PLANS to build two new
aircraft carriers that have
prompted a massive reorganisation
of Hampshire's
shipbuilding industry may
now be shelved due to a
funding crisis at the
Ministry of Defence, MPs
have warned.
The £4 billion project could be the
most high profile victim of pressures
on the MoD's equipment budget,
which are so great the Commons
Defence Committee said itmay prove
impossible to resolve them simply by
scaling back or delaying orders.
Any move to postpone or axe the
project could have a major impact on
the job prospects of hundreds of people
in Hampshire which are riding on
the fortunes of the two carriers,which
are due in service by 2012 and 2015.
TheMoD has acknowledged that all
the projects in its major equipment
programme are coming under scrutiny
in a "planning round" described
asmore "challenging" than any since
the 1970s.
Hampshire defence companies VT
and BAE have agreed to pool their
shipbuilding interests into a joint
venture in order to undertake the
massive project, but the deal hinges
on the order for the carriers being
made. Construction of the carriers
would be the main work of the joint
venture, which would be expected to
have a turnover of more than £700m
and to employ about 6,850 people,
including 600 staff at its £50m stateof-
the-art shipbuilding facility in
Portsmouth.
MPs also called on the MoD to
explain why it found itself in such
difficulties with its equipment programme
at a time when the overall
defence budgetwas increasing in real
terms.
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"The MoD needs to take the difficult
decisions which will lead to a
realistic and affordable equipment
programme," it said.
"Thismay well mean cutting whole
equipment programmes, rather than
just delaying orders or making cuts
to the number of platforms ordered
across a range of equipment programmes."
The committee pointed to two projects
currently in the assessment
phase - a newfleet of support tankers
for the Royal Navy and a replacement
for the RAF's Lynx helicopter -
which could be vulnerable if there
were wholesale cuts.
MPs said three major military
projects - the Nimrod MRA4 aeroplane,
Astute submarine and the
Hampshire built Type-45 destroyer,
had together accumulated delays
totalling almost 14 years and cost
overruns of £2.9 billion.
Upon a time we had a quaint custom, those who were imcompetent found themselves out of a job. Now bonuses are paid instead, 41 million to the MoD alone last year. Knighthoods and peerages will follow. It is not the youth or benefit scroungers that are destroying this country, we need to acccept that the problem is with bad governance !
Upon a time we had a quaint custom, those who were imcompetent found themselves out of a job. Now bonuses are paid instead, 41 million to the MoD alone last year. Knighthoods and peerages will follow. It is not the youth or benefit scroungers that are destroying this country, we need to acccept that the problem is with bad governance !
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