Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether his Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of reforming its procurement process.

The Department believes that it must maintain continuous reform of its procurement process to make it more agile and ensure it delivers the best possible value for money. Our continuing improvement agenda across Defence acquisition covers five themes:

· Improving cost estimating and cost control

· Improving relationships with industry

· Delivering strategic intent and Defence priorities through our requirements

· Empowering and enabling programme leadership

· Streamlining acquisition and approvals processes and addressing project resourcing challenges.

At a tactical level the Department is very focussed on, for example, enhancing the training of its personnel and availability of SROs.

This is consistent with our commitment in the Defence and Security Industrial Strategy, published in March 2021, to increasing the pace and agility of our acquisition processes.

Meanwhile the Department is supporting the Cabinet Office-led reforms to the UK's public procurement regime, leading on sector specific rules for Defence and Security.