Better Defence Acquisition

Julian Brazier Excerpts

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

The latter part of the hon. Gentleman’s question is clearly one that I cannot answer on a unilateral basis, but I suspect that, in the way that generally happens, there is a potential win-win situation here—a win for the taxpayer in terms of lower public expenditure and a win for the armed forces in terms of greater capabilities being able to be purchased. I think I included these figures in my statement, but the independent estimates are that somewhere between £1.3 billion and £2.2 billion of frictional costs generated by inefficiencies in the procurement system are incurred every year. It would be a very rash man who suggested that we can squeeze out every last pound of those, but I would expect us to be able to achieve net gains after taking account of the cost of the arrangements—the GoCo fee and the cost of the governance function on the MOD side—in the hundreds of millions of pounds.

[Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s thoughtful statement. Will he confirm not only that Aldermaston is a GoCo, but that in fact most of the American nuclear programme has historically been run by university-led GoCos? I urge him to look carefully at the issue of military project managers and at the experience from abroad. In land systems, in particular, we can end up with a project manager and an expensive military adviser, rather than one uniformed officer driving it forward. It is worth looking at the Swedish experience, for example, which is of a very effective and tight ship with mostly military project managers.