Recommendation 26

In July 2023, the Department’s Permanent Secretary wrote to the Chair of the previous Public Accounts Committee to say that it would not provide a full Plan that year as it needed “to work through the direction from the 46 Q 5 47 Public Accounts Committee, Oral Evidence: Defence equipment plan 2023–33, Q 61, HC 451, 22 January 2024 48 HM Treasury, Spring Statement 2025, para 2.4, CP 1298, March 2025; The 2.6% figure referred to in the announcement on 11 June includes the 0.1% intelligence and security services contribution. 49 Q 3 50 Q 59 51 C&AG’s Report, The Equipment Plan 2023–2033, Session 2023–24, HC 315, 4 December 2023, paras 1.2 and 1.3 15 Defence Command Paper 2023 (DCP23) and further understand the impact of extraordinary inflation and how to mitigate it.”52 In December 2023, however, it published affordability analysis of its equipment and support projects for 2023 to 2033, in which the forecast costs of £305.5 billion were £16.9 billion more than its available budget.53 The total forecast 10-year defence costs to 2032–33 were £42.5 billion more than the overall budget.54 The previous Public Accounts Committee reported on this in March 2024.55