ommenting on the publication of the National Audit Office’s report into the procurement of the Typhoon fighter aircraft, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said:
“This report provides yet another example of the Ministry of Defence’s ineptness at controlling the cost of big defence procurement projects. Unsurprisingly, MoD decisions on the Typhoon were over-optimistic and the Ministry didn’t foresee the rate at which the costs of the project would rise. Add to this the difficulties caused by ‘push-me-pull-you’ European collaboration between Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, it’s clear why France had the sense to quit the project very early on.
“The Typhoon was designed to guard the UK’s skies during the Cold War. However, getting value for money from the project depends on making the Typhoon a multi-role aircraft that can attack targets on the ground as well as in the air. Unfortunately, the Typhoon will not be a true multi-role aircraft until 2018, just twelve months before the oldest Typhoons will be retired and nearly four decades after the project first began.
“Ministers, officials and senior military officers must all work together to tackle the MoD’s systemic optimism bias and ensure that the costs of future defence projects are far more tightly controlled in future”.
2 March 2011
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