Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how much his Department spent on iPhones in each year since 2010.

The majority of mobile telephones supplied to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) are provided by Vodafone through an enabling arrangement through the Defence Fixed Telecommunications Service (DFTS) contract with BT. A very small number (less than 1%) of mobile telephones are procured outside this arrangement to meet local operational demands, typically at MOD establishments overseas. Until July 2014, the procurement of iPhones required purchase authorisation outside the scope of the DFTS catalogue but, since then, iPhones have been ordered by routine processes via the DFTS catalogue. Monthly network access charges for iPhones are greater than basic mobile telephones. Expenditure on iPhone accounts via the DFTS contract is in the attached table.

It should be noted that iPhones purchased prior to Jan 2010 continue to incur network access charges in the reporting period. The current cost differential is £5 for a basic mobile phone per month and £11.23 for an iPhone.

The annual expenditure on iPhone purchases and network acccess charges via the DFTS contract since January 2010 to October 2014 are shown in the attached table: