Defence: Procurement

Lord Craig of Radley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, Ministers and service chiefs have made it very clear that the decision taken in the SDSR not to bring the Nimrod MRA4 into service was very difficult, but it will not be reversed and the dismantling process will be under way very soon. The severe financial pressures and the urgent need to bring the defence programme into balance meant that we could not retain all existing programmes. We will continue joint maritime patrol activities with our allies and ensure the integrity of the UK waters by utilising a range of other military assets. For security reasons, I cannot go into great detail about what those are.

[Lord Craig of Radley]

My Lords, in his report, Mr Bernard Gray talked about a 10-year run of figures from the Treasury against which the procurement processes could be planned. In view of what has been said about an increase in capabilities by 2020, those figures should indicate a rise in funding availability for those procurements. Do those figures yet exist?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, as the noble and gallant Lord knows, Bernard Gray was appointed CDM last week. This is a very important step for the department; it is a sign of our commitment to drive through further change. The previous Government published the Gray review of acquisition, which examined the way in which new equipment is purchased for the Armed Forces. In February this year, the MoD published a strategy for acquisition reform that outlined a number of measures to improve defence acquisition. Implementation is going well and is now part of the wider defence reform agenda. A key part of the work is to look at how acquisition is managed and structured. We are looking at various operating models to determine the most efficient and effective way of designing our acquisition system.