Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 12
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)
Even when Ajax is finally introduced, it will not operate to its full potential without the Morpheus communications system. This will integrate Ajax across the land, air and sea domains, allowing real-time information-sharing and connectivity with other capabilities, such as Lightning II jets, on the battlefield.32 However, Morpheus has also been delayed, having originally been due by the end of 2021.33 As a consequence, Ajax will be fitted initially with Morpheus’s predecessor, Bowman, which does not have the same 21 Integrated Review Refresh 2023, P34 22 House of Commons Defence Committee, 2 November 2022, US, UK and NATO, Q275 23 C&AG’s Report, para 1.16 24 Q111; Letter from Permanent Secretary to Chair, 23 January 2023, p.3 25 Q 31 26 Qq 36–38 27 Q 104 28 Q 35 29 Committee of Public Accounts, Armoured Vehicles: the Ajax programme, Seventh Report of Session 2022–23, HC 259, June 2022 30 Q 96 31 Q 99 32 Q 105 33 Q 41 MoD Equipment Plan 2022–2032 11 integration capabilities. The Department was unable to tell us when Morpheus would enter service, but the military planning assumption is that this will be towards the end of the decade.34
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.