Defence: Reform

Lord Boyce Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Astor of Hever]

My Lords, my noble friend makes an important point. We now have a CDM who I confidently expect to get on top of all our procurement issues and, in doing so, save the defence budget a great deal of money.

[Lord Boyce]

My Lords, much has been made about the greater flexibility that the Chiefs of Staff will have as a result of having more money and resources to play with. As things stand at the moment, most of that money is tied up in salaries and fixed costs that do not have much flexibility—probably 5 or 10 per cent of their budget. Can the Minister indicate how much more money they are to be given to play with for equipment and how that will be managed when, for example, a significant amount of equipment is used across all three services? How will that be arbitrated?

[Lord Astor of Hever]

I am grateful to the noble and gallant Lord for that question. It is too early to give a specific figure. We received the report of the noble Lord, Lord Levene, today and we are considering it. We have not come up with any figures on that issue.