Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to paragraph 27 on page 64 of his Department's Defence Investment Plan, published 30 June 2026, if he will set out the planned reforms to reduce average time-to-contract for major platforms, modular upgrades and rapidly evolving technologies.

The Defence Investment Plan sets out acquisition reforms designed to reduce the average time to contract and drive capability delivery. On 1 April 2026, the National Armaments Director Group launched a segmented approach to procurement, which tailors acquisition routes to the type of capability, supplier, and level of risk.

The Ministry of Defence has established three acquisition segments:

• major platforms (such as tanks, frigates and aircraft), with a target to reduce the average time to first contract from six years to two years;

• pace-setting modular upgrades (such as communications, sensors and weapons upgrades), with a target to reduce the average time to first contract from three years to one year; and

• rapid commercial exploitation (such as uncrewed systems), with a target of three-month acquisition cycles.

These reforms are supported by the Accelerating Commercial Pathways (ACP) programme, which aims to improve the Ministry of Defence's ability to harness flexibilities in the commercial process and ensure that commercial approaches are tailored to the needs of individual procurements, including through the use of flexibilities provided by the Procurement Act 2023. The programme has launched six Commercial Pathways and, since March 2025, over 300 procurements have self-selected one or more pathways