Britain's Ministry of Defence (MOD) said late on Saturday it had decided not to proceed with a proposal from Babcock related to armoured vehicles.

Babcock said it had recently put forward a proposal related to a number of different vehicle types, but the MOD had not taken this up, instead deciding to focus on its core Defence Support Group (DSG) contract.

It said, however, that the Sunday Times was confused about the work affected by the MOD's decision.

"There has been no change to the company's expectations for underlying revenue and underlying earnings as detailed in its recent trading statement, and no change to the bid pipeline," it said.

"The impact of slower than anticipated spares procurement activity relating to DSG was included in the guidance issued at the time."

(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Adrian Croft)