Treasury Committee
8 July 2026
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Treasury Committee Actual start House of Commons
22:06 - 23:22
Speaker 1
Order, order.
Welcome to the Treasury Select Committee on Wednesday the 8th of July 2026. Today, I'm delighted to welcome colleagues from our sister committee, the Defence Select Committee, to question ministers from His Majesty's Treasury and the Ministry of Defence. And specifically, we have Lucy Rigby, who is the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and a former member of this committee, so she knows what to expect. Luke Pollard is the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry at the Ministry of Defence. And they're joined by officials from their departments, Conrad Smewing, who's the Director General for Public Spending and the co-head of the Government Finance Function at His Majesty's Treasury, and Aneen Blackmore, who's the Director General for Finance at the Ministry of Defence.
So, it's about money and procurement and capability today, so we're looking forward to short, sharp answers from our witnesses on this hot day. So, can I start, I'll start if I can with you, Minister, Minister Pollard. It was widely trailed in the run-up to the Defence Investment Plan that there was a 28 million pound gap in the budget and you got a 15 billion pound increase. Is there a gap between the funding that you've got and what you wanted to deliver in the Defence Investment Plan?
23:22 - 24:06
Speaker 3
Although I don't recognize those precise figures, what we have been doing in this process is taking the equipment plan that we inherited from the last government, the unfunded elements of that, which added up to a larger total even though there's no money attached to them, and then matching those down to the recommendations of the strategic defense review. That got us to a figure roughly around the 15 billion pound mark. And then in parallel, it wasn't just the totality of the increased defense spending, it was also elements around the RDEL, CDEL mix and also how we can spend that on readiness in the earlier years rather than having increased defense spending in later years when there's a need for investment in the early years.
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