Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of adopting the US military’s business operators for national defence scheme.

The Ministry of Defence has no plans to recruit a dedicated cadre of former defence industry executives.

Nevertheless, the Department is conscious of the value that those with private sector experience can bring. This can be seen in the appointment in October last year of Rupert Pearce as the UK National Armaments Director (NAD), bringing over 40 years of experience across law, technology, telecommunications, energy, and venture capital. His track record of managing large-scale organisations, driving innovation and building international partnerships make him ideally suited to lead the transformation of how defence works with industry to deliver for the UK Armed Forces.

The commitment to recruiting individuals with a breadth of experience can also be seen in the current competition for a new Director General UK Defence Innovation, in which the Department is accepting applications from both within and outside the Civil Service.