The Ministry of Defence has set out its thoughts on defence acquisition in the latest of a new series of policy papers.

The paper sets out how the MOD goes about procuring equipment for the Armed Forces, supporting it in service and ensuring the necessary land and infrastructure is in place.

Launching the paper, Procurement Minister Lord Bach said: "Defence acquisition is big business.

"We spend nearly £10 billion a year acquiring new equipment for the Armed Forces, sustaining 170,000 jobs, and a further £5 billion on construction and property management, stores and services.

"But this is not an end in itself. It is an important part of ensuring that our Armed Forces have the support and equipment they need to do the tasks we ask of them around the world.

"We have revolutionised the acquisition processes since the Strategic Defence review to make sure that our forces get the equipment they need faster, cheaper and better.

"We are also taking smart principles - for example, closer working with industry and looking at the whole life costs of projects - beyond equipment procurement into new areas such as construction and our Public Private Partnership programme. This booklet sets out all that and more."

Defence Acquisition is the fourth of the new series of defence policy papers which are designed to put more, and more relevant, information into the public domain and to stimulate thinking on defence issues.

Along with an annual Memorandum on Defence Policy, these papers replace the annual Defence White Paper, a version of which will now only appear every five years or where there is a major change in direction.

The other defence policy papers focus on Defence Diplomacy (December 2000), Multinational Defence Co-operation (February 2001) and European Defence (November 2001).