The Defence Reform Act 2014 is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...

concerned with defence procurement and the UK

Reserve Forces A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve ...

, particularly the Territorial Army. It has 51 sections and seven schedules. Part 1 of the Act relates to defence procurement in general. Part 2 created a statutory framework for single-source contracts, operating in accordance with the Single Source Contract Regulations. The Single Source Regulations Office (SSRO) was established under the Act. Part 3 is concerned with reserve forces: the Army Reserve was renamed the Regular Reserve and the Territorial Army was renamed the Army Reserve.

Parliamentary history

First reading

The Act had its

first reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

on 3 July 2013. Its backers were the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Treasury Chief Secretary

Danny Alexander Sir Daniel Grian Alexander (born 15 May 1972) is a former politician who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 2010 and 2015. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey constituency from 2005 u ...

, Business Secretary

Vince Cable Sir John Vincent Cable (born 9 May 1943) is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet a ...

, Justice Secretary

Chris Grayling Christopher Stephen Grayling (born 1 April 1962) is a British Conservative Party politician and author who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 2016 to 2019. He has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Epsom and Ewell since 2001 ...

, Cabinet Office Minister

Francis Maude Francis Anthony Aylmer Maude, Baron Maude of Horsham, (born 4 July 1953) is a British Conservative Party politician and life peer who served as Minister of State for Trade and Investment from 2015 to 2016, having previously served as Minist ...

Dominic Grieve Dominic Charles Roberts Grieve (born 24 May 1956) is a British barrister and former politician who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 2008 to 2009 and Attorney General for England and Wales from 2010 to 2014. He served as the Member of Parl ...

and the Bill Minister, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Philip Dunne.

Second reading

The

second reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming ...

in the House of Commons took place on 16 July 2013.

Subsequent stages

Subsequent Parliamentary stages were as follows: The Bill returned to the

on 29 April 2014, where a

programme motion Cloture (, also ), closure or, informally, a guillotine, is a motion or process in parliamentary procedure aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. ' ...

was passed, and

Commons Consideration of Lords' Amendments The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...

took place.

Royal Assent

The Bill was given

Royal Assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in othe ...

(and thus became an Act) on 14 May 2014.

References