Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many compliant final submission bids were received by his Department for the Fleet Solid Support Ship contract.

The Fleet Solid Support ship competition followed an iterative competitive process that was run strictly as set out in the rules contained in the Invitation to Negotiate. This included the application of the evaluation criteria and a bidder engagement and contract negotiation programme affording all bidders several opportunities over a ten-month period to meet with Ministry of Defence officials to receive feedback on their proposed solutions and extensively refine their bids, within the parameters of the competition. The Department received one compliant final bid submission.