Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of his timetable to publish the Defence Investment Plan on the procurement of a new mobile fires platform.

Defence continues to manage its capabilities and programmes to ensure they are not unnecessarily impacted or delayed whilst the upcoming Defence Investment Plan (DIP) is developed. The Department is working flat out to deliver the DIP, which will be published as soon as possible. The DIP is the first time in 18 years Defence has completed a single, comprehensive review of programmes and is backed by the Government’s largest sustained increase in defence investment since the end of the Cold War, spending £270 billion on defence in this Parliament alone.