Catherine McKinnell, Member of Parliament for Newcastle North, challenged the Defence Secretary on the action being taken to ensure that the Government delivers on NATO obligations.

In November 2022 the National Audit Office reported that the Ministry of Defence’s equipment plan was ‘out of date’ and based on ‘optimistic assumptions’ with 42 of 45 major defence projects not being delivered on time or on budget.

During Defence Questions on Monday 20 January, Catherine stated “there are growing concerns about the impact of delays and the management of defence programmes on our defence readiness”. Catherine then asked the Defence Secretary “what specifically is he doing to ensure that the UK will meet our UK NATO obligations in full.”

Following the question, Catherine commented:

“The Government is failing to fix the broken defence procurement system. We need to ensure that we are meeting our NATO obligations. Labour would apply a NATO Test on major defence projects within the first one hundred days in office to ensure we are delivering.”