As the hon. Lady may recall, the original proposed contract, which was considered under her Administration, was for more than double the number of vehicles for which we have contracted. Consequently, the number of people potentially employed is significantly lower. However, the contract for the Scout vehicle, at £3.5 billion, is the largest contract that the British Army has received, and involves some 160 companies, predominantly in the UK. It will sustain 1,400 jobs in the UK, and we are currently actively exploring the opportunity for the onshore assembly of vehicles, from 101 to 589.

When Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) became a bespoke trading entity on 1 April 2014 it was given a broad range of freedoms, agreed by HM Treasury and the Cabinet Office, to allow it to manage its business, outputs and workforce within an operating cost envelope set to drive significant efficiencies. The bidders for the Managed Service Provider work packages are not granted freedoms and flexibilities; they are being procured via standard commercial practices to provide tailored external skills to support DE&S as it uses its freedoms to transform and to deliver the equipment programme.

The Complex Weapons Programme is on track to deliver significant cost benefits, providing greater flexibility and responsiveness to changing requirements, and supporting the industrial skills and capabilities needed to deliver Operational Advantage and Freedom of Action. Financial benefits of £196 million have so far been achieved against a forecast of £1.2 billion.

The Submarine Enterprise Performance Programme is also making good progress, with the signature of two of the three Foundation Contracts, the establishment of a robust benefits delivery and audit process, and the formation of the Submarine Portfolio Office providing a coherent joint programming function across the Enterprise. Financial benefits of £356 million have so far been achieved against a forecast of £900 million.

We continue to make excellent progress on the competition for the Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and expect to place the first contracts in the next few weeks.

The MSPs will have an important role in supporting the transformation of Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) into a world class programme management organisation, capable of delivering the best possible equipment and support to our Armed Forces. Strengthening the relationship between the Service Commands and DE&S is a key aspect of the transformation programme.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) has awarded no new direct contracts to Boskalis Westminster NV or any of its subsidiaries in the last five years. There is one existing contract in place with SMIT, a towage and salvage company which is a subsidiary of Boskalis, and this was awarded in 2002, under the last Administration, for marine base support services. In addition, Boskalis performs some dredging duties at Portsmouth, Marchwood and Plymouth under subcontract to Debut.

Boskalis has been issued with a formal warning on one occasion for breaching a licence issued by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) to allow dredging at Devonport by disposing on an incoming tide. Boskalis immediately informed the MMO of their error and the formal warning was issued. No further action is being taken.

The final cost of supporting our work on the Government Owned Contractor Operated (GOGO) competition is £7.4 million. This investment has provided valuable insight into the challenges involved in establishing a successful GOCO. The outputs from this work will be retained to inform any future GOCO competition should a decision be taken to re-examine this model as part of the continuing transformation of Defence Equipment and Support.

Details of overall Ministry of Defence expenditure with small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are available at the following link:

http://www.dasa.mod.uk/index.php/publications/finance-and-economics/MOD-contracting-with-small-and-medium-sized-enterprises/financial-year-2012-13

A breakdown of SME expenditure by UK region is not, however, routinely produced as part of this publication. This information will take additional time to collate and I will write to the hon. Member shortly.

Substantive answer from Mr Dunne to Alison Seabeck:

Further to the answer I gave on 6th January 2014, (Official Report, column 13W) to your recent question about expenditure with Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), I am now able to provide you with a substantive response.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) does not routinely record information on the geographic location of its supply chain. The information extracted from the management information systems picks up payments made by the MOD to individuals and businesses by their billing address, which therefore does not necessarily identify the location where the work was undertaken.

The level of direct MOD expenditure placed with SMEs in each of the English regions and other constituent parts of the UK in each of the last three financial years (FY) for which data is available is shown in the following table. This also shows the number of SMEs in each region that were paid directly by the MOD in each of these years. The rise in the number of SMEs engaged by MOD across these years reflects the availability of more accurate data to enable SMEs to be correctly categorised.

The analysis is based on direct expenditure with companies positively identified as SMEs who have a UK billing address with a valid postcode recorded by the MOD. It does not include payments made (a) on behalf of other government departments, (b) by the MOD'S Trading Funds and Executive Non Departmental Public Bodies, (c) locally by the Department, or (d) through third parties such as prime contractors or other government departments. For these reasons, it only provides a partial assessment of total direct MOD expenditure by region and does not represent a replication of the official statistics on direct MOD expenditure by Government Office Region which were discontinued in 2008. These statistics were based on a different methodology and coverage including MOD personnel costs by region and adjustments for pan-MOD or pan-Government expenditure, amongst other items.

You should also note that, unlike the answers I previously gave to the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), on 12th December 2013 (Official Report, column 343W), on SME expenditure in Scotland and to the hon. Member for Poole (Robert Syms) on 25th November 2013 (Official Report, column 36W), on SME expenditure in the South West, the above figures include miscellaneous non-contract payments and are not restricted to contracts worth over £5 million.

A copy of this letter will be placed in the Library of the House.

Details on the new Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisational structure are planned to be published in April. Further details on pay and conditions will be released in due course.

The next version of ‘How Defence Works’ will be published in April 2014. A copy will be placed in the Library of the House.

The breakdown of the Equipment Procurement Programme into committed and uncommitted is published in the Defence Equipment Plan 2012. We will update the figures in the Defence Equipment Plan 2013, which will be published this year.

Details of overall Ministry of Defence expenditure with small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) are available at the following link:

http://www.dasa.mod.uk/index.php/publications/finance-and-economics/MOD-contracting-with-small-and-medium-sized-enterprises/financial-year-2012-13

A breakdown of SME expenditure by UK region is not, however, routinely produced as part of this publication. This information will take additional time to collate and I will write to the hon. Member shortly.

The Ministry of Defence does not recognise the term “project trust funds” in relation to UK defence contracts.

We have spent some £7.4 million supporting our work on the GOCO option. That investment has allowed us to understand better the challenges we need to meet to make a GOCO work and the outputs will be retained to inform any future competition.

The new entity does not require an impact assessment because its creation does not require new legislation.

I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave on 4 December 2013, Official Report, column 674W, to the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson).

The review was conducted by a Crown Commercial Lead in the Cabinet Office, and Commercial Operations Director in the Ministry of Defence, both of whom have external commercial backgrounds.

The reviewers consulted widely among parties involved in the GoCo procurement and the Ministry of Defence's operations.

Non-lethal force protection has been interpreted as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), such as helmets and plates, personal load carrying equipment (including webbing, belts and pouches) and CBRN suits. The anticipated expenditure for these purchases for financial year 2014-15 is some £16 million. This does not include Concept and Assessment Phase expenditure for developing new CBRN suits.

In addition, VIRTUS, which aims to deliver an integrated helmet and torso protection solution (including face, eye, pelvic and knee protection) optimising the whole system capability for service personnel, has a budget of approximately £5 million for financial year 2014-15.

The Department has not commissioned any of the companies listed to conduct outside reviews of the proposed GOCO option.

[holding answer 10 September 2013]: The cross-departmental review is assessing GoCo competition. Each of the bidders involved has already been through a pre-qualification process. As we progress towards a decision between a GoCo and a public sector solution we will continue to scrutinise closely both individual consortia members and the market more widely.

This information has already been made public. In the event of a decision to proceed with a GoCo for Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S), the Maritime domain will be included in the first stage along with the Common Resource Platform which includes elements of the finance, human resources and commercial functions across DE&S. This information has been promulgated through internal MOD communications, through the Invitation to Negotiate that was provided to bidding consortia and through the media.