In our March 2023 Report ‘Special Relationships? The US, UK and NATO’ we highlighted the issue of industrial capacity in relation to supply chain capacity and a lack of skilled workers.152 We were told by Government that: Further developing strategic alignment with industry will mean that together we can better understand long-term strategic challenges and identify solutions to issues such as the availability of critical skills, resilience within the supply chain, and productivity. We will ou...

In our March 2023 Report ‘Special Relationships? The US, UK and NATO’ we highlighted the issue of industrial capacity in relation to supply chain capacity and a lack of skilled workers.152 We were told by Government that: Further developing strategic alignment with industry will mean that together we can better understand long-term strategic challenges and identify solutions to issues such as the availability of critical skills, resilience within the supply chain, and productivity. We will outline how we are working more closely with industry in the upcoming Defence Command Paper Refresh.153 Type: conclusion | Number: 71 | Response status: accepted Government response: £1.95Bn was allocated in the 2023 Spring Budget to address long-standing challenges across the defence programme to improve our resilience, which will make us better able to respond to new threats. This funding is being used to build the department’s munitions and medical stockpiles and support a wi