Defence Select Committee publishes Eighth Report

The Defence Select Committee this morning published its eighth report of this session on the Ministry of Defence's Annual Report and Accounts for 2010-2011. 

The Committee has described it as 'grotesque' that 40% of planned military redundancies are to be compulsory while the MoD's current civilian redundancies will be entirely voluntary. This discrepancy is not acceptable, and something we have called on to be addressed. Senior Civil Servants reported to the Committee that this is because 'a large number of Civil Servants have flexible skills that enable them to work in a variety of places'; in my mind, this entirely disregards the breadth of skills and flexibility that is the hallmark of our armed forces and a direct product of the training they receive.

This is also the fifth year in a row that the MoD's accounts have not been signed off by the National Audit Office. Nobody doubts the unique challenges the MoD faces, but they cannot remain unaccountable, and standard accounting procedures still need to apply.

You can view the full report online here, and my views are outlined fully in my article today on Conservative Home, here.

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John at Defence Select Committee

Sir Jock Stirrup has warned that the armed forces will be "substantially smaller" than currently planned unless the next Government introduces a real terms spending increase from 2015.

The former Chief of the Defence Staff told the Defence Committee today: "The plan is all based around recovering from 2015 onwards... there is a lot of planning going on but it does all depend on money.

"So the key question is what plans are there for ensuring that whoever forms the Government in the second half of this decade ensures that there is real terms increase in Defence spending over that period."

Asked by Tory MP John Glen about the implications should the money not be made available, he said: "The reality is that the future forces [plan] would be completely unaffordable and the armed forces would have to be substantially smaller than is currently planned to be the case."

Visit to USA in April 2011

This week, I am in the US with my House of Commons Defence Select Committee colleagues. We are visiting military institutions and meeting key personnel in Tampa Florida, Norfolk Virginia, and Washington DC as part of our ongoing enquiries. This follows the time we spent in Afghanistan at the beginning of the year meeting serving soldiers on the frontline. Last night I met Maj Gen Chip Chapman from Shaftesbury and another senior officer from Harnham at Central Command! Salisbury military keep tabs on me wherever I go! These photographs were taken yesterday at US Central Command in Tampa and on the USS George H W Bush.