Luke Pollard, recently promoted to Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, must have looked forward to visiting General Dynamics UK in Merthyr Tydfil at the beginning of the month. The facility in south Wales builds the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle and its five variants (Ares, Athena, Apollo, Atlas, Argus: alliteration pays well in the defence sector), of which the British army has ordered a total of 589. The visit marked the vehicle’s initial operating capability (IOC), the development stage at which it is available in minimum, usefully deployable form.
This was especially significant for Ajax because the platform has endured a torrid birth and evolution. When the army decided to replace its 1960s-vintage combat vehicle reconnaissance (tracked) – CVR(T) – family of Scorpion, Scimitar and others, it went through nearly 15 years of false starts and dead ends, before eventually awarding a contract for a new platform in 2010. General Dynamics saw off competition from the BAE Systems CV90, and trials of the new vehicle were expected to begin in 2013.
That was a dozen years ago. Scout SV, now renamed Ajax, was delayed again and again; the only reason it does not stand out as a uniquely mishandled procurement project is that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has mishandled so many acquisitions it is hard to know where to look. By 2020, IOC was thought to be imminent, but then trials of Ajax had to be halted because of unacceptable levels of noise and vibration.
This is not just inconsequential ‘he said, she said’ Westminster gossip
This is the problem which has afflicted Ajax for five years. The interior of the vehicle was so loud that soldiers had to wear noise-cancelling headphones and be checked for hearing loss after using it. Crews reported swollen joints, nausea and tinnitus because of the toxic mixture of noise and vibration. By 2021, it was not clear whether the issues could ever be solved. Barrister Clive Sheldon KC was commissioned by the MoD to review the Ajax programme and reported in 2023. He found failings at every stage of design, acquisition and development, but then defence secretary Ben Wallace announced that Ajax had ‘turned a corner’ and was ‘back on track’.
Deliveries of Ajax vehicles began in January this year. The grotesque delays and failures placed an exceptional burden of importance on the vehicle achieving IOC. When Pollard visited General Dynamics, he dismissed the problems as ‘firmly in the past’ and reassured sceptics that ‘we would not be putting it in the hands of our armed forces if it were not safe’.
It now appears that was not true. The Times revealed this week that Ajax vehicles had been withdrawn from a recent exercise on Salisbury Plain because soldiers were vomiting, suffering weakness in their legs, ‘shaking so violently they could not control their bodies’, experiencing headaches and the rest of the familiar symptoms. This is not some passing discomfort. Two soldiers have been medically downgraded and cannot be deployed overseas, while three who suffered problems last year are shortly to be medically discharged. Ajax has ended soldiers’ careers.
Pollard says he was not told about these recent issues and is furious. Conversely, an army source insists that the information was passed to his office (not quite the same thing). The minister said he had received written assurance that Ajax was now safe, and – again, note the wiggle room – an army investigation over the summer is said to have found no ‘systemic issues’. What qualifies as ‘systemic’?
We need complete clarity on this matter urgently. Pollard is scheduled to appear in front of the House of Commons defence committee on another issue next week, and MPs will no doubt want to examine him on this. But this is not just inconsequential ‘he said, she said’ Westminster gossip.
Three soldiers are being forced to leave the army because of medical complaints directly attributable to failings in Ajax. That in itself is unacceptable. Worse is the possibility that it was avoidable and happened because information was not being communicated.
It is possible that, strictly speaking, no one is lying; it is impossible that everyone is telling the whole truth. From that flow consequences. If – and instinct tells me this is not the case – Pollard or his office are being untruthful about what they knew, the minister would unquestionably have to resign. Equally, if civil servants or military personnel have withheld safety data from ministers or sought to misrepresent it, the severest disciplinary measures should be invoked. What must not happen is a consensus that processes could have been better but no individual is responsible.
We ask service personnel to expose themselves potentially to the ultimate danger in the line of duty. Casualties inflicted by enemy action are sad but part of the price we pay for the defence of the realm. It is intolerable for our own soldiers, sailors and airmen to be placed at unnecessary risk by the equipment with which they are provided. Get to the bottom of this, fix it, and make sure it cannot happen again.
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