Oral Answers to Questions

Chi Onwurah Excerpts

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Al Carns]

I know that a significant number of my hon. Friend’s constituents are affected by this completely unacceptable and highly regrettable policy. I met Fighting With Pride and Lord Etherton just last week. I will meet them again and I will meet my hon. Friend to talk through the detail. I can confirm that Defence is working with experts across Government to establish an appropriate financial redress scheme. That scheme will launch this year and I will update the House in due course.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to help secure the future of the UK’s defences.

[David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)]

17. What steps he is taking to help secure the future of the UK’s defences.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)]

The strategic defence review will consider all aspects of defence so that the United Kingdom is both secure at home and strong abroad. It will ensure that defence is central to both the security and the economic growth and prosperity of our homeland. The SDR will set out a deliverable and affordable plan within the trajectory of spending 2.5% of GDP on defence.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Department’s future capability innovation programme accelerates innovation in operational capability. Given its success in delivering rapidly prototyped drones to Ukraine, and in growing the UK drone sector as part of the process, how will the Minister make sure that the lessons learned from the programme are adopted across defence procurement, especially in areas such as cyber-security and artificial intelligence, to ensure that innovation is rapidly operationalised and that a higher proportion of the work goes to British small and medium-sized enterprises?

[Luke Pollard]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question and for championing the country’s tech sectors. She is absolutely right that the experience we are seeing in Ukraine means that we need to innovate faster, have more spiral development and bring more talent into these sectors. We have a good record of doing so, not just on drones but on AI and directed energy systems, where we have our own capabilities. We are now working with NATO, Five Eyes and AUKUS partners to ensure that we learn from that and to make sure that it is not just our big defence primes but the entire supply chain, including small businesses and start-ups, that benefits.