National Security and Defence

Bernard Jenkin Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to do that for Ben Parkinson and for the right hon. Lady. It has been an immense privilege to meet Ben. He is one of the bravest people I have ever met, and he always seems to have good humour and optimism about the future despite how much he has suffered. With the military covenant and the LIBOR fines, we have tried to put in place progressive improvement, year on year, in the services that we give to our armed forces personnel and their families. We have to recognise that, after the Iraq war and after 14 years of deployments in Afghanistan, we need to look after these young people for the rest of their lives. They do not simply want tea and sympathy; they want fulfilling lives. They want the best possible prosthetic limbs and the best healthcare. They want to go on and do great things, and it should be our ambition as a country to help them to do just that.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. It is a very welcome declaration of long-term strategic intent on behalf of our country to remain a global nuclear power with armed forces that have global reach. May I remind him, however, that our defence industries are among our largest export earners because of what Her Majesty’s Government have invested in research and technology over the years? If we are to sustain that, and the ability of our industries to help us to produce the capability we need in times of emergency, we will need not only to continue but substantially to increase the amount we invest in those industries.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he has said. He has spent a lot of time in this Parliament and the last one talking about the importance of clear strategy. To me, strategy is about setting the goals we want to achieve and then, crucially, making the choices that will make that happen. This document is all about choices. They are not choices that we have to make; they are choices that we have decided to make in order to maintain our global reach and power, for reasons not of national vanity but of hard-headed, cold-eyed national interest. We are a country that is engaged in the world and that needs to play that role.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about research and development in the British defence industry, but we have to make sure that the industry understands that the Ministry of Defence is not simply a customer to be sold ever-more expensive equipment. It should be a core customer that can be used to develop the things that will be needed not only by our armed forces but by our partners, so that we can ensure that we have export earnings from these platforms that we have created ourselves.