{"id":25761,"date":"2013-02-05T01:06:08","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T00:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/mod-attacked-over-jets-decision-000608284.html"},"modified":"2013-02-05T01:06:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T00:06:08","slug":"mod-attacked-over-jets-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/mod-attacked-over-jets-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"MoD attacked over jets decision"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been strongly criticised by MPs over the “flawed” decision to switch fighter aircraft for the Royal Navy’s new carriers .<\/p>\n

It was announced in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review that the Government would adopt the carrier variant of the US-built F35 Joint Strike Fighter rather than the “jump jet” version chosen by the previous Labour government.<\/p>\n

Ministers argued that the carrier variant was a more capable aircraft and that it would increase “interoperability” with other navies – even though it meant mothballing one of the two carriers on grounds of affordability.<\/p>\n

However last May, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced the MoD was reverting to the jump jet version amid fears the costs of fitting the necessary catapults and arrestor gear – “cats and traps” – were spiralling out of control.<\/p>\n

In a highly critical report, the Commons Defence Committee said the 2010 decision to go for the carrier variant was a mistake which led to increased costs and further delays to the carrier programme.<\/p>\n

“It is clear that the decision was rushed and based upon incomplete and inaccurate policy development. It was taken without the MoD understanding how the change could be implemented,” the committee said.<\/p>\n

“Perhaps the primary example of how little the MoD understood about this decision is the fact that it was supposed to improve interoperability. This turned out to be incorrect.<\/p>\n

“We urge the MoD to learn the lessons of this closed, rushed and flawed decision of 2010.”<\/p>\n

The committee also complained that the lack of a proper defence industrial strategy put the UK at a disadvantage compared with competitor countries.<\/p>\n

It said that such a strategy should combine a commitment to maintain the ability of the UK to act nationally with an understanding of where a level mutual interdependence or partnership with allies is acceptable.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/organisations\/ministry-of-defence(MoD)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been strongly criticised by MPs over the “flawed” decision to switch fighter aircraft for the Royal Navy’s new carriers .
\nIt was announced in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review that the Government would ad…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}