on yachts than new ammo
GRANT Shapps was challenged last night over plans to spend twice as much on yachts as on new bullets for the Army’s machine guns.
The Defence Secretary faced calls to explain proposals to splash out nearly £8million replacing the Ministry of Defence’s fleet of sailing boats but only £4million on ammunition.
One MP privately mocked the plans last night, saying: ‘We’re supposed to be showing Vladimir Putin how tough we are – not give him a laugh.’
The spending plans are set out in the MoD’s latest ‘acquisition pipeline’ proposals for potential contracts worth over £2million and due for release within 18 months. They include spending an estimated £4million for ‘re-procurement’ of ‘7.62 x 32mm ammunition’ from December 2025.
Military sources said the bullets were for the Army’s main infantry machine gun which is also carried on light tanks as a secondary weapon for the crew.
However, the acquisition plans also included an estimated £7.8 million contract to replace the MoD’s fleet of yachts, starting in January 2025. The MoD maintains a fleet of sailing boats used for training for service personnel across the Army, Navy and RAF.
However, Government sources said that the proposed spending on replacement yachts was part of a budgeting exercise for a ‘future tender and is not confirmed’.
At the end of March, Lieutenant General Sir Rob Magowan, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff, warned that more money needed to be spent on ammunition.
He added that Mr Shapps and his military chiefs had told the Prime Minister they needed a bigger budget to better protect the UK.
Last night, senior Tory MP and defence committee member Mark Francois said: ‘We urgently need to rebuild our ammunition stocks, not least for deterrent purposes.’
Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck, who also serves on the committee, said: ‘I’m sure these yachts serve a useful purpose but it can’t be right to be spending more on replacing them than on machinegun ammunition.’
An MoD spokesman refused to comment on ‘individual tender processes’ but said that it was ‘investing £10 billion over ten years to grow our domestic munitions production pipeline and improve stockpiles’.
Mr Shapps also faced calls to send life-saving gas masks to Ukrainian soldiers after US claims that Russian forces have now used poison gas in the conflict.
Jos Sclater, chief executive of Wiltshire-based company Avon Protection, which supplies protective masks to UK forces, said: ‘It is now a strategic imperative that we manufacture and supply gas masks to Ukraine.’
‘We are not meant to be giving Putin a laugh’