Strategic Defence Review

Fred Thomas Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The Prime Minister and the Government have committed the funds—[Interruption.] We have committed the funds. We have built them into the terms of reference that will allow this strategic defence review to be delivered over the next 10 years and beyond. That is the confirmed view of the reviewers, and that is exactly what my job as Defence Secretary will be to do.

[Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)]

I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s support and his leadership in this time of increased threats. We saw over the weekend that Ukraine had managed to destroy, it says, as many as 40 Russian bombers deep inside Russia, with a value, it would say, of £5 billion. That is almost as much as we are raising the defence budget by. We have to get after innovation, and this SDR does that. In particular, I want to ask the Secretary of State about page 59, which talks about “rapid commercial exploitation”. It mentions the need to

“pull latest technology into operations”,

and to

“unlock private equity and venture capital”.

My question is this: do we need to change the commercial competition laws within the civil service to allow that to happen, or can it already happen?

[John Healey]

We certainly have to change the procurement system. The Chancellor and I have already announced in the spring statement the way that we will ensure that the sort of innovation my hon. Friend talks about can move to contract far faster than it has done before, and that we can ensure that the sort of spiral development that the shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), first started to look at in Government can be pursued and put in place. We will do that; it is part of the procurement reforms that we are bringing into place. Pace, innovation and the new companies that have so much to offer are part of how we will do this in the future.