Q1 Chair: Welcome. A number of my Members want to try and keep this as a tight session. I am conscious that we let you down last time. It would be really helpful and the session will go much better-I know I say this to you, Ursula Brennan, every time- if you come at us direct, even if we do not like what you say. If you do that, we can probably get through many of the issues more quickly. As a starter, why is Bill Moore not here?
Ursula Brennan: There was some discussion with the Committee about this. With me are Bill Moore's boss, Vice-Admiral Lambert, and Lieutenant-General Coward, who is, if you like, the delivery side. So this is the requirements capability side and the delivery side. Bill Moore was going to be here, but there was some discussion about Paul Lambert coming, then the Committee came back to us at the end of last week, by which time Bill Moore, thinking he was not required, had gone off-
Q2 Chair: Was this when I said, "Not four; we've got to have three in," and he dropped out?
Ursula Brennan: Yes. I am not sure what happened, but he thought he was not needed and he is on holiday today.
Q3 Chair: We may come back to that, because he was clearly the SRO.
Ursula Brennan: He is not actually the SRO.
Q4 Chair: That is what our papers tell us.
Vice-Admiral Lambert: The SRO for the ground close combat is Brigadier John Patterson. Bill Moore is responsible to me and the Joint Capability Board for looking at the whole of the land environment and making sure that there is coherence with all the programmes across the land environment. But specifically for land vehicles, I have a head of capability who works with the Joint Capability Board and he is a brigadier.
Q5 Chair: How long has he been in that particular post?
Vice-Admiral Lambert:He has only been in that post since September. Before that I had Brigadier Riddell-Webster looking after that post and he was in the post for nearly three years.
Q6 Chair: Generally it is much more helpful for us and in the style of the Committee and the nature of our recommendations to get the responsible officer in front of us. You are running a massive multi-million pound procurement programme. Can I ask you first, Ursula Brennan, at what level of expenditure do you take the decisions?
Ursula Brennan: I do not personally take the decisions in quite that way. The decisions are taken and approvals are done by the Investment Approvals Committee on behalf of the Department. There is a structure of delegations within that and the biggest programmes tend to get discussed at the Defence Board and the previous Secretary of State set up a Major Projects Review Board to look at the biggest projects and review them more generally. But approvals are done through the Investment Approvals Committee.
Q7 Chair: Who chairs that?
Vice-Admiral Lambert: The finance director, JonThompson, chairs the Investment Approvals Committee.
Q8 Chair:So the decisions on these armoured vehicles are taken there?
Vice-Admiral Lambert: At the IAC, yes.
Q9 Chair: Right. Then let me ask you the second question. I don't know who wants to answer this one. What criteria do you use when you decide to cut armoured vehicle capability?
Ursula Brennan: The criteria that we used in the SDSR and then again in the thing we called the three-month exercise, which was announced in July, are a combination of actions needed to bring our budget into balance, the capabilities that we require as an organisation, and the capabilities that will most deliver the adaptable force that we set out in the SDSR. So Vice-Admiral Lambert is responsible for advising the Defence Board on, if that is our SDSR objective, what are the capabilities we need to deliver it and how should we prioritise below that.
Q10 Chair: Okay. So maybe you should answer the question. As far as I can tell from a rather complex Report, this was a £14 billion1 budget in 2005, thereabouts, when FRES was invented. It is now about £5 billion. Why did you decide to cut from £14 billion to £5 billion? I accept that it was not each time, but why? We have wasted a lot of money as per usual in this area, but why on earth did you decide to cut such a lot out of this capability?
Vice-Admiral Lambert: May I just go back to the previous question before I answer that one, if you don't mind, Chair? Investment Approval Committees make decisions on procurement and on spending. They do not make the decisions on which programmes are cut. I put up the arguments on which programmes we move ahead with and which ones we cut, basically on priorities and on capabilities.
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1 In 2005 the MoD planned to spend £4 billion on Armoured Vehicles over the next 10 years, not £14 billion.