Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 23
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 acknowledged that UK stocks were not sufficient even before gifts to Ukraine.59 A recent Royal United Services Institute report stated that at the height of fighting in the Donbas, Russia was using more ammunition in two days than the UK held in total.60 The Department told us that the Ukraine war has shown that its principle of buying munitions and capability in batches is no longer the right approach. It intends to shift to having supply chains with continuous production which can be quickly increased when required, for example in times of war.61
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.