Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

That is a perfectly reasonable question from the hon. Lady, but I am afraid I cannot say now. There are two things that I should say, however: first, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are meeting the trades unions about those reductions late in February; and secondly, the permanent secretary to the MOD announced on Friday night—released, therefore, to most people this morning—the forthcoming launch of the voluntary early release scheme. I am sure that the full text will be in the Library.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

My departmental responsibilities are to ensure that our country is properly defended now and in the future, that our service personnel have the right equipment and training to allow them to succeed in their military tasks and that we honour the armed forces covenant.

[Nick Smith]

In terms of the Department’s major projects, how much does the Minister think it can save through contract renegotiation, as announced in the SDSR?

[Dr Fox]

There can be some savings on contract renegotiation, and they are currently being discussed, but in the very near future I shall set out a new set of rules for the management of financial projects, which I hope will ensure that we get real-terms control over budgets. Far too often, we have been looking at post-mortems by the National Audit Office, and in my previous profession I did not regard post-mortems as a satisfactory outcome.