Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between James Cartlidge and Khalid Mahmood(9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement (James Cartlidge)
The Department uses a range of measures to assess the effectiveness of defence acquisition. We have reduced the average time taken to deliver our projects and programmes, but we must go further to drive pace, so last month I announced our new integrated procurement model.
Mr Mahmood
Notwithstanding the waste of £5 billion in procurement since 2019, will the Minister join the shadow Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) in a campaign to make in Britain, ensuring our industry and economy move together to support not just our defence, but our economy? How will he achieve that given that Tata Steel—to which we have paid £500 million —is cutting down its blast furnace capacity? How will we be able to proceed with the AUKUS contract and other contracts without virgin steel?
James Cartlidge
On the important question of steel, we do not expect the closure of Port Talbot to have a significant impact on defence, but obviously we will continue to monitor that situation. I would just gently point out that in 2022-23, the last year for which we have figures available, 89% of spend by the MOD with industry was with British industry. It will be an awful lot harder to make that level of spend if Labour is unable to commit to matching our spending commitments. If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned, perhaps he will join other colleagues on the Labour Benches in insisting that the shadow Secretary of State confirms whether he will match 2.3% of GDP now and our target of 2.5% as soon as the economy supports it.