Picture shows Luke Pollard MP
If a recent story in Britain’s Daily Telegraph is correct then we do. Apparently according to the Telegraph ministers were kept in the dark about serious problems with Ajax, a new military vehicle that is supposed to enter service with the British Army.
These appear to be very serious problems that have caused injuries to British soldiers during the testing of this vehicle. Allegedly the vibration of the vehicle and the internal noise that it generates is so excessive that it is causing troops to fall ill and in at least one case vomit and lose the ability to stand after exiting the vehicle.
Personally I’m astonished that these problems were not identified and sorted out before the Army started doing field tests on these vehicles. Why wasn’t this problem noticed and countered during for example prototype stage or during initial contractor testing? It’s amazing that this problem, which has been rumoured and talked about for at least six months or so on social media and at least one source, The War Zone, reports that problems with noise and vibration have been known about by senior military officers and civil servants since at least 2021. The War Zone also alleges that potential risk to service personnel was known about by these senior civil servants and military officers. This is particularly worrying as both these groups have dismissed potential harm to troops as nothing to be concerned about.
There’s obviously a lot really wrong with the Ajax programme going from the design of the vehicle itself to how the contract with General Dynamics the producer of Ajax has been managed and specified by Ministry of Defence civil servants and senior Army officers.
However it is the alleged attempt to keep ministers in the dark as to the extent of the problems with Ajax and what it tells us about how we are currently governed that I want to talk about today.
Here’s what the Daily Telegraph said:
"Safety concerns about the Army’s disastrous Ajax armoured vehicle were withheld from ministers who approved it weeks before dozens of troops were injured, a review has found.
The £6.3bn Ajax programme has been suspended after 33 soldiers fell ill riding in the 40-ton reconnaissance vehicles during a drill in November last year.
Troops using 23 vehicles suffered from “noise and vibration” symptoms, with some stumbling out of the transporters vomiting and unable to stand.
The fiasco during the Exercise Titan Storm war game on Salisbury Plain came just two weeks after ministers declared Ajax was “safe” to use.
But in a Commons statement on Thursday, Luke Pollard, a defence minister, revealed a ministerial review had found details on Ajax’s safety record were not fully revealed before it was approved for use by the Army."
This is astonishingly bad form here. As Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry Luke Pollard MP said, ministers need full information in order to make decisions and it doesn’t appear to be the case that ministers have been given the comprehensive information needed to make decisions properly regarding Ajax. Ministers have apparently been kept in the dark and fed bullshit by all manner of persons both civil and military and that’s not good governance.
I wonder what happened here? The problems with Ajax are so very well known and not just known within military and governmental circles but as I said earlier have been the subject of rumour and discussion for years. Did ministers bring up these rumours to civil servants and military personnel only to receive fulsome reassurances from them that either the rumours were wrong or that the known problems had been sorted out? I can quite imagine a minister being a position where they have to give more weight to long serving Ministry of Defence civil servants and army brass than other sources of information. This is because after all these MOD staff and military officers are the perceived and acknowledged experts in their fields and the minister is not.
We should be able to do defence procurement better than this. There’s something gone really badly wrong with the procurement, specification, contract management and much more with the Ajax programme. It’s been interminably delayed and with changes in the battlefield environment with the use of drones, might not even be that useful for the job it was originally designed for.
Although Mr Pollard is a Labour minister I’m not going to go all partisan and blame him for making assurances that Ajax was safe when it wasn’t because he was probably working from assurances by military and civil service staff whom he trusted to give him full information. I direct blame at everyone else involved in this fiasco who could have turned down Ajax or at least ensured that it was safe and fit for the purpose it was supposed to serve.
This case is yet another scandal, like the West Midlands Police Maccabi Tel Aviv scandal, where unelected public servants, in this case civil servants and military officers, act with impunity and without it seems much in the way of accountability for their actions or their decisions. The allegations of keeping ministers in the dark over Ajax are so serious that like in the case of the West Midlands Police scandal, senior staff need to be called to account for themselves before Parliament, maybe before the Commons Defence Select Committee or some similar body. This might help clear out some bad staff just as appearing before the Home Affairs Committee at Parliament caused the failed and allegedly biased West Midlands Chief Constable Craig Guildford to resign after giving evidence to the Committee.
Everyone involved in making decisions regarding Ajax whether they be former ministers or civil servants or army person ell should in my view appear at Parliament to have their actions examined. The mess that is Ajax deserves that degree of proper scrutiny.
Links
The War Zone
Daily Telegraph article
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6820432b2984f423
BBC article on WMP chief constable resigning