Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his interest in and continued focus on reserves. I also thank him for his report, the Reserve Forces 2030 review, which will be presented to Parliament soon, as my right honourable friend the Secretary of State said in another place on Monday. As the Secretary of State also acknowledged, in previous decades there has been resistance within MoD to recognising the potential of reserves and using them properly. On sponsored reserves, which my noble friend highlights, they are indeed already playing a significant role. I know that the Armed Forces are looking at the options for developing their role, for example in growth areas like space, cyber and other applied digital skills.

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, as president of the CBI, I can say that industry welcomes the new defence and security and industrial strategy, or DSIS, and the vision that lays out the defence sector’s strategic relationship with industry. The DSIS is ambitious regarding R&D and innovation, exportability and global Britain, and the creation of BARPA is an exciting opportunity. Will the Minister explain how the Government will ensure that innovation is rewarded fairly with a collaborative approach, with the management of intellectual property helping to crowd in private sector investment and MoD R&D activity? Also, does she agree that, by using its purchasing power to help pull developing technologies through to market at the leading edge of science and technology, it will drive prosperity and generate thousands of highly skilled jobs across the country?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

The last point the noble Lord alluded to is very important. Yes, I agree, and we hope that that indeed will be the consequence of the application of this strategy in practice.

On the other issues to which the noble Lord referred, again, early, close engagement between MoD and industry will go a long way to achieving the clarification he seeks. Certainly, introducing intellectual property strategies into the MoD’s acquisition processes for defence programmes to better incentivise and manage risk will also go a long way towards addressing some of the points he raises.