Ajax Programme - Commons Urgent Question

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 1:01 pm on 9 June 2021.

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Photo of Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton Conservative 1:01, 9 June 2021

My Lords, I also welcome the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, to his place. I honestly do not think that Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition could have picked a better defence spokesman, judging from our previous exchanges in the other place. I declare my interest as a serving member of the Army Reserve.

A bit of context is required here. Ajax is not just an updated armoured fighting vehicle; it represents a generational shift in capability that will be able to deliver precision strike at range and, crucially, a network capability that our adversaries simply do not have. Given that there are literally millions of lines of code, I am surprised that there have not been more challenges during the development phase. We have lost out in the past by not updating our armoured fighting vehicles on a regular basis, so can my noble friend the Minister simply reassure me that Ajax is being designed with open architecture so that we can update it on a regular basis?