Years behind schedule, UK defence projects overshoot budget by £6.1-bn

The UK Ministry of Defence's biggest equipment projects have overshot budget £6.1 billion and have been woefully late, reveals a devastating report.

The cost of aircraft carriers, fighter jets, submarines and other state-of-the-art kit had shot up a staggering 12.3 per cent since these were ordered, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

According to the spending watchdog's Major Projects Report for 2012-13, the delivery timetable for the 11 largest procurement programmes had slipped by a total of over 25 years.

The government was urged by critics to 'get a grip' after it emerged that the cost of equipment had rocketed from £49.4 billion to £55.5 billion since its original approval.

The last year alone had seen the bill rise by £708 million, with the main contribution from the cost of the Royal Navy's two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.

The first of the 65,000-tonne warships would be entering service in 2016 with the second to follow two years later.

According to NAO chiefs, the burgeoning bill was due to the construction schedule, an 'underestimation' of labour and material costs as also a U-turn over the type of warplanes that would fly off the carriers. Without the carriers, the cost of the remaining 10 projects was down £46 million.

The damning report is likely to lead to accusations that the cash-strapped MoD continued to throw money down the drain.

A review of the 11 biggest defence projects found they were a total of 301 months behind schedule, having fallen a further 17 months behind track in the past year, with one project for military transport aircraft running six years late.

Head of the NAO, Amyas Morse said the MOD had improved its budgeting, but there were still ''risks to affordability''.

The Telegraph quoted Morse as saying there remained a legacy of large complex projects that had already suffered significant cost increases and delays. He added, despite the increased stability there were still risks to affordability.

The report further added, the MOD did not fully understand why it had underspent on the equipment budget by £1.2 billion last year.

It said, ''The MOD believes that the underspend is the result of a wide variety of factors and is undertaking further work to understand this issue better.''

According to Philip Hammond, defence secretary, the report was ''clear evidence that better financial discipline across the MoD is having a positive effect on the way we procure equipment for our Armed Forces''.