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Departmental Research

Volume 479: debated on Monday 21 July 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what proportion of his Department's budget was used for research within its areas of responsibility in each of the last 10 years. (218065)

The following table shows total MOD expenditure on research activity in each of the last 10 financial years for which complete data are available. Figures are inclusive of non-recoverable VAT, expressed at current prices, and presented in £ million. Because of transitional arrangements with the introduction of resource accounting and budgeting, the figures are expressed as a percentage of the MOD net cash requirement from 2001-02 in order to provide a broad comparison over the period. Before this point, MOD reported its expenditure on a cash accounting basis.

£ millions

MOD departmental net research Expenditure

Percentage of aggregate MOD expenditure

1996-97

672

3.0

1997-98

564

2.7

1998-99

560

2.5

1999-00

552

2.4

2000-01

566

2.4

2001-02

557

2.2

2002-03

515

1.9

2003-04

524

1.8

2004-05

639

2.2

2005-06

598

2.0

Source:

UK Defence Statistics

The net cash requirement (NCR) is the actual money that MOD requests from the Government in order to fund its activities. The NCR takes account of movements in working capital levels (debtors, creditors, stock) while excluding all non-cash costs (e.g. depreciation and cost of capital charges etc.) The term "Department" has been interpreted as the MOD not including its trading fund agencies (i.e. ABRO, DARA, Met Office, DSTL and Hydrographic Office). This aligns with the MOD annual report and accounts.