Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to the Foreword to his Department's document entitled Defence Nuclear Enterprise 2026 Annual Update to Parliament, published on 15 September 2026, if he will set out how he has amended the Single Source Contract Regulations.

The Department has been working on a review of the Single Source Contract Regulations, which governs some of the nation’s largest and most strategically important defence procurements and accounts for around half of defence spending on equipment. In May, we changed the law to increase the amount of profit available to suppliers delivering priority outcomes, such as faster delivery or greater productivity. We will be introducing further legislative changes this year to incentivise innovation, reduce the regulatory burden on Small and Medium Enterprise and encourage our suppliers to take on more risk bearing contracts, a Defence Industrial Strategy commitment.