National Security and Defence

Douglas Chapman Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Douglas Chapman (Dunfermline and West Fife) (SNP)]

I hear unconfirmed reports that President Obama has already welcomed news that our MPA will be built in the USA. The lack of MPA has been a glaring and immediate gap in our capability, one felt particularly hard in Scotland. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the UK will initially borrow P-8s from the USA? Will he also confirm that there will be no capability gap between when the Rosyth-built carriers go to sea and the full deployment of F-35s on both carriers?

[The Prime Minister]

First, on the MPA, we have said that we will be buying the Boeing version. That is a US aircraft, but it is going to have a major British component; sometimes it is right to choose what is available rather than to start all over again from scratch. The hon. Gentleman can read all about what we are saying about the Lightning aircraft in the document. We are actually increasing the numbers that will be available for our aircraft carriers.