Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Dunne and David Mowat(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Dunne
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for taking such an interest in the equipment plan, which is a bit of a specialist subject. We will be publishing the next annual iteration of the equipment plan, just as we have done for each of the past three years, and it will demonstrate that there will be an additional £12 billion committed to spending on military equipment over the next 10 years. That will take it up to £178 billion, but he will have to be a bit more patient before he sees how that is allocated.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
In December 2014, the Secretary of State told this House that the legal aid wrongly claimed by Leigh Day and co—because of inadequate disclosure—should be reimbursed. Is it still his view that it will be reimbursed in full? Given the timescales that have passed so far, when does he think the money will be received?
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Dunne and David Mowat(9 years, 11 months ago)
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David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
13. What progress he has made on improving the efficacy of his Department’s procurement since May 2010.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Dunne)
When we came into office, the major projects report for 2009 identified procurement overruns of £1.2 billion and delays of 93 months in the top 15 defence equipment programmes, after 13 years’ of inaction by Labour. By contrast, we have taken decisive action and made considerable progress in improving the efficacy of defence procurement. The latest major projects report from the National Audit Office for 2013 showed that the cost of 10 of our 11 largest equipment programmes had been reduced by almost £50 million in the last year, and some 98% of our key performance measures are set to be achieved.
David Mowat
In December, as the Government abandoned the process to find an external contractor to manage Defence Equipment and Support procurement—the so-called GoCo approach—the Secretary of State said that the Bechtel bid in particular had contained knowledge capital which would be useful going forward. Can the Minister confirm that this has happened and that best practice is being assimilated?
Mr Dunne
On 1 April we established DE&S as the first bespoke Government trading entity with wide ranging freedoms from central Government controls, details of which I look forward to publishing before the House prorogues. We are introducing global best practice to the new DE&S through three work package contracts for managed service providers. We are today issuing the invitation to negotiate for the first work package for project delivery to eight world-class companies which have passed the pre-qualification questionnaire process, and we plan to award contracts for the four domains this autumn.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Philip Dunne and David Mowat(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Dunne
The hon. Gentleman should address his remarks to the workers of the Rosyth area and see how they feel about whether we should retain a nuclear deterrent in this country. Decisions about this country’s nuclear deterrent are made in this Parliament, as they were in 2007, and they will continue to be made here.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
3. What consideration he has given to routinely storing DNA samples for all members of the armed forces.