Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what steps he is taking to increase (a) transparency in costings, (b) risk ownership, and (c) commercialisation of ideas to support the development of land industrial operating service arrangements.

The Land Industrial Operating Services programme is being developed with the objectives of the Land Industrial Strategy at its core. It seeks to bring together maintenance and engineering services to improve platform availability and through-life performance of Land equipment.

The programme team are engaging in a comprehensive concept phase to understand the most appropriate enterprise model, building on lessons from similar ventures in the other Services. Considerations include clearer risk ownership, greater transparencies on costs and through life equipment plans, and incentives to develop and commercialise ideas through a more regular cycle of updates and upgrades.