Ajax tank maker handed £12m from MoD despite trial pause

Published: 2026-05-07 01:21:12 ET GD

Published on 05/07/2026 at 01:21 am EDT

THE company behind the failed Ajax tank was paid more than £12m in the period trials were paused, City AM can reveal, laying bare the scale of dysfunction inside national defence procurement.

General Dynamics continued to receive taxpayer cash in the period between late November and this week, the time where the government intervened to pause trials for the multi-billion pound armoured vehicle programme, according to data obtained.

The bulk of General Dynamics' recent income from the Ministry of Defence came in January for construction as well as research spending for the department.

Payments to the firm were suspended for 27 months when trials were paused between 2020 and 2023 due to safety failures, but the MoD has continued to pay General Dynamics in the past three months.

The US defence giant, whose British subsidiary company is headquartered in Wales, has come under fire over its delivery of tanks that have left dozens of soldiers sick due to excessive noise and vibration.

Trials for Ajax were paused last November and ministers launched an investigation into the £6.3bn programme. Defence procurement minister Luke Pollard said findings revealed symptoms were caused by both technical issues as well as training and environmental conditions.

The payments raise questions over the government's relations with the defence industry and how procurement rules are devised, with Sir Keir Starmer's Defence Investment Plan yet to provide details on how Labour hopes to upgrade the armed forces.

Questions over Ajax have prompted concern among some MPs that jobs could be under threat in the region. Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former army director, has backed the Ajax programme and said they were crucial for the UK's war preparedness.

Testing resumed this week in a "phased and carefully controlled approach", as General Dynamics put it.

The overall programme has faced repeated issues since a contract was first awarded in 2010 for the hightechnology tanks.

Small numbers of vehicles were delivered in the first few years of the programme. Soldiers reported problems with the tanks as far back as 2019. Trials were also paused in 2020 while the National Audit Office called Ajax "systematically flawed" in a report in 2022.

A General Dynamics spokesman said it had "confidence" in its Ajax vehicles, adding they were the world's "most advanced, fully digitised armoured fighting vehicle".

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: "All payments to General Dynamics are reviewed to ensure they are appropriately evidenced in line with the contract."