A subsidiary of Israel’s largest arms manufacturer has been denied a £2 billion contract to overhaul British Army training, bringing to an end a contentious bidding process marked by allegations of rule breaches and sustained political pressure. Elbit Systems UK, which led one of two competing consortiums, lost out to a rival group headed by Raytheon UK, the British arm of the American defence giant, according to Ministry of Defence sources.
An MoD insider said the decision followed a lengthy assessment and concluded that Raytheon was the stronger candidate, though no further details were provided. It remains unclear whether Raytheon will ultimately be awarded the full ten-year, £2 billion programme, as questions persist over whether elements of the training will be retained in-house by the army. A second source cautioned that no formal contract has yet been signed and described the decision as the first stage of an “early works and risk reduction” arrangement.
The outcome follows months of reporting by Times UK, which revealed that the MoD had been alerted to serious allegations against Elbit Systems UK more than seven months before the decision was made. In August, the department was approached with details of a whistleblower dossier accusing the company of breaching business appointment rules through its alleged dealings with a former senior army officer.
The dossier claimed that Brigadier Philip Kimber, who had previously overseen the very training contract at the MoD, shared information with Elbit Systems UK after leaving the army. According to the whistleblower, Kimber attended key meetings about the bid and at one point joined a discussion on how to win the contract, despite acknowledging that he “should not be there”. The MoD later admitted in a freedom of information response that it had failed to investigate the dossier for seven months, attributing the delay to an “administrative oversight”.
In September, a senior army civil servant conducted an internal assurance review and concluded that no business appointment rules had been breached. That finding did little to quell wider concern about the handling of the procurement process, particularly after further disclosures by Times UK highlighted the conduct of officials involved in assessing the bids.
The newspaper revealed that Mike Cooper, a senior civil servant with a rank equivalent to a two-star officer and the senior responsible owner for the army’s collective training transformation programme, had been dined by Elbit Systems UK on seven occasions. He reportedly had no comparable meetings with Raytheon UK. Cooper also travelled to Jerusalem with senior British military officers on a trip that included a sightseeing tour funded by Elbit Systems, the parent company. There was no suggestion that Cooper breached any rules.
The MoD has declined to comment on the specifics of the decision, saying only that the training programme is intended to modernise the army to meet future threats and that a preferred tenderer announcement would be made public in due course.
The contract decision comes amid heightened political sensitivity around defence ties with Israel. Four former senior British army officers recently urged the government to bar Israeli-owned or Israeli-supported defence companies from UK contracts, citing the conflict in Gaza. In a letter to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, they argued that despite a fragile ceasefire, it was not the time to resume business as usual with the Israeli government and called for tougher sanctions.
The signatories included Brigadier John Deverell, a former defence attaché in the Middle East, Lieutenant General Sir Andrew Graham, a former head of the UK Defence Academy, and Major Generals Peter Currie and Charlie Herbert. Their intervention added to the pressure surrounding Elbit’s bid, underscoring how geopolitical considerations and ethical scrutiny have become increasingly intertwined with Britain’s defence procurement decisions.
