Speeches by Pollard.

“I thank the hon. Member for his question. The Army has a number of vehicles that, as we have heard in this discussion, have been in service for a long period. In refreshing our capabilities, it is not just the Ajax platform that we as a nation are seeking to update, but the Land Rovers and a whole host of other platfor…”

“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of logistics. I am reminded that without Colonel James Sunderland—a logistics colonel who sat on the Conservative Benches—the House is slightly light on that expertise at the moment. It is important that we look at whether the system is working properly. When …”

“Every single day, brilliant people in defence companies large and small deliver incredible capabilities for the UK’s armed forces. In many cases, we are using faster procurement and new permissions for our friends in Ukraine. There are lessons that we are learning from the experience of supporting our friends in Ukrain…”

“The hon. Member is right that we need to end this saga. It has gone on for too long, and I am not happy with any of our equipment being used by our service personnel if it is not safe. Since I became a Minister, I have taken a number of decisions to pause the use of certain equipment because I had safety concerns about…”

“I deliberately did not use the same words as the shadow Defence Secretary because I have not seen the evidence of what has happened in this case. I am reserving judgment about the advice given to me, but I am asking for a review into the accuracy and timeliness of it to ensure that the information given to me is right.…”

“When the DIP is published, I would expect considerable parliamentary scrutiny.”

“My initial concern is for the soldiers who have been involved with the latest concern on 22 November as part of the Titan Storm exercise. I gave an update in the written ministerial statement that I am sure the Committee has seen, but, just so that colleagues are aware, around 30 soldiers reported noise and vibration e…”

“There are opportunities there, but I do not want to simply open the doors to the club and say, “Come on in,” without clarity about what projects we want people to participate in and where we see there being an advantage for the UK and the trilateral partners of further participation. That could be cost-sharing; it coul…”

“While pillar 1 is very clearly a trilateral arrangement, we have set out that we believe that there are opportunities within pillar 2 for other nations to be involved. Canada, New Zealand, Japan and the Republic of Korea are the nations that have expressed interest and we believe are closest to having the close collabo…”

“The objective of pillar 2 is to narrow down the number of projects to a smaller number so that the funding, the use cases and the tech challenge we are trying to overcome can be clearer. That sets a clearer demand signal for those partners in the nations that are involved with those pillar 2 programmes to be able to go…”

“The defence investment plan will come out shortly. We are certainly seeing the energy from industry around Rupert’s appointment as National Armaments Director and a lot of energy around the changes he is putting in place.”

“I do not know the answer to all those questions off the top of my head, but I want to get them right. I will write to the Committee with the full details of those. I do not want to get something wrong.”

“Yes. The NAD is in charge of the National Armaments Director Group. We have pieced together quite a lot of the disparate bits of the MoD under there. UKDI is a really key part of—”

“It is the National Armaments Director.”

“I do not want to say something that is not correct, so I will write to the Committee to check and get you the correct answer.”

“We are defining that at the moment. I am happy to write to the Committee with the full details once that has been set out.”

“We are seeking the leadership role for UKDI at the moment, but in terms of the clear direction—”

“UKDI is part of NAD Group, yes.”

“NAD Group helps to deliver the integrated force plan and the defence investment plan. Effectively, MSHQ creates the integrated force plan. What do they need? When do they need it? NAD Group goes out and buys that, but it is also involved in the problem sets. In the past, defence would say, “Buy this thing. Here is a lo…”

“The SDR sets out the context; the defence investment plan sets out broadly the big buckets in terms of the technologies and platforms we wish to procure against certain parts of that. The demand signal within that comes from the National Armaments Director Group, the NAD Group, which will effectively set the priorities…”