Drew Hendry
Main Page: Drew Hendry (Scottish National Party - Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)Department Debates - View all Drew Hendry's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Grant Shapps
My right hon. and gallant Friend has been a very important part of ensuring that we got to where we are today, but I had not realised that I had been keeping my own desire to reach this point quite so secret. He is correct in saying that the implications of Russia’s winning this war would be horrendous. The cost of what this country had to put up with because of covid, for example, would seem small in comparison with the cost of what could happen if other autocratic states decided to take a chunk of other people’s land; that could have a direct impact on our economy.
This is not, in my view, money that we are spending; it is money that we are investing in our security, to ensure that Russia and other despotic leaders like Putin never think that they can try it on with us. We will be investing it extremely wisely in many programmes with which my right hon. Friend and other Members on both sides of the House are familiar, as well as in innovative new areas such as the DragonFire.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
May I thank the Secretary of State for the urgent support for Ukraine, which is much needed just now? However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out that in the Chancellor’s Budget, there was a conspiracy of silence between the Government and the Labour party on following the fiscal rules when it came to saying where £20 billion-worth of cuts to public services would come from. Today’s announcement adds up to another £9 billion of cuts to public services. Can he explain where those cuts will be made?
Grant Shapps
We have already laid out the fact that this plan is fully costed and funded. As I have mentioned to the House, we have said that we will reduce the size of the civil service by 72,000. That is not a one-off cut; it is money that is not being paid each year, and will help to fund defence. There are also some other things that the Chancellor will no doubt wish to get into. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has taken a look at page 20 and the annexe, but he will see that this is all set out.