Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of charging members of Overseas Territory Regiments home rates rather than overseas rates for attendance at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
There is no distinction between the home and international rates for attendance at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The only difference is whether costs are charged, and this is dependent on a number of factors which are considered at the time of application. These include the country’s GDP, historic links and the regiment’s place in the British Army Order of Battle.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what key performance indicators he plans to publish on the impact of the National Armaments Director Group on defence procurement.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are being developed for the National Armaments Director (NAD) Group as part of a single NAD Group performance framework for 2026-27. The KPIs will be aligned to the intent set in the Strategic Defence Review recommendations.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many proposals have been funded through the Defence and Security Accelerator delivering operational advantage via improved self-sufficiency competition.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Due to a change to programme prioritisation after this competition had closed, there were no proposals funded directly through this competition. Fundable proposals submitted into DASA competitions but not funded are retained for potential future use. One proposal submitted as part of the competition was later funded through alternative customer funding.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent overseas on (a) equipment and (b) equipment support in 2024-25 by country.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Total Ministry of Defence (MOD) overseas expenditure in 2024-25 was £5,978 million. Of this, £3,771 million was spent directly with industry overseas and can be readily separated by equipment type: equipment (£1,539 million), non-equipment (£1,373 million), and equipment support (£859 million).
The remaining £2,207 million of overseas spend in 2024-25 was made through Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Agreements with the US Government and through direct spending with foreign Governments for work completed overseas. The MOD does not hold enough granular information to be able to split the FMS and foreign government expenditure across both equipment type and location.
We are unable to provide a breakdown by country as an assessment of the commercial sensitivities of the underlying contract location data has not been made.
The above totals are derived from the MOD annual publication of regional expenditure with industry 2024-25 which can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-regional-expenditure-statistics-with-industry-202425
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he plans to provide a substantive Answer to Question 68513 on Armoured Fighting Vehicles: Repairs and Maintenance.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
As the hon. Member is aware, the Department keeps under review its approach to the disclosure of information in light of a wide range of factors. In this instance, having carefully considered the matter, I have concluded that the operational security risks are such that I am not able to disclose the level of detail requested.
I can, however, provide a general response to your question regarding the maintenance downtime of various vehicles.
Over the last 12 months (June 2024 – June 2025), the proportion of maintenance downtime time for routine mandated inspections, servicing and emergent repairs of the Army’s three main armoured platforms: Challenger 2, Warrior and Bulldog is 2.5%. This information has not been broken down by platform due to operational sensitivities.
Maintenance downtime consists of planned routine servicing/inspection and unplanned average annual repair time. To be clear this is an average estimation based on a single sample for each vehicle type of which 2.5% is the combined total.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department's recruitment targets for each branch of the armed forces are for (a) 2025-26 and (b) 2026-27.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 2025 is clear that Defence must now meet the longstanding challenge of recruiting and retaining new generations with different requirements. We are committed to the vision that long-term success depends on reconnecting society with the Armed Forces and the purpose of Defence, and for recruitment the focus should be on speed, drastically shortening the period between applicants expressing interest and joining. We have already implemented conditional offers of employment in 10 days from a candidate’s application, and provisional training start dates in 30 days if they desire it.
To provide a response regarding the period 2025-26, I refer the hon. Member to the answer given on 7 April 2025 to Question 43215 to the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge).
https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-04-01/43215
We are currently engaged in planning activity to determine recruitment targets for 2026-27
From Full-Service Implementation in 2027, the previously announced Armed Forces Recruiting Service (AFRS) will deliver against annual recruitment targets and demand, which will be set by the three Services via the Command Recruiting Support Plan (CRSP). The CRSP is generated and approved in conjunction with the single Services, with AFRS containing a mechanism to adjust demand during each Recruiting Year.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of establishing a Cadet Forces Day as part of Armed Forces Week.
Answered by Louise Sandher-Jones - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
Whilst the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Cadet Forces are not part of the Armed Forces, they do firmly belong within the wider Defence family. It is therefore appropriate that they are recognised accordingly and we are planning to explore the viability of using Armed Forces Week to further raise awareness of the Cadet Forces. Cadets already contribute to Armed Forces Week, typically through locally organised events, and we will continue to encourage this.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department has spent in (a) cash terms and (b) constant prices in the UK (i) aircraft and (ii) spacecraft industry in the last 20 years.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
Whilst we are unable to separate out “Aircraft” and “Spacecraft”, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) currently publish an annual bulletin on MOD Regional Expenditure with Industry which includes details on MOD’s spending with UK industry in the combined category of “Aircraft and Spacecraft”.
The table below shows this industry spend in both current and constant prices for the last 20 years (2005/06 to 2024/25).
Financial | Aircraft and Spacecraft | Aircraft and Spacecraft |
2005/06 | 1,730 | 2,812 |
2006/07 | 1,960 | 3,103 |
2007/08 | 2,100 | 3,246 |
2008/09 [b] [note 1] | 2,480 | 3,699 |
2009/10 | 2,640 | 3,886 |
2010/11 [b] [note 2] | 2,710 | 3,915 |
2011/12 [b] [note 3] | 2,430 | 3,449 |
2012/13 | 2,460 | 3,429 |
2013/14 [b] [note 4] | 2,452 | 3,353 |
2014/15 | 2,235 | 3,019 |
2015/16 | 2,007 | 2,693 |
2016/17 | 1,832 | 2,403 |
2017/18 | 1,719 | 2,220 |
2018/19 | 1,619 | 2,047 |
2019/20 | 1,570 | 1,940 |
2020/21 [b] [note 5] | 1,612 | 1,890 |
2021/22 | 1,728 | 2,038 |
2022/23 | 2,023 | 2,229 |
2023/24 | 2,205 | 2,294 |
2024/25 | 2,449 | 2,449 |
Notes:
[b] signifies a break in series
1 Break in series between 2007/08 and 2008/09. For 2008/09 onwards, industrial groupings are based on Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007 codes. Prior to this, industrial groupings may have used SIC 1992 or SIC 2003 guidelines
2 Break in series between 2009/10 and 2010/11 due to methodology changes, resulting in significant changes in allocation of spending to several industry groupings including that of Aircraft and Spacecraft.
3 Break in series between 2011/12 and 2012/13 due to a reclassification of Resource Account Codes, more extensive exclusion of 'Other Government Organisations' and improvements to processes on SIC code data cleansing.
4 Break in series between 2012/13 and 2013/14 due to methodology changes. Improvements were made to identify expenditure to be excluded as overseas, with Other Government Departments, or related to elements such as pay.
5 Break in series between 2019/20 and 2020/21 due to methodology changes. Direct comparison across the years 2019/20 to 2020/21 should not be made, longer comparisons across the time series should still be valid noting other breaks in series. More details can be found by visiting the background quality report (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mod-regional-expenditure-statistics-with-industry-202425).
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 30 June 2025 to Question 904908 on Defence: Investment, when his Department plans to publish the Defence Investment Plan.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
The Defence Investment Plan will be published later this year. It will set out our plans to deliver the recommendations as agreed in the 2025 Strategic Defence Review.
Asked by: Neil Shastri-Hurst (Conservative - Solihull West and Shirley)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he plans to take to increase shipbuilding capacity.
Answered by Luke Pollard - Minister of State (Ministry of Defence)
This Government has an ambitious shipbuilding pipeline with major naval programmes in progress at a number of UK shipyards, recent export success of the Type 26 frigate to Norway and forthcoming civil shipbuilding programmes.
The National Shipbuilding Office (NSO) is leading the work for Government to engage with industry to explore further opportunities and requirements. As part of their remit, the NSO assesses current and future capacity to consider both demand and supply.