Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 28
28
Accepted
Ministry of Defence provides unsatisfactory proposals for parliamentary scrutiny of future spending plans.
Recommendation
We held this inquiry in the sincere hope that by its end we would have heard clear proposals from the Department as to how this Committee, and by extension Parliament, would be able to scrutinise annually the crucial issue of its forward spending plans.58 The Department acknowledged that it works better with scrutiny from this Committee and the Defence Committee and told us that Ministers were clear that they wanted the Department to be more transparent than previously.59 However, the Department made no proposals for how it might present its plans to Parliament and could not give us a date for when it would be able to do so.60 These answers were entirely unsatisfactory.61 52 Correspondence from David Williams CB, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, re Update - MOD Equipment Plan 2022 - 2032 in Session 2022–23, dated 21 July 2023 53 Revised correspondence from David Williams CB, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence, re Equipment Plan 2023–2033: Update on affordability, dated 4 December 2023 54 C&AG’s Report, Equipment Plan 2023, para 2.8 55 Committee of Public Accounts, MoD Equipment Plan 2023–2033, Nineteenth Report of Session 2023–24, HC 451, 8 March 2024 56 Letter from the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry relating to the Ministry of Defence Equipment Plan 2024, 13 November 2024 57 Letter from the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence relating to the response on the Defence Equipment Plan, 12 March 2025 58 Q 1 59 Q 57 60 Qq 58 and 59 61 Q 60 16
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to provide clear proposals for parliamentary scrutiny of its spending plans, committing to publish the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) in Autumn 2025, which will allow thorough scrutiny of the department's evolving spending.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
5.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Target implementation date: Autumn 2025 5.2 The DIP, to be published in Autumn 2025, and its future iterations will allow the Committee to thoroughly scrutinise the department’s spending plans as they evolve over time. The Secretary of State for Defence has made it clear that the DIP, including the investment in equipment procurement and support, will be affordable within the department’s Spending Review settlement. 5.3 As the Committee will appreciate, officials appearing before Select Committees can describe and explain government policies, but it is not their role to anticipate or pre-empt Ministerial decisions or announcements. The government’s plans for the DIP were set out in the SDR publication on 2 June 2025. Noting his personal accountabilities to Parliament as Accounting Officer, the Permanent Secretary’s letter of 13 May 2025 and evidence at the Session of 28 April 2025 went as far as was possible in advance of those Ministerial announcements.