Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 137
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)
The Minister was clear that current procurement processes were no longer viable as a result of the pace of innovation.277 He acknowledged that this was a complete paradigm shift and a “frankly nascent part of policy making”.278 He warned that no private business has a peacetime obligation to maintain unused production capacity without a contract 270 Ministry of Defence, Defence’s response to a more contested and volatile world, Cm 901, July 2023, p 40–41 271 Oral evidence taken on 15 November 2023, HC (2023–24) 52, Q78 272 Ministry of Defence, Defence’s response to a more contested and volatile world, Cm 901, July 2023, p 42 273 Ministry of Defence, Defence’s response to a more contested and volatile world, Cm 901, July 2023, p 43 274 Q372 275 Q373 276 Q377 277 Q377; 381 278 Q389–391; 472 Ready for War? 51 and so having the resilience in the industrial base to scale is a live issue which neither the MOD nor the Department for Business and Trade (responsible for the mobilisation of the industrial base) have considered for at least a generation. He told us that: Whoever is in my office, the Secretary of State’s office and MinDP’s office for the next integrated review will have to have this stuff in mind, because we have not had to think about it since the ’80s.279 On 22 January 2024, the Permanent Secretary told our sister Committee, the Public Accounts Committee, that the MOD was hoping to make the announcement of the changes to procurement policy before the House rose for the Easter recess.280 Conclusions and recommendations
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.