Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 27
27
Paragraph: 184
We welcome the Department’s ambition to bring new technology into the fleet and the opportunities...
Conclusion
We welcome the Department’s ambition to bring new technology into the fleet and the opportunities that the large number of planned vessels offer. It provides an early test of the new Integrated Operating Concept. It is essential that NavyX and Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) improve their ability to take emerging technology beyond the demonstrator phase and deliver it to the field. Digital systems should be prioritised more highly in procurement, with consideration given to them early in the design and build of new vessels. The Navy should plan as far as possible for them to be fitted flexibly into vessels and regularly upgraded to avoid capabilities becoming out of date. Development stage funding should be increased. We note the importance of space as an enabler for the Navy: the role it plays in delivering military capabilities will be considered as part of our dedicated space inquiry.
Paragraph Reference:
184
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
Response: DE&S has established the Future Capabilities Group to work with industry to explore and de-risk new capabilities and improve our approach to procurement. NavyX is an experimentation and innovation team that contributes to DE&S and other delivery partners by conducting rapid prototyping, testing and evaluation of emerging technology and digital systems to provide evidence upon which future programme choices can be based, quickly identifying opportunities and ‘quick wins’ for exploitation. To enable growth, and to exploit the latest technology, all digital elements of future vessel designs will use open architectures and application based software, and will be fully compliant with Defence’s digital backbone. This will allow decisions to be made at the last responsible moment regarding the type and version of hardware and software, and thus enable the very latest and most suitable technologies to be fitted to new platforms, rather than key systems being many years out of date at the time of introduction into service. In addition, the use of systems based on open architectures that can be upgraded at the speed of relevance are key to ensuring that advances in technology can be rapidly harnessed to generate a competitive edge. The level of Research, Development and Experimentation (RD&E) funding in the RN has grown over the last three years, and the requirement to increase it in line with best practice laid down by HM Government and the MOD is widely recognised and acknowledged. Defence has ringfenced a £6.6 billion ringfence for R&D investment over the four-year period (2021–2024) within the 2020 Spending Review settlement. The RN is forecasted to spend circa £325 million over the next four years on RD&E but will specifically review the funding allocated as part of the Department’s annual budget cycle. RD&E is often commissioned centrally to support multiple Front Line Commands (FLCs), and funding allocated to other FLCs provides Defence-wide benefits to more than one Service. The RN will also benefit from RD&E spend by Defence Innovation and Defence Science & Technology projects that will support multi-domain capabilities. The RN is determined to be an early adopter of emergent space technologies, especially those that improve high bandwidth communications and offer persistent surveillance to deployed units.