Speeches by Williams.

“Sorry, Chair—”

“As the NAO Report suggests, the next opportunity for us to look at legislative changes to establish an NDPB would be in the next armed forces Bill. I cannot pre-empt precisely the content of the Government’s legislative programme for their second Session, but we are obliged to update the current one by the end of 2026.…”

“For me, the two principal recommendations from the Sullivan review are two sides of the same coin. The move to an NDPB is about streamlining, professionalising and making more effective the structures on the RFCA side of the equation. The establishment of the SRO role with General Marc is about co-ordinating what is st…”

“As General Overton is the SRO, let him mark his own homework and then we will see whether other members of the panel want to chip in.”

“It is the Government’s preferred route forward in terms of providing a streamlined organisational basis that allows us to simplify some of the back-office functions and clarify accountabilities. The conversation that we are in with the council and the 13 RFCAs is about how we do that in a way that preserves, supports a…”

“I echo your opening remarks, which emphasised the renewed importance attached to the reserve, both the active reserve made up of volunteers, but also the strategic reserve—those former members of the armed forces with a liability for recall—in the strategic defence review, as well as the ambition to grow the cadet forc…”

“I agree with you that a range of our most complex equipment programmes take a long time. As we touched on in the last hearing with the MOD in this Committee, one of the equipment procurement reforms that we are pursuing—it is set out in the strategic defence review—is a greater segmentation of our programmes for those …”

“Ah, okay. Right. Something off topic, but—”

“I agree with you—and obviously the same is true of the Welsh Government, and a more tailored approach in Northern Ireland.”

“The SDR itself sets out some different timelines. There is the growth in cadets by 2030. That is clearly going to need big investment and engagement during this Parliament. The re-establishment or re-formalisation of our relationship with the strategic reserve can take longer, but there are some specific waypoint targe…”

“At the moment, the plan relates to these tranches that the general has set out. There is a point of review for us as we think about not only the growth of the active reserve but in particular, over time, how we want to reinvigorate our relationship with the strategic reserve, and think about them as being a source that…”

“Well, securing the funding is consistent with the direction of travel in the SDR. Obviously, there will be some choices about sequencing and prioritisation this Parliament—about the speed at which we take forward some of those recommendations—but I am certainly confident that it will feature in the debate.”

“I think it will be an investment choice that we consider, as part of the defence investment plan work starting now through to the autumn, to give effect to the SDR.”

“Chair, as Aneen sets out, this is an issue that I hope we would be able to clarify and rationalise as part of a transition to an NDPB, where rationally, the built estate would then sit on the NDPB’s accounts and we would consolidate them into the Department rather than sitting here. That is another thing that we might …”

“Particularly where sites have been donated, for whose beneficial use they are may depend on the terms of any donation.”

“Well, I certainly think I am underwriting the risk of any failure—”

“I have made this point to the Committee before: we talk about the challenges of annuality—one year at a time—in our budgets quite a lot in defence, but, at the departmental level, for the £62 billion we are getting in ’25-26, I am only formally held to account by Parliament for about five or six numbers. The change for…”

“I think that with a single NDPB the ability to comply with Treasury guidelines and the production of timely accounts will be easier to deliver, but will come with a higher degree of expectation that we are indeed going to hit that. The only point I would add from a departmental perspective concerns the consolidation of…”

“I would not characterise it as an oversensitivity. The focus of our sponsorship of cadets is not about increasing the pipeline of potential recruits, but getting to know the armed forces and some of the ethos there will be attractive to some young people. The SDR has also set out an idea of a sort of gap year programme…”

“Let me be clear: the cadet force—the cadet movement—is not a recruitment programme for the armed forces. It is a youth movement. For me, it is about the benefit of bringing on young people, young adults, with a set of skills that allow them to fulfil their potential. It supports social mobility both through hard skills…”