MoD reveals £160bn plan to equip UK Armed Forces
31 January 2013
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has published details of how it will equip the Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force over the next ten years and how the £160bn budget will be allocated.
The government has set out a fully-funded Defence Equipment Plan totalling almost £160bn. The affordability of this plan has been scrutinised by the National Audit Office and their independent analysis has been published alongside the MoD announcement.
Within the equipment and equipment support budget of around £160bn over the next ten years, Philip Hammond has introduced a contingency of £4.8bn to manage cost variation and protect existing projects. In addition, within the £160bn, £8bn currently unallocated, will be allocated as new equipment priorities emerge over the decade and only once the MoD is confident that they are affordable and therefore deliverable.
The equipment plan includes the following major investments and their support over the next ten years:
- £35.8bn on submarines and the nuclear deterrent, including a total of 7 Astute Class attack submarines, and developing a replacement for Vanguard Class ballistic missile submarines;
- £18.5bn on combat air power, including Lightning II and Typhoon fast jets and unmanned aerial vehicles;
- £17.4bn on ships, including Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, 6 new Type 45 destroyers and the development of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship;
- £13.9bn on aircraft for air-to-air refuelling, passengers and heavy lift, such as Voyager and A400M;
- £12.3bn on armoured fighting vehicles, including Warrior, Scout and other land equipment;
- £12.1bn on helicopters, including Chinook, Apache, Puma and Wildcat;
- £11.4bn on weapons, including, for example, missiles, torpedoes and precision guided bombs.