‘New warships and planes at risk due to MoD cuts doubt’ – MPs

PLANS for new warships, planes and armoured vehicles could be put at risk because of concerns about the Ministry of Defence’s ability to find more than £7bn in savings, a parliamentary committee has warned.

MPs on the Commons Defence Committee said they “seriously doubt” the MoD’s ability to make the necessary savings as it had proved incapable of doing so in the past.

The cross-party group backed the findings of spending watchdog the National Audit Office that the defence equipment plan was at “greater risk” than at any time since 2012.

The £178bn plan set out in 2016 involves spending over 10 years on equipment including eight Type 26 frigates for the Royal Navy, new mechanised infantry vehicles and nine Boeing P-8A maritime patrol aircraft.

But it rests on finding £7.3bn of efficiency savings, on top of £7.1bn previously announced, and the MPs warned about the MoD’s ability to “generate efficiencies on the scale required to deliver the equipment plan or detail how it would proceed to do so”.

“Even if all the efficiencies are realised, there will be little room for manoeuvre, in the absence of sufficient financial ‘headroom’ and contingency funding,” the MPs warned.

The committee’s Tory chairman, Julian Lewis, said: “It is extremely doubtful that the MoD can generate even more efficiencies from within its already stretched budget on the scale required to deliver its equipment plan.

“This will inevitably lead either to a reduction in the numbers of ships, aircraft and vehicles or to even greater delays in their acquisition.”