Lords committee explores lessons from Ukraine for UK defence procurement and production

The session will start at 10:30am and will be available to watch live or on demand at Parliament TV, or attend in person in Committee Room 4, Palace of Westminster.

Giving evidence will be:

• Air Marshal (retd) Edward Stringer, former Director-General of the Defence Academy and Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange;
• Dr Marc DeVore, Senior Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St Andrews and;
• Tim Lawrenson, Associate Fellow, Defence and Military Analysis, International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Questions will include:

• In your view, what are the most acute challenges for European military production that have been exposed by the war in Ukraine?
• What progress has the UK Government made to replace stocks donated to Ukraine? How does this compare to progress made by our European partners?
• What are the challenges of increasing and maintaining longer-term military industrial capacity and moving away from the “just-in-time” delivery model? What progress has been made towards increasing slack capacity?
• What steps should governments be taking to improve the coordination of defence procurement within Europe, and between NATO members more broadly (including the UK)? What recommendations would you make to strengthen such coordination?
• How feasible is it for the UK and its allies to maintain larger munition stockpiles? What balance should the UK Government strike between increasing the stockpiles of expensive, high-end items compared to stocks of less sophisticated weaponry?