Oral Answers to Questions

Crispin Blunt Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)]

The Cipher contract cost the MOD £46 million. Work under the contract ceased in June of last year at the end of a protracted assessment phase, which concluded that the project would not meet the full defence capability requirement at value for money for the taxpayer. I remind the hon. Lady that the contract was placed in November 2008. It is a classic example of the legacy of out-of-control procurement contracts that we were left when we took office in May 2010.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

T5. To pick up the theme from the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), between 1935 and 1939, defence expenditure doubled in response to the deteriorating security situation in Europe. Does the Department do any contingency planning to determine how our defence capability could be improved rapidly if there was a greater call on our nation’s defence resources?

[Mr Philip Hammond]

As I have said before in the House, part of the outcome of the strategic defence and security review in 2010 was that we should focus, while consolidating our armed forces, on our regeneration capability in case the need arose, or the resources became available, for capabilities or scale of operations that we do not have.