Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, with reference to page 21 of the Defence Industrial Strategy: Making Defence an Engine for Growth, published on 8 September 2025, CP 1388, what steps he has taken to reform his Department's (a) procurement and (b) acquisition systems.

Implementation of the procurement and acquisition reforms set out in the Defence Industrial Strategy is underway, under the new National Armaments Director who took up post on 14 October 2025.

We are introducing service-agnostic capability portfolios, aligned with wider departmental reforms. The portfolio-driven approach will increase pace and adaptability, enabling us to maximise the output from our investment, reduce waste and be more market aligned.

Five commercial pathways have been launched for Spiral, Urgent, Design to Cost, Digital & Technology and Low Complexity Procurement. These pathways underpin the new segmented approach to procurement. A new Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) commercial pathway is being introduced to increase the number of opportunities for SMEs and make our contracting processes simpler, less onerous and faster.

The Defence Supply Chain Capability Programme will create greater resilience, speed and adaptability in the supply chain to underpin our warfighting edge and help to drive economic growth in the context of increasing global instability.