Defence Sector Financing

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Mr Charters]

If we can get the financing environment right for Collins Aerospace, perhaps it can grow at more pace and deliver more high-skilled jobs in my hon. Friend’s constituency, for which I know she is such a powerful advocate. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot and I hosted a summit at the Guildhall last month, and we were kindly joined by the Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). Also joining us were defence primes, small and medium-sized enterprises, major banks and other stakeholders.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned small and medium-sized businesses. Would he agree that, for small businesses in defence-adjacent industries that want to grow into the defence market—such as those in the Teesside defence and innovation cluster in my constituency—a defence development bank, as he proposes, would give them that opportunity for market growth?

[Mr Charters]

My hon. Friend is a really powerful advocate for the businesses in his constituency, and as I will come on to, a multilateral commercial bank could help commercial lenders lend to the SMEs in his area.

When we were at the Guildhall, we were gathering evidence from UK banks, investors, defence primes, SMEs and start-ups. We drafted a light-hearted report, of more than 6,000 words, which is due in the coming weeks. It diagnoses domestic financing barriers for defence companies, which can be summarised as the six Cs: credit, cash flow, capital, contracts, compliance and consensus. I will focus on two of those, credit and cash flow, before returning to the concept of a multilateral defence bank.

If the UK is serious about strengthening its sovereign defence capability, we must build a proper defence financing stack, from early-stage equity to multilateral development finance. The stakes could not be higher, as one outstanding British SME founded by a veteran, told me they are likely to move to the US because some of the issues I am about to touch on.

We know funding challenges affect all SMEs, but those issues are more acute in defence. The sector’s unique risks, long procurement cycles, unpredictable cash flow and stringent compliance requirements all make commercial lending much harder. Let me start with some reflections on cash flow. We know cash flow constraints significantly increase defence SMEs’ working capital requirements. If a prime contractor delays payments, it creates a knock-on effect that constrains smaller suppliers. Commercial lenders see those risks and apply higher risk premiums to working capital loans—or, in some cases, deny lending altogether.

To its credit, the Ministry of Defence under this Government is leading by example, paying 95% of invoices within five days. That is world class. However, some primes are not at that standard, and their slow payment practices squeeze liquidity from the very companies we need to support. I have been told first hand by commercial lenders that they find it difficult to raise lending limits for existing borrowers in the defence sector, or even worse, are not always able to lend to those with promising growth potential.

One UK bank, which is doing quite a significant amount in this space, has written to me calling for the creation of a Government-backed defence guarantee scheme. That scheme would allow defence SMEs to access loans that might otherwise be unavailable commercially. It could also increase lending to those with a restricted borrowing capacity, and it could be modelled on existing schemes run by the British Business Bank.

We also need to address, head-on, poor payment practices of some of the major contractors. I thought about naming some of the firms under parliamentary privilege, but I shall not. One commercial lender wrote to me with the idea of a prime contractor scheme, where major contractors are required to reduce payment terms or even pay some British defence companies in advance. That could be transformative for SMEs operating in this high-risk sector. Let us back British defence SMEs, not just with warm words but with the finance stack, fair terms and funding guarantees they need to succeed.

The two ideas I have set out—a prime contractor scheme and a Government-backed defence guarantee scheme—would both tackle the classic market failure, which is more prevalent in defence. This is where information asymmetries and high-risk premia leave a segment of the market undercapitalised. By underwriting a proportion of commercial lending via Government guarantees, we would be able to reduce some of those borrowing spreads, lower the cost of capital for those firms and better align commercial lending with our national security aims. I warmly invite the Minister to work with colleagues in the Department for Business and Trade and the Ministry of Defence to see whether those ideas have merit.

I am delighted to be joined today by Rob Murray, an outstanding ex-Army officer. He has been working on the concept of a multilateral defence bank, known as the Defence, Security and Resilience bank. It would be not-for-profit and is one of the strongest proposals out there because of his expertise and that of his team. A multilateral bank, backed by allies across the world, be it the EU, our North Atlantic friends or Indo-Pacific allies, is the right fit for Britain at this time. Let me set out why.

Take the ongoing war in Ukraine. We are already feeling the effects of that in the UK, industrially and financially. While Russia is fighting with artillery, we are fighting with accounting rules. That is why now is the time to be involved as a founding member of a multilateral defence bank. On my earlier concept of the defence financing stack, a multilateral bank would supply a much larger funding source to support large-scale industrial capacity. It would sit alongside the other two ideas I mentioned. It would be a World Bank-style financial vehicle, focused on defence, and it is ready to launch. Owned by nation states, it would mobilise capital into allied defence production and supply chain resilience. It would raise capital at triple A rates and guarantee working capital loans to commercial banks, who would then in turn lend to individual companies. That would mean that commercial lenders would be able to get credit at sensible prices backstopped by a multilateral bank.

Not only that but, through its triple-A rating, it could save 50 to 100 basis points for some countries. It would hold factories, tooling and inventory on its own balance sheet, meaning that Governments would not need to borrow and book public debt, creating vital fiscal headroom in the process for nation states. It would crowd in private sector capital and kick-start reindustrialisation in Britain and Europe without breaching fiscal rules, such as my favourite acronym in fiscal politics: PSNFL or public sector net financial liabilities.

The reason this idea ultimately wins for me is on value for money. I know through my work on the Public Accounts Committee that it is not just about how much money is spent but how smartly it is spent. This is a great opportunity to continue the Prime Minister’s work to make Britain a leader on the world stage once again. A multilateral bank could unite our allies, and the UK could anchor a multilateral defence bank at the heart of any future defence pact with Europe. The UK and EU summit on 19 May could be an excellent place to start this conversation. It could also include like-minded partners from around the world, be it Canada, Australia, Japan or Ukraine on the frontline.

Growing the UK Economy

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for his leadership of the Labour growth group, which shows that from the Back Benches all the way through to the Front Bench, this Labour party in government is committed to stimulating growth in the economy in the interests of working people, unlike the Conservative party which just argued with itself for years and failed the people.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

Yesterday evening, I had the privilege of meeting some leaders of our ceramics industry, a vital sector that was grossly neglected by the previous Conservative Government. Does my right hon. Friend agree that our heavy industries, such as metals and chemicals, are where the UK has a competitive advantage, can attract international investment, and can deliver the growth in jobs that people voted for in places from Stoke to Stockton?

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Murray]

We have been clear since the Budget that the decision to raise employer national insurance contributions was one of the toughest we have taken as a Government, and we recognise that it has consequences for businesses. However, we think all businesses will benefit in future from the economic stability that this decision will bring; it will drive investment and growth across the country.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T9. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Intasite, a technology business in Stockton that is celebrating its 10th anniversary with 40% growth? Does she agree that our industrial strategy will help businesses to invest and grow in Teesside?

[Rachel Reeves]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Intasite on its 10th anniversary as a business, and on the rapid growth it is enjoying. The announcement we were able to make last year on the carbon capture and storage work in Teesside will be a big driver of jobs and growth there, and I look forward to working with him and local businesses in Stockton to make that a reality.

UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman follows global financial markets, but borrowing costs have increased for countries around the world. What we saw under Liz Truss’s mini-Budget was unique to the United Kingdom, because it was only UK markets that were affected by the decisions of the Conservatives.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

It is great to see our Chancellor of the Exchequer working with international business and winning investment for the UK. Does she agree that while the Conservatives were happy to sell out our heavy industry to China, leading to the end of steelmaking in Teesside after 150 years, our industrial strategy is delivering investment in steel, chemicals and life sciences in Stockton North, in Teesside and across the UK?

[Rachel Reeves]

The national wealth fund created by this Government will get investment into industries such as carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, ports and, indeed, steel. We were really pleased at the end of last year to be able to announce investment in carbon capture and storage in Merseyside and Teesside, securing billions of pounds of investment into those economies and securing many thousands of jobs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

Before I became a Member of Parliament I was an economist at the Bank of England and I respect the independence of the Bank of England. The previous Government undermined that independence. That contributed to the economic chaos that we saw under the last Conservative Government. This Government will never go down that route.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

T7. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer confirm that her decisions are targeted at winning new investment in green industry in places such as Billingham in my constituency?

[The Parliamentary Secretary, His Majesty’s Treasury (Emma Reynolds)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to this House, because he brings a great deal of expertise on green steel from his previous career. This Government’s plan to launch the national wealth fund is precisely to create investment across the country in some very important strategic industries, and that includes decarbonisation of steel and the steel industry.

Economy, Welfare and Public Services

Chris McDonald Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because it allows me to explain why he is completely mistaken in what he is saying. We offered a set of carefully and fully funded tax cuts—unlike the £38.5 billion of unfunded spending commitments that came from the Labour party—but we always said that they would be brought in over time over the next Parliament. We did not make a commitment that they would come in immediately, and indeed they would not have. We would have done it in a responsible way.

When it comes to dubious claims, the new Chancellor herself has been making some that do not withstand scrutiny. She said, for example, that the economy would have been £140 billion bigger if we had matched the average OECD growth rate, but she knows that the OECD is a diverse group of 38 countries, including many with economies very different from our own, such as Turkey, Mexico or Luxembourg. A much more meaningful comparison is with other similar G7 economies, which shows that since 2010 we have grown faster than France, Italy, Germany and Japan. Indeed, the International Monetary Fund says that thanks to difficult measures taken by the last Conservative Government, we will grow faster than any of those four countries, not just in the short term but over the next six years. One reason for that is our record on attracting investment.

Since 2010, greenfield foreign direct investment has been higher in the UK than anywhere in the world except the United States and China. In the last year alone, Nissan, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata, BMW Mini, Google and Microsoft have all voted for the UK with their dollars, not least because of cuts in business taxation, such as full expensing, introduced by the last Government. If the Chancellor now looks for back-door ways to increase business taxation, as many fear, she will risk the UK’s attractiveness to foreign investors, of which she is now the beneficiary.

[Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)]

That investment is very important to my constituents in Stockton North, where many companies are poised to make billions of pounds of industrial investment. They tell me that they prize economic stability above all else, so will the right hon. Gentleman now commit to supporting the Budget Responsibility Bill to give those investors the security they need?

[Jeremy Hunt]

Yes, we are minded to support the Bill, subject to having had a close look at it, because we think it is perfectly sensible. Whether it is completely necessary is a different question, but it is perfectly sensible.

We have grave concerns about some elements of the King’s Speech, with a Times editorial this week describing some of its Bills as

“a dose of traditional socialist dogma”.

Tony Blair came to office having removed the old clause IV of the Labour party constitution, because he knew that state-run businesses are rarely successful and usually end up being bailed out by the taxpayer. Last week, with their railway and energy plans, the Government brought forward more nationalisation than Blair ever did—indeed, more than any Government in modern times.

If the Chancellor really cares about fiscal responsibility, she should beware. The reason why unions like publicly owned utilities is that they give them more leverage on pay and more ability to demand bail-outs. Unlearning the lessons of history will mean more strikes and bigger bills for the taxpayer.

An even bigger concern for business is the impact on jobs of Labour’s new deal for workers. We have seen the creation of almost 4 million jobs since 2010, which is nearly 800 jobs for every single day that Conservative Governments were in office. The president of the Confederation of British Industry described the UK as a “job-creation factory” but, like many others, he expressed concern that the Deputy Prime Minister’s new labour laws could put that at risk.

Day one rights sound attractive, but employers fear they will mean a flood of tribunal claims, meaning it is safer not to offer a job at all. That is why the Federation of Small Businesses responded to the King’s Speech by saying that companies are worried about increased costs and risks. In the end, French-style labour laws will lead to French levels of unemployment, which are nearly double our own—indeed, they are close to what they were when the last Labour Government were in office. By contrast, the Conservatives nearly halved unemployment over the last 14 years, and it would be a tragedy for working families up and down the country if the new Government turned the clock back.

Finally, the most dubious claim of all is this nonsense about the Government having the worst economic inheritance since the second world war, which everybody knows is just a pretext for long-planned tax rises. People can see what nonsense this is by simply comparing it with the last time we had a change of Government in 2010. Inflation was 3.4%, compared with 2% today. Unemployment was 8%, compared with 4.4% today. Growth was forecast then to be among the slowest in the G7, compared with the fastest today. Instead of an economy in which markets and the pound were facing meltdown, the Chancellor has inherited an economy in which the Office for National Statistics has said that growth is “going gangbusters.”

That has been backed up by even more data since the election. May’s GDP figures show that Britain’s growth was double the rate predicted by economists, and the fastest in more than two years. New figures from S&P show that, in February, British businesses were among the most optimistic in the world—top of the league again, according to the ONS. Inflation has remained at its 2% target level.

In her BBC interview yesterday, the Chancellor glossed over those figures, putting on the most shocked expression she could muster, to pretend that public finances are worse than she expected. But the root cause of the pressure on public finances—£400 billion in pandemic support and £94 billion in cost of living support—was never a secret. Indeed, the Labour party supported those measures and, in some cases, called for us to go further. Nor were the difficult decisions we had to take to pay for them a secret either. When we had to increase borrowing, increase tax and reduce spending plans in the autumn statement of 2022, Labour did not oppose us.

Like all Chancellors, she faces fiscal challenges: welcome to the job. But that job is a whole lot easier because, faced with an economic crisis two years ago, Conservatives took decisions that her predecessor Labour Government ducked completely after the financial crisis. That is why she has a deficit of 4.4% this year compared with 10.3% left behind for the Conservatives in 2010. She did not just compare her inheritance to 2010; she claimed to have the worst inheritance since the second world war. Is she really saying that she faces conditions worse than Geoffrey Howe in 1979, with a winter of discontent, stagflation, an 83% top rate of tax and a Labour Government who went with a begging bowl to be bailed out by the IMF? The Chancellor knows perfectly well that that claim is nonsense, otherwise why, in her first week, would she announce £7.3 billion of spending on her national wealth fund, without a spending review, a budget or any external validation from the OBR? As Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies says, thanks to the OBR the nation’s books are “wide open” and “fully transparent”, so pretending things are worse than expected “really won’t wash.” As she establishes her reputation, it is surely unwise to base her big central argument on a claim so patently ridiculous.

But we all know exactly why the Chancellor is doing it. She wants to lay the ground for tax rises she has been planning all along, which leads to two major concerns. First, she says her No. 1 mission is growth, but all around the world, evidence suggests countries with higher taxes tend to grow more slowly. Lower taxes, when funded properly, boost growth, as we saw with full expensing and the national insurance cuts last year, both of which the OBR confirmed add to our GDP. However, keeping taxes down is hard work.

I saw the numbers the Chancellor has seen just a few weeks ago, and the official advice was clear: with public sector pay restraint, productivity plans such as those we announced in the Budget, and welfare reform, it is perfectly possible to balance the books without tax rises. It is not easy—government never is—but not impossible. Yet all those three things—pay restraint, productivity improvements and welfare reform—were glaringly omitted from the King’s Speech. Instead, she has chosen an easier path: what Labour party sources told The Guardian was a “doctor’s mandate” to raise taxes.

The Chancellor has ruled out raising income tax, national insurance and VAT, but she should not think for one second that other tax rises will not impact working people. Capital gains tax destroys the pensions people build up over their lifetimes; business tax rises are passed on to customers, leading to higher bills; and taxes on banks and energy companies lead to fewer companies operating in the UK, a lower tax take and less money for public services such as the NHS.

That is the biggest contradiction in the new programme —a Government who say they want the fastest growth in the G7 but, in the very same breath, plan tax rises that will make that growth harder, if not impossible, to achieve. Even if such an approach were misconceived, it is none the less a legitimate choice for a governing party. What is not acceptable is, just 18 days after the election, to be laying the ground for tax rises after the Chancellor promised us 50 times in the election campaign that she had no plans to raise them. Every Labour Government in history have raised taxes and raised spending. If she wanted to do the same, she should have had the courage to make the case for that before the election. Instead, she is softening us up for a colossal U-turn that will lead to lower growth, less money for public services and massive public anger, which is why I commend to the House the amendment in the Opposition’s name.