Ashley Dalton
Main Page: Ashley Dalton (Labour - West Lancashire)Department Debates - View all Ashley Dalton's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(3 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is right. As Business Secretary, I took the decision on Newport Wafer Fab, which highlighted to me the importance of our own supply chain for advanced semiconductors, particularly in the defence realm. That is one reason that, in the plan we published yesterday, we have committed to a new level of 5% of R&D for defence, to ensure that we are not only researching and developing but, through the expansion of the military capability in the industrial base, producing the things that we need for our armed forces.
Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)
Labour wants to reach 2.5%. I do not know how many more Labour Members need to say that before it gets through. If anybody was listening, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), the shadow Secretary of State, also said that clearly in his contribution. The Secretary of State said repeatedly on the media round this morning, and in the Chamber, that on page 20 we can find the fully costed plan. Bearing in mind that there is no mention on page 20 of how the 2.5% will be reached through the cuts to the civil service that the Secretary of State has described, and that the entire civil service budget is only £16.6 billion, where is the fully funded plan? It is not on page 20.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady once again asserts that Labour wants to reach 2.5%. Labour cannot just assert it; it has to will the means to get there. I did not hear that from the Labour Front Bench in response to this statement or yesterday’s announcement. As in all normal cases, and particularly spending reviews, the Treasury will set out all the numbers going forward, but the fact of the matter is that the figures published yesterday show £77 billion more being spent from this year through to the end of the decade, in part paid for by removing 72,000 civil servants from the system so that we get back to where we were before covid. If Labour does not want to follow that approach, it could follow another, but the hon. Lady cannot just assert that Labour agrees without explaining how it will do it.