Source · Select Committees · Defence Committee
Recommendation 2
2
Accepted
Paragraph: 32
Parliament lacks adequate information to scrutinise ministerial decisions on defence readiness
Conclusion
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.
Government Response Summary
The government committed to establishing a regular annual open session for the committee to meet with Ministers and Chiefs of the Single Services to scrutinize readiness decisions and risk management.
Paragraph Reference:
32
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
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.