Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 98
98
Acknowledged
Prime Minister and Cabinet own the ultimate risk for defence readiness
Conclusion
General Lord Houghton was clear that the only way to reduce risk to readiness was to increase funding, while noting that this was a political choice, not a military one. The readiness assessments carried out by the MOD were shared with the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the NSC for discussion. As the decision whether to increase resources to reduce the risk to defence and security was discussed in those forums, they are effectively the ultimate owners of that risk.209
Government response summary AI-generated
The government acknowledges the need to prioritise resources for modernization and readiness, stating that lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War have led to a re-evaluation of assumptions and a greater focus on warfighting readiness. It details ongoing work, including balancing the Global Operate programme with the Defence Command Paper's outcomes and evolving the Capability Readiness Assessment Framework to inform decision-making.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government · verbatim extract
Acknowledged
Readiness is about acceptable risk. The decisions on what risks to take are ultimately political (based partly on military advice) rather than solely military or parliamentary decisions. Ministers will also inevitably need to reach judgments about the availability of information regarding threats and the UK’s readiness to respond to those threats, and these judgments may change as the threat landscape changes. However, Parliament’s role and our role in particular is to hold Ministers to account for their actions. We cannot fulfil this role without adequate information, along the lines that was available to our predecessors. At present there is no regular mechanism which allows us to scrutinise ministerial decisions on readiness and their impact on risk. The Government agrees with the Committee’s conclusion there is no regular mechanism to scrutinise readiness. We would like to offer a regular annual open session for the Committee to meet with Ministers and Chiefs of the Single Services to scrutinise decisions on readiness. This will also enable the Committee to better understand how the Department manages risk in relation to readiness.
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