§ Mr. Matthew TaylorTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what is the purpose of operational requirements which are issued by his Department; which section of his Department is responsible for issuing operational requirements; how many operational requirements have been issued since 31 December 1998; and how many of these operational requirements are currently unclassified. [93933]
§ Mr. Kilfoyle"Operational requirement" is a generic term used to describe the detailed documentation setting out a military requirement for equipment, in preparation for possible procurement action. It is prepared by staff reporting to the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Equipment Capability), in consultation with others in my Department, and may, when appropriate, be made available to industry during the procurement process. Since 31 December 1998, work has been initiated on some 196 new operational requirements. There is no central record of the numbers of operational requirements issued to industry. Since such documents give details of our planned future military capability, they are almost invariably classified.