Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 8
Forty-Eighth Report - MoD Equipment Plan 2022–2032
Published 19 Apr 2023
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee MoD Equipment Plan 2022-2032 All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The Department said that it would argue for new capabilities through this process, and if it received more resources, it would add these to the Equipment Plan. However, it accepted that it would need to prioritise investment decisions if new demands exceeded the funding from HM Treasury.19 In March 2023, as part of the Integrated Review refresh, the Prime Minister announced that the Department would receive £5 billion of additional funding over 2023–24 and 2024–25.20 Of this new money, it will spend £3 billion across 10 Qq 13, 14 11 Q 13 12 Q 33 13 Committee of Public Accounts, Defence capability and Equipment Plan, Tenth Report of Session 2019–21, HC 247, July 2020 14 Committee of Public Accounts, Improving the performance of major defence equipment contracts, Twenty- Second Report of Session 2021–22, HC 185, November 2021 15 Q 26, Integrated Review Refresh 2023 16 Q 26 17 Q 28, British-led design chosen for AUKUS submarine project - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) 18 Q 52 19 Q 49 20 Integrated Review Refresh 2023, P34 10 MoD Equipment Plan 2022–2032 the defence nuclear enterprise and the remaining £2 billion on replenishing stockpiles and increasing them in line with a reassessment of appropriate levels.21 In November 2022 the Secretary of State for Defence had told Parliament that the inflationary pressure on his budget over the next two years was £8 billion.22
From: Public Accounts Committee, Forty-Eighth Report - MoD Equipment Plan 2022–2032 (HC 731), 19 April 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 21 July 2023 (deadline 19 June 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government disagrees with the Committee's recommendation to publish a timelier Equipment Plan report, and agrees with its recommendations on the Integrated Review refresh, delivery speed, uncertainty, affordability and supply chains.
- On publishing a timelier Equipment Plan report, the government disagrees: the department "does not plan to publish a full equipment plan" while it adapts the plan to the Integrated Review Refresh and manages inflation, but "will write to the Committee with an update".
- It agrees that capability requirements arising from the Integrated Review refresh should be set out to HM Treasury, with a target implementation date of Summer 2023 (Defence Command Paper Update) and Winter 2023 (update to the Committee).
- On delivery speed, it agrees and recognises "the need to balance risk with the speed of capability delivery", noting there "may be scope to take more risk" but "not in every case"; it will write to the Committee by December 2023.
- It agrees to reassess affordability by September 2023, and to provide by December 2023 an assessment of the key sources of uncertainty and risk in the forward plan.