Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 17
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)
We are concerned that the Department seems reliant on delaying delivery of capabilities to keep the Plan affordable.44 The Department told us that the £13.2 billion management adjustment for realism represented a small amount of over-programming, and was based on historical performance and its assessment of deliverability, with supply chain issues making it harder to spend money as planned.45 We are also concerned that the Plan does not include all the capabilities set out in the Integrated Review; if these were included in future years it would add further pressure on the affordability of the Plan.46 37 C&AG’s Report, paras 6, 7, Figure 4 38 Q 51 39 Qq 55, 56, 64 40 Q 54; C&AG’s Report, para 7 41 Q 54 42 Q 79 43 C&AG’s Report, para 10 44 Q 58 45 Qq 52, 56 46 C&AG’s Report, para 1.16, Figure 6 MoD Equipment Plan 2022–2032 13 External pressures
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.