Select committee: Defence Committee
Conclusion 3
First Report - Ready for War?
Published 4 Feb 2024
Paragraph 33
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 Government’s reaction to this specific inquiry has also been unacceptably slow and has impeded our work. Responses to our requests for written evidence have arrived many months late and contained very little useful information. We took up the Government’s offer of a meeting in private to review classified information. This was both constructive and informative, but it took place 10 months after our initial request for this data, and there is no guarantee that it will be repeated in the future, which raises the concern about whether there is sufficient ministerial grip on readiness.
From: Defence Committee, First Report - Ready for War? (HC 26), paragraph 33, 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.