UK Defence Spending

Chris Loder Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con) [V]]

Thank you for calling me to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to follow the many hon. and right hon. Members in this important debate, which certainly affects a good number of us here in the south-west. As the Member for West Dorset, I should first like to renew my thanks to Her Majesty’s armed forces, and particularly the Royal Marines, who supported us at the Dorset County Hospital during the pandemic. Their support has been much valued, and we very much appreciate it.

My contribution to today’s debate is not so much about what we have spent and done previously, but about what we should be doing in the future. I have listened attentively to this debate from afar and we have talked this afternoon about many things, but we have not talked so much about the rotary sector. My hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Yeovil (Mr Fysh) spoke and shared his views, but I also say that, as West Dorset neighbours Yeovil, a large number of my constituents are employed by Leonardo helicopters. With no doubt, the best return on investment for British defence spending, particularly for the rotary sector, is on British manufacturing. It supports our industries and wider communities and it secures our supply chain. For every £1 that the Government spend on Leonardo, £2.40 is generated in the UK economy through its 7,500 staff. That number includes, of course, 500 apprentices and graduates.

As I have mentioned previously, Leonardo is the only end-to-end helicopter manufacturer in the UK and its state-of-the-art AW149 is hoped to be the MOD’s new medium helicopter in the programme contained in the defence and security industrial strategy. I urge Front Benchers to please consider the work that Leonardo does and the excellent product that it offers to the defence sector and, particularly, to our armed forces here. By giving a contract to a British manufacturer, the Government will preserve and create jobs not only in Yeovil, for my constituents in West Dorset and for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil, but up and down the country and across the Union.

Defence manufacture in the UK also reaches far beyond our borders. The British armed forces are considered across the world to be an exemplary military force to be emulated. Frequently, other countries choose models for their militaries based on what the UK has bought. If the UK Government do not invest in their manufacturing capabilities by buying British-made equipment such as the AW149 helicopter, other buyers might wonder why the MOD has not put confidence in its own. Exports abroad then run the risk of reducing. Leonardo exports less than it produces for the UK, but in the context of the £2 billion that the company creates for our economy each year, a Government decision to look at foreign companies for their new medium helicopter will have ramifications across the country.

At home, Leonardo spends £200 million a year on research and development, fitting in perfectly with the Government’s plans to make the UK a global science superpower, but this speech is not about extolling just the virtues of Leonardo or even just the AW149; it is about the thousands upon thousands of jobs that are supported by UK defence manufacture in this country. Our servicemen and servicewomen are supported by thousands of engineers, apprentices, scientists and many others whose communities are, in turn, supported by the Government’s investment here in the UK. I was delighted, earlier this year, with the Government’s announcement of historic defence spending and the spending review on defence. For us in the south-west, it matters hugely. It is right that we continue to have a dynamic and modern military that is capable of keeping us all safe from even the newest of threats.

We saw during the pandemic that our armed forces play a vital role at home, as I mentioned, with service personnel supporting the testing and vaccine efforts where they were most needed, and we valued that incredibly in Dorset. We must recognise that the biggest impact of the UK’s armed forces is felt at home through communities and families who support the forces as a whole and the individuals who make it up. In order to keep those communities vibrant, and to ensure the defence of this nation, I urge Ministers, particularly the Minister for Defence Procurement and the Secretary of State, to consider and choose the AW149 to fulfil the military’s need for a new medium helicopter and to keep that production British.