Strengthening Community Resilience

Ben Obese-Jecty Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point, and I will make sure that colleagues in Government have heard it. She is right to emphasise the wider industrial issues at play here. She will know that tin cans were included on the checklist, and she is right to talk about tin production. I give her a reassurance that I will raise that with colleagues in other Government Departments.

[Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Our subsea infrastructure is incredibly important; we know from recent reports that the Russians have been sniffing around it in their GUGI submarines, and that Russian trawlers have been investigating our undersea infrastructure. I am very concerned that we have only one UK-based and UK-flagged repair ship, the CS Sovereign, which is due to go out of service in 2030. Six months ago, I asked the former Department for Science, Innovation and Technology what it was doing to investigate replacing that capability. Could the Minister give us assurance about the Government’s plans to ensure that we have UK-based and UK-flagged repair capability for our subsea infrastructure?

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. and gallant Gentleman makes a really important point about subsea infrastructure. It is something in which I have taken a particular interest, working with colleagues across Government, including those in the Ministry of Defence. He is right to mention the threat from Russia, which is well understood. I know he will understand that there is always a balance to be struck, both in recognising the threat that we face and in ensuring that we are properly prepared to defend against it. At the same time—the director general of MI5 made this point—we should not make the Russians out to be better than they are and do the propaganda work on their behalf, but the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Let me look more carefully at the detail, and I will come back to him with a more precise response.