The role played by parliament

The Lower House of the Dutch parliament

The purchase of the JSF is a major investment in defence materiel. The Lower House of the Dutch parliament is closely involved in the political decision-making process. The government informs the Lower House about key steps it is planning to take in the process of replacing the F-16 and acquiring the JSF. Examples of such key steps include signing a cooperation agreement for the international JSF programme and ordering aircraft (both test aircraft and regular JSFs). Although the government does not formally require the approval of the Lower House, in practice the Minister of Defence seeks to win parliamentary support for his or her policy. The fact is that the funds for pursuing the country’s defence policy come from the defence budget, over which the Lower House does have decision-making authority given that government budgets are adopted as acts of law.

Key aspects for the Lower House

The following aspects of the parliamentary process for the JSF are the main areas of concern for the Lower House:

• the budgetary process;
• the Regulations on Major Projects;
• the Defence Materiel Process (DMP).

The budgetary process

The Lower House decides whether to approve the defence budget, as part of the annual budgetary and accountability process. A draft budget for the coming year is presented to the Lower House on the second Tuesday in September.  The Lower House receives a report on the spending of the previous year’s budget on the third Wednesday in May. The Netherlands Court of Audit publishes an annual accountability report on the financial statements published for each ministry.

The draft budget submitted to the Lower House is accompanied by a list of materiel projects prepared by the Minister of Defence. This is a publication listing the weapon systems used by the Netherlands. There is generally one page of standardised information on each weapon system, i.e. the investments made in the system, a time line, financial information and references to relevant parliamentary papers. The Lower House debates with the Minister, asks questions (both orally and in writing) and is entitled to table motions.

Motions

A motion is a proposal put forward by and voted on in the Lower House of parliament. The result of the vote is recorded in a document known as the ‘Proceedings of the Lower House’, which contains the minutes of plenary sessions.

Ministers are not obliged to act on motions tabled by parliament. Whether or not they do depends on the circumstances. If a minister decides not to act on a particular motion, he or she must explain why. In the explanatory memorandum accompanying their budgets, ministers list recently passed motions and describe the current situation in relation to the topics addressed by the motions in question.

Regulations on Major Projects

The Regulations on Major Projects form a parliamentary document under which the Lower House is entitled to designate a project as a ‘major project’. Once a project has been labelled as such, the responsible minister is required to present regular progress reports to the Lower House. The Lower House decides what type of information the minister is required to give. If the House takes the view that the information supplied by the minister is not adequate, it is entitled to reject the report, in which case the minister has seven days in which to supply more detailed or more accurate information.

On 17 June 1999, the Lower House designated the project for the replacement of the F-16 as a 'major project'. A series of special ‘Memoranda setting out the information requirements underlying the Major Project for the Replacement of the F-16’ agreed between the Lower House and the Minister of Defence contain detailed arrangements for communications between parliament and the Minister. They concern the frequency with which progress reports should be published and the type of information they should contain. The Lower House has posted these memoranda on its website.

The progress reports on the project for the replacement of the F-16 and the acquisition of the JSF are signed by the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Economic Affairs (restyled as the Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in 2017). Until 2014, the ministers were required to present a progress report at least once a year, but the frequency was intensified in 2014 to twice a year. In 2018, the Minister of Defence suggested lowering the frequency to once a year and her proposal was approved by the Lower House.

Defence Materiel Process (DMP)

The Defence Materiel Process (DMP) also plays an important role in the way in which parliament is kept informed of developments.

Letter from the Court of Audit on the information status of the Lower House

In 2013, we published a letter addressed to the Lower House of the Dutch parliament about the House’s information status in relation to the replacement of the F-16. We concluded that there were gaps in the information provided to the House on key aspects of this major project when set against the specific reporting requirements formulated by the House. The main reason for this was that the government systematically put off its answers to the House’s questions to a later stage of the DMP.

Lessons learned from the JSF project

In March 2019, we published an audit report on the decision-making process for the JSF. This report was entitled Lessons learned from the JSF project: Keeping major defence procurement projects under control. The report examines the various processes affecting decision-making on the JSF. We draw 11 ‘lessons’ from more than 20 years of audits of the JSF project, containing both best practices and warnings that can be put to good use in future defence procurement projects.