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Defence in the UK

At the top level, the answer is the Secretary of State and my new ministerial friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), who is the Minister with responsibility for defence procurement. Of course, the chief of defence matériel reports to them on all the issues concerned with the procurement of equipment for our armed forces, so the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the chief of defence matériel is not in charge. We live in a democracy, after all, and I thought that the right hon. Gentleman and all Opposition Members understood that point. My favourite example of procurement and deployment is the Mastiff vehicle—a piece of kit that soldiers have heaped praise on, and which was taken from the order book to the battlefield in less than 23 weeks, making a big impact on operations in a very short time frame. We need to ensure that we recreate that example again and again: sourcing what our armed forces need, ordering it and getting it out to them in theatre as quickly as possible. However, equally, we cannot take our eye off the ball in delivering for the long term.