Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 136
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)
Both Commander, Strategic Command and the Minister for the Armed Forces were at pains to emphasise that this was a real change in approach. Commander, Strategic Command told us that Defence needed to look at long-term pipelines to supply the munitions and stockpile capabilities which meant moving away from a “just-enough, just- in-time approach [which] has put us in a place that limits our capability, our decision space and our options … We may well need enduring and surge support to be able to execute against particular contingencies”.274 He noted that industry had welcomed the concept of a partnership which spreads risk and provides long-term resilience but that Defence required the “freedoms and ability to enter into those sorts of agreements and structures”.275 The Minister for the Armed Forces acknowledged that the new approach would require “all sides of the equation—the MOD, Government and the Treasury—… to be willing to change policy on how we procure, how we work with industry and how we run competitions” as well as industry changing its approach to the process.276
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.