Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 11 of the Defence Command Paper 2023, published in July 2023, what recent progress his Department has made on supporting integrated working practices between different branches of the UK Armed Forces.

Integration was a key theme of the Integrated Review 21 and the IR Refresh 23. In the Defence Command Paper 23 we confirmed the priority placed on Integration across Defence and the Armed Forces, and announced the establishment of the Integration Design Authority (IDA). The logic of integration is to make more of finite resources within a more competitive world in which speed of adaptation can provide decisive advantage. The pursuit of integration is led by Strategic Command and is being embedded as a whole Defence activity, working alongside the single Services. We constantly check our approach through analysing lessons learnt from conflicts, such as that in Ukraine.