Call for Evidence

The Committee would like to hear from you to help inform its inquiry. We welcome written submissions from anyone with responses to any or all of the questions in the call for evidence:

1. What factors have contributed to the historical and ongoing low levels of MoD spending with industry in Northern Ireland?
2. Could the MoD make more use of Northern Ireland’s defence industrial base and cyber security capabilities?
3. Are planned increases in MoD capital budgets over the period to 2027-28 likely to lead to increased MoD spending with industry in Northern Ireland?
4. Why is MoD expenditure with SMEs in Northern Ireland so much lower than in other parts of the UK?
5. Does Northern Ireland’s workforce have the skills needed to support scale up of the defence and security industries?
6. How will recent changes to MoD policy on procurement and its strategic relationship with industry affect companies in Northern Ireland?
7. Could additional government support help businesses in Northern Ireland’s defence and cyber security industries to increase exports of their products and services?

You can submit evidence until 23:59 on Thursday 7 March.

If you have any questions about submitting evidence to this inquiry, please email northircom@parliament.uk or call 020 7219 8684.

Important information about making a submission

Please read this section before making a submission.

Written evidence must address the terms of reference as set out above, but please note that submissions do not have to address every point. Guidance on giving evidence to a select committee of the House of Commons is available here.

Individual cases

In line with the general practice of select committees the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee is not able to take up individual cases. If you would like political support of advice you may wish to contact your local Member of Parliament.

How your submission will be treated

The Committee will decide whether to accept a submission and whether to publish it on its website. All written evidence will be considered by the Committee, whether or not it is published. If your submission is accepted by the Committee, it will usually be published online and will be available permanently for anyone to view. It can’t be changed or removed. If you have included your name or any personal information in your submission, that will normally be published too. Please consider carefully how much personal information you need to share. If you include personal information about other people in your submission, the Committee may decide not to publish it. It is advisable to make your submission about your own experiences and to keep information about other people to a minimum. Your contact details will never be published.

Evidence accepted by the Committee is protected by parliamentary privilege.

 Anonymisation

If you would like to ask the Committee to accept your submission anonymously (meaning it will be published but without your name), or confidentially (meaning it won’t be published at all), please say at the start of your evidence which of these you request, and tell us why. This lets the Committee know what you would like but the final decision will be taken by the Committee.

If you would like to request that your submission be published anonymously, then you are responsible for ensuring you cannot be identified from your submission. Please make sure you have not included information that would allow someone to work out who you are.

We many anonymise or redact some of your submission if it is published, even where you have not requested this.

Confidential submissions

The Committee may decide to accept evidence on a confidential basis. Confidential submission remain available to the Committee but are not published or referred to in public.

If you would like to ask the Committee to accept your submission confidentially, please tick the box when you make your submission. This lets the Committee know what you would like but the final decision will be taken by the Committee.

We may treat submissions confidentially, even where you have not requested this.

Legal cases

We can’t publish submissions that mention ongoing legal cases – contact us if you are not sure what this means for you.

Click on the start button below to submit written evidence.