The Defence and Public Accounts Committees have delivered a scathing letter to David Williams CB, the Ministry of Defence’s Permanent Secretary, condemning the department’s failure to publish a Defence Equipment Plan (MOD EP) for two consecutive years.
The letter, signed by Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, and Tan Dhesi, Chair of the Defence Committee, calls the absence of the plan an “unacceptable loss of transparency.”
In their letter, the committees rejected the reasons given by both the MOD and Defence Procurement Ministers for withholding the plan. The MOD had previously argued that the EP was no longer suitable due to “significant changes to the funding mechanisms for the Defence Nuclear Enterprise” and the “difficulty of reporting a single, timely long-term position for a plan with volatile assumptions.”
The committees pushed back, asserting that these issues are “reviews and reforms of defence and wider public spending driven by the Government,” and that “consistent information is essential to ensure affordability and demonstrate wise use of taxpayer funds.”
The committees further criticised the MOD for blocking the National Audit Office (NAO) from producing its own independent Equipment Plan for 2024, which had previously been a key tool for parliamentary scrutiny. “We are especially concerned that you have effectively prevented the NAO from producing its EP for 2024 by not supplying it with the information necessary to support this process,” the letter stated.
The committees highlighted a contradiction between the MOD’s actions and a November 2024 statement from the Defence Secretary, who had promised to “increase the transparency that we are able to provide to Parliament and this Committee.”
Instead, they argued, “transparency on acquisition, expenditure and capability has decreased, severely undermining the ability of both Committees to scrutinise the estimated £300 billion of taxpayers’ money planned to be spent on defence equipment over the next decade.”
The letter concluded by urging the Permanent Secretary to immediately provide the NAO with the information necessary for the creation of a 2024 Equipment Plan and demanded confirmation of this action by 25 February.
The committees also stated they were willing to work with the MOD to improve the plan’s contents, emphasising that “this must not be at the expense of transparency today, or the ability to monitor trends.”
It’s not published for very obvious reasons I think.
Another layer of smoke and mirrors.
Personally believe that it’s partly to do with not going to 2.5% of GDP any time this Parliament! That’s just my guess mind, don’t actually think that HMG ever had any intention of this increase either.
Deep, I don’t see a connection. The increase to 2.5% is future business. An EP written around current 2.3% should be released.
Hi Graham, it was my understanding that we would be going to 2.5% of GDP by 2030 (initially). Everything I’ve read thus far indicates that’s not likely to happen this side of 2030, so, who knows.
Hi Deep. I have heard that Starmer may delay increase to 2.5% to 2032 but that may be pre-SDR release posturing.My point was that an EP can be written this side of getting any increase ie based on 2.3%
The increase is needed and needs to be known about so it can be planned into the future spending and things like National Ship Building Strategy…..
Hi Graham, I am led to believe that DNE takes up approx 40% of the yearly MOD budget, which is a pretty hearty slice of the cake so to speak. Agree with you on your point, but, I still don’t believe that anything short of an actual atack on NATO, or the sudden collapse of the UK AFs will see the UK spend 2.5% or indeed greater on defence this side of a new parliament.
Have we fallen into the thinking that Russia is a spent force as some think, if so did we learn nothing from WW2? I know that we have lots of issues within the MOD as a whole, but money isn’t one of them, as if needs must it will be provided, by which time of course it will be to late!
Simply because it doesn’t add up to a number that makes any sense at all.
Problem with going back to hiding thinking and action is that there is little thought and no action. Just pontification and press releases.
The issue over DNE is a major worry as it is increasingly munching the green shoots from the conventional budget.
Part of the problem is the excessive H&S requirements in this country and everyone is terrified to sign off on anything without mountain of consultants reports [which also cost but further inject some, often unnecessary requirement for something to say and/or ass covering].
SB. Yes. Cartlidge said that taking out the DNE, then Defence is currently on 1.6% of GDP, a lot less than many or most of our non-nuclear ENATO colleagues.
Hi Daniele, hi folks hope all is well.
Exactly, always playing the game to fool the public and those that take interest in the defence of our nation.
Cheers
George
We don’t know what we’re doing says MOD procurement so we are certainly not going to tell anyone else.
Brilliant. Maybe some Trumpian “you’re fired” is needed?
What a useless department the MOD are. Not fit for purpose.
On the topic of public-money expenditure, my American colleagues and friends have always been stunned by the lack of transparency in the UK.
Remember the MP who bought a duck-island on expenses?
Remember all the dodgy dealings for pandemic PPE?
Martin, MoD always used to publish a whole host of information such as full accounts. DPAs etc. Now, and only very recently MoD is withholding DPAs and now EP. It is a new phenomenon. Not sure why your American friends have raised criticism before now.
If we did not have some transparency outside MoD we would not know at all about the duck ponds and the dodgy PPE deals etc.
Straight to the point HMG need a good kicking to wake up ⏰ 🙄
There is zero transparency, if we were to see the details those who care would be shouting from the rooftops! We are in a downward spiral of incompetence, blatant politicking and lies all caused by our various so called Governments!
All of three and four star level, uniformed or otherwise, within the Pentagon will shortly be asked to justify themselves and their job on one side of A4. Most, as a consequence, will be pensioned off.
There is no shortage of qualified youngsters to step into their shoes.
Personally, I would set up a Ministry of National Security staffed with outsiders and allow the Ministry of Defence, a moratorium on recruiting, to simply waste away. The culture there is not correctly orientated towards the best interests of British citizens and their security.
I doubt after the review we will even be spending 2% of GDP on defence, especially if Ukraine war ends. The figure was 2.2% according to independent assessment before the 500 million cut. A declining economy might skewer the percentage, but it will still be more cuts. Labour has a track record for defence cuts. I strongly suspect the last time Labour agreed to increased defence spending 1939/1940 ?
Cant beat a strongly worded letter can you? Comedy Club on speed this stuff.
All public expenditure has to be monitored and subject to annual scrutiny, because Parliament, the public and fhe defence industry have to be able to form a clear overview of how taxpayers’ money is being spent and whether the government’s plans are sound and affordable. The refusal by the Defence Procurement Minister and MOD to provide the necessary information on defence equipment plans is deplorable and totally unacceptable. It is well understood that HMG and the Civil Service want to hide the fact that all future equipment programmes – and many current ones – are unaffordable, due to the vast escalation in the cost of the nuclear programme in general and the Dreadnought SSBN in particular.
The nuclear enterprise has just jumped from 25% of the equipment budget to close on 40%, and looks likely to increase further. Money spent on nuclear is money no longer available to fund future programmes like the GCAP Tempest, T83 destroyer, future armoured fighting vehicles, FSSS and MRSS, UAVs and UUVs, etc.
The concern among the Whitehall.mandarins is that, were the true cash figures for nuclear known to Parliament and public, the question on everyone’s lips would be, can we really, on barely 2% of GDP, afford to have an independent nuclear deterrent? And if it is deemed so necessary for a small, middleweight country like the UK to do so, then it would need a sizeable boost to the defence budget.
The bottom line is that the UK is spending barely 2% of GDP on defence, not the contrived 2.17 the MOD now claims and certainly not the Boris 2.3% that includes money from the Treasury for Ukraine. Result: take out nuclear and we are spending only 1.5% of GDP on conventional defence, which puts us just about at the foot of NATO’s spending table, despite our endless boasting to the contrary.
The civil servants who run the MOD and DE&S increasingly seem to think that they are above scrutiny and that the whole subject of defence is too critical to have Parliament and the armed forces chiefs, let alone the public, having a view. The reality is they are marking their own homework and trying to hide that the defence procurement programme is simply unaffordable due to the cost of nuclear.
You can’t have one Whitehall department pretending to be above public accountability, Parliament needs to step up and demand the immediate release of future procurement plans and costs to the Public Accounts Committee, National Audit Office and Defence Committee, without which info cannot do their job.
Hi Deep, the UK tabled 2% at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014. A pity that NATO has not yet officially set a 2.5% figure. Pundits reckon that Starmer will increase to 2.5% in or by 2032. Starmer has pledged 2.5% and he could fail to deliver but I think he will set the timetable on release of the SDR report. I am rather shocked that the DNE spend is 40%, which means that conventional defence is 60% of 2.3% ie 1.38%, very much lower than Cartlidge’s estimate of 1.6%.
That 1.38% sets us well below what most non-nuclear ENATO nations spend. Trump will latch on to that and roast us.
‘Have we fallen into the thinking that Russia is a spent force as some think’
Many do think that. But, learning from history, Russia/USSR has always bounced back after major combat campaigns or operations to once again be beligerent to smaller nearby countries or regions.
We started rearming in 1934/35 and just about got the RAF into shape to succesfully prosecute the Battle of Britain in 1940. The army was not in good shape for a while longer. We are unlikely to get 5 or 6 years grace next time to get our ‘ducks in a row’.
Having unpragmatic rows about future hypothetical levels of GDP is just nauseating to watch. You have to start with need and then work back to budget.
Politicians and their obsession with %’s of GDP are missing the point.
The problem is that if there is an identified need to increase defence capabilities to meet and counter new and raised threats you need to increase defence numbers and capabilities to meet those threats.
The obstacle to meeting that objective today is that due to chronic underfunding of defence over many years we are not in the happy position of having a solid baseline in defence from which we can build up. We are instead in a hole where defence capabilities have been hollowed out and if urgent significant funding is not found our defence capabilities will contract further.
Right now we should be in a “Treasury shut up and just write the cheques” mode where we get the urgent funding just to plug dangerous gaps and to prevent further inevitable degradation of capability.
If the Treasury needs to balance the books today they then need to look elsewhere such as the pointless Net Zero energy subsidies, foreign aid slush funds or perhaps the Rainbow Police Car budget.
Cognitio, I agree with all that. I am horrified at stories that Lord Robertson has been told to redraft his SDR report at least once to reflect the budget available…and that might not even by 2.5% until 2032.
Regrettably the only time we are in a “Treasury shut up and just write the cheques” mode, is when troops have started to deploy on an Operation.