Alex Baker
Main Page: Alex Baker (Labour - Aldershot)Department Debates - View all Alex Baker's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(3 weeks, 1 day ago)
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John Healey
The Conservatives “hollowed out and underfunded” defence for 14 years—those are not my words, but those of the right hon. Gentleman’s former Cabinet colleague, Ben Wallace. This year there has been a £5 billion boost in defence spending, but in his Government’s first year, in 2010, there was a £2 billion cut in defence. Just as we boosted defence spending this year, we will increase it to 2.5% by 2027, which is three years earlier than the right hon. Gentleman argued for. We have shown exactly how we will fund that. We have taken the decision—which he did not take—to switch funding from overseas development aid into defence, and just as we have shown where the money is coming from in this Parliament, in the next Parliament we will do the same.
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the commitment to get to 5% of GDP on defence spending by 2035. It is imperative that the increase in defence spending means that funding is getting to those on the cutting edge of defence innovation. Cody technology park in Farnborough is already home to world-class defence innovation, with a wide range of small and medium-sized enterprises working there, alongside QinetiQ, and it is where DragonFire has just been developed. What role does the Minister see for existing places such as Cody, in delivering our defence industrial strategy? Will she meet me to discuss whether Cody could be the home for the new defence SME hub?
John Healey
I see a huge role. I hope that my hon. Friend took the commitment that the Chancellor and I made, alongside the spring statement, to set a new target for direct defence investment in SMEs, as a sign of that commitment. While I am in the business of committing my ministerial colleagues to meetings, I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry would be only too happy to meet her and to draw on her expertise as part of the development of our defence industrial strategy.