Defence Industrial Strategy

Baggy Shanker Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

We hear such negativity from the Scottish National party. On a day when we have announced a growth deal for Scotland, creating skills and infrastructure, rather than welcome for that investment, we hear more negativity. It continues the pattern that we have seen from the SNP in Scotland: not interested in defence, not interested in defence jobs, not interested in the growth that that brings. Only when there is a win do SNP Members finally come out and say something positive. There is a lot to be done in Scotland to grow that sector. We are backing the Scottish defence industry, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman’s party will do so soon.

[Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)]

We know that when we back British jobs, British industry and British innovators, communities across our country reap the rewards. What steps will the Minister take to ensure that our proudly home-grown small and medium-sized enterprises can be supportive in delivering this industrial strategy?

[Luke Pollard]

I have seen some incredible innovation in our defence SMEs. Such companies have the opportunity to transform the warfighting capabilities of our forces and to support our allies, but for far too many of them it has been too difficult to find the person who is awarding the contract, to navigate the process, to understand how to access the forward supply, or even to get security clearance to understand what their competitors are doing. This defence industrial strategy seeks to rectify those problems by creating a single new one-stop shop for SMEs so that all of them, in every part of the UK, can access MOD contracts and we can benefit from their innovation and agility.