Ministry of Defence: Equipment Plan

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 7th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a good point. In fact, there is considerable investment in skills—particularly in the areas of nuclear and shipbuilding—within these figures, all of which are costed. She is absolutely right that the skills gap that the industry is facing is entirely being funded and down to government.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, following on from the most important question arising from this report, raised by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, I wish to make a couple of points to the Minister and ask him a question. First, this report, like all NAO reports, was agreed by the department.

Secondly, the report specifically says that the equipment plan

“does not reflect all the cost pressures to develop new and support existing capabilities set out in the 2021 Integrated Review”,

which was updated in March this year. I recollect that the then Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, said that the extra £5 billion was welcome but that £11 billion was needed.

Thirdly, the report highlights the fact that the individual services have differing approaches to preparing the forecast in the plan. The Navy and the Royal Air Force include predicted costs for the capabilities that the Government expect from them while the Army includes only what it can afford. These issues need immediate attention, do they not? They should be attended to immediately.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with much of what the noble Lord has said. One of the key points about the NAO report is that it does not reflect the aspiration to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP when economic and fiscal conditions allow. If one puts that back in, it obviously completely changes the finances.

On the question of consistency, I am in entire agreement. I am very new in this role. I have looked at budgets for the last 40 years and I have never seen a budget that resembles anything like this one, and that is not just the absolute figures. The way in which it is constructed means that it is very difficult to get to exactly the way in which the money moves around. That is something that I commit to the House that I will learn and then lose not much more sleep over.