THE Armed Forces are being let down by “woeful” delays in the delivery of vital equipment, the Commons Defence Committee said yesterday.

A promise from the Government six years ago to buy essential kit “cheaper, better, faster”, under a policy called “smart acquisition”, had failed to deliver the goods, the MPs said.

The committee’s condemnation of the Government’s record on weapons-buying comes a week after the announcement by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, that he is to invest even bigger sums in more high-tech equipment.

To help to pay for the new warfighting systems, Mr Hoon announced a cut in the Armed Forces of 10,500 personnel and the axeing of six warships, three fighter aircraft squadrons and dozens of Challenger 2 tanks.

But, in their report, MPs condemned the Ministry of Defence’s acquisition policy as a “sorry picture”, marked by “staggering” problems.

They demanded proof of the MoD claim that its smart-buying policy had saved the taxpayer £2 billion, declaring: “We have no confidence in the reliability of this estimate.”

The MoD had introduced the smart acquisition policy in 1998 to rid the department of embarrassing cost overruns and delays. But the procurement of equipment was continuing to run overtime and overcost, and the MPs feared that the failures would not stop despite attempts to abolish the bad old ways of procuring equipment.

“We are forced to conclude that our Armed Forces have been let down by the organisation tasked with equipping them,” the committee said.

Bruce George, its Labour chairman, said: “Our Armed Forces are having to deal with many new security challenges in conditions where they are overstretched and under-staffed. The last thing they need is to worry about whe-ther or not critical equipment will turn up on time or at all.”

He added: “Our report has highlighted some quite staggering problems in the way that the procurement of vital defence equipment has been handled.”

Gerald Howarth, the Shadow Defence Minister, said: “This report is a devastating indictment of the Government’s management of defence procurement.”

In 2002-03, the top 20 defence equipment projects had suffered from cost increases totalling £3.1 billion and, on average, they were being delivered a year and a half late.

Worst culprits included the Eurofighter combat aircraft, 54 months late, the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol and attack aircraft, behind by six years, and the Astute nuclear-powered submarine, 41 months overdue.

“This means the Armed Forces are not getting the equipment they need when they need it. Cost increases of this magnitude not only mean cancellations or further delays in the equipment programme, but can lead to cuts elsewhere in defence,” the MPs said.

The key underlying cause of poor performance, the MPs said, was the MoD’s failure to invest enough money and time to examine the risks of each project before starting to build. Defence companies also complained that they had to face excessive delays for the MoD to make decisions. This also meant that frontline commanders, waiting for new equipment to arrive, had to make do with old systems for longer than planned.

One problem, according to a witness who appeared before the committee, was that there had been a “culture of fear” operating at the MoD’s Defence Procurement Agency in the past which had dissuaded employees from voicing their concerns when serious defects arose with particular equipment programmes.

Sir Peter Spencer, who was appointed Chief of Defence Procurement in May last year, told the MPs that some of the “substantial problems” on a number of projects appeared to have come “out of a clear blue sky”.

The committee said: “The Chief of Defence Procurement must ensure that there is a culture change at the agency which encourages problems on projects to be disclosed.”

The MPs said: “We and our predecessors have become accustomed to the too-familiar story of time slippage and cost increases on major defence defence equipment projects.”

However, they added: “The performance of the Defence Procurement Agency in 2002-03 can only be described as woeful.”

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