Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 127
First Report - Ready for War?
Published 4 Feb 2024
Addressed to Ministry of Defence
Defence Committee Armed Forces Readiness All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In our Report on DE&S we recommended that: • The MOD should engage with industry at an earlier stage, particularly on future requirements and their feasibility; • The MOD should consider the implications of the shortage of skilled and experienced workers and draw up a plan to help develop and foster the defence workforce over the next 10 years; • The MOD and the Treasury should provide a clearer definition of social value in defence contracting, specifying how the criteria will be applied in procurement competitions; • The Front Line Commands and DE&S should aim for a ‘spiral development’ model as default rather than over-specifying requirements; • The procurement system should place more emphasis on the value of time in relation to the delivery of capabilities; • The MOD should explore with HM Treasury whether there could be greater flexibility around budgetary cycles, moving from fixed one-year funding to multi-year funding of procurement programmes.260
From: Defence Committee, First Report - Ready for War? (HC 26), 4 February 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 25 April 2024 (deadline 4 April 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government agrees there is no regular mechanism to scrutinise readiness and offers an annual open session, releases some Defence Planning Assumptions headlines, and sets out its position on stockpiles, recruitment and procurement.
- On transparency, the government "recognises that the Committee should have public access to more information on planning assumptions and readiness" and releases headlines from the 2023 assumptions, committing to release "as much as possible" of the next iteration "when national and NATO planning processes have matured".
- It agrees the response time for the inquiry was slow and "will make every effort to ensure this is not repeated".
- On the £1.95bn from the Spring Budget 2023, it states the money "will be spent in full on measures to address gaps in our capabilities". It says exact stockpile holdings are "not releasable on the grounds of national security".
- On recruitment and retention, it says a formal response to each Haythornthwaite Review recommendation "will be published during 2024", with next steps for delivery and implementation for each.