Budget Resolutions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am trying to make my voice heard from the Dispatch Box, Madam Deputy Speaker.

As I have said from my first day as Defence Secretary, I trust this Chancellor to give us what we need to keep our country safe, and yesterday demonstrated why. His Budget proves why Labour can be trusted on defence—[Interruption.] It does say that here, because I wrote it. We are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. That was Labour’s record before the Budget; this Budget takes us even further, and next year’s spending review will take us further still. What a contrast with the abysmal record of failure staring us in the face from the Opposition Benches.

I appealed in my first statement to this House for national unity on national security. It is important that our allies and our adversaries know that we agree far more than we disagree. We all believe that we should spend more on defence; we all believe that we should stand with Ukraine; we all believe that we should invest in homeland security. What a pity, then, that the Leader of the Opposition and her ragtag band of political vandals choose to play politics with national security. For the Opposition to do that in the current environment is bad enough; to do so with their abysmal record in government takes some brass neck.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Wes Streeting]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman wants to defend that record.

[Graham Stuart]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, but he will be aware that there is no plan to ensure that that 2030 target is met. At a time when we have short-term cuts in operational spending, the Secretary of State must feel a certain amount of disappointment that we do not have a firm plan in place, because if the Treasury do not sign off the numbers, then nothing really happens. That is true, is it not?

[Wes Streeting]

I just do not know what the Opposition have to moan about. We came into government with the abysmal inheritance that we faced, and we chose straightaway to invest more in defence to clean up their mess. We have now gone even further than the NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 by choosing to set our own target of 3% by 2030. That is not just about the future; it is built on our record in our first two years.

Defence spending has gone from 2.3%—

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) needs to have a tough look at the reputation of her Government. She talks about welfare and she talks about defence, but it was her Government who crashed the economy. Under her Government, welfare spending rose by 0.7% of GDP in the last Parliament alone, and in the last year of the Government in which she served it rose by £33 billion. She knows—we all know—that reform is necessary, and reform is coming, because under this Labour Government we are reforming the social security safety net and ending the scandal of young people on personal independence payments, who, in droves, are being put on a benefit that they are less likely to come off than someone over the age of 55.

As the Prime Minister said earlier, Labour’s approach is a “names, not numbers” approach. There is a lot of thought going in, and I pay tribute to Alan Milburn for his thinking about how to reform the system as a whole. It is easy to talk about numbers and top-slicing, but that takes no account of the human beings at the heart of the benefits system.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a typically powerful speech, but, in my 21 years in the House, I have normally found that the person who holds her position gives a somewhat less partisan critique of the Budget, recognising that the primary role of all of us as Back Benchers is to hold the Executive—the Government of the day—to account, rather than just playing to our party political base.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I look to the reputation of my predecessor in this role, who took her job very seriously but would still make a point. It would be very difficult for me to stand up and, from the Government Back Benches, not react to those in the Conservative party who crashed the economy in 2022 and left a lot of the mess that we are now dealing with. I am passionate about these issues because I spend a long time looking at public spending and at the waste of the previous Government, as does the Public Accounts Committee, quite rightly. It should challenge this Government on any waste of taxpayer pounds, because taxpayers work hard for their money and they need to be sure that someone is watching the Government to make sure that they are spending it as well as they can. We know that that is not always a simple task.

I look to welfare reform. Yesterday, I was with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in my constituency of Hackney South and Shoreditch. We met with Scope, which is doing amazing work with disabled people. Some 72% of the recent cohort supported into work were still in work 26 weeks later—people who had been written off by the system. If we make sure that it is done properly through some of the devolution measures that the Government propose, we can make sure that the “names not numbers” approach is replicated across the country, where there are already good examples.

I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to fund the defence investment plan—again, I looked at this issue for many years as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. It is right that we stand with Ukraine—a cross-party position—and it is right that we spend the right money on defence. Unfortunately, the last Government reduced the money spent on defence to a ridiculously low level under austerity, leaving us exposed to the challenges we face in the world. I hope that we will have cross-party consensus that we need to increase defence spending and back the Chancellor in that mission.

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[Sir Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

The Budget was a whirl of little things. I picked up a road map, a taskforce, a few bob scattered around various organisations, and even a few pence off a jar of gherkins. But it is a missed opportunity. It smacks of managerial incrementalism, rather than the bold and radical reforms that our economy needs if it is to meet the challenges of the future. Those challenges include intergenerational unfairness, an ageing population and—heavens above—the menace presented by Vladimir Putin.

The Budget is based on the somewhat smug false premise that somehow the economy is going broadly in the right direction. It is not. The Chancellor prayed in aid the comments of the IMF on near-term growth and fiscal consolidation. However, the reality is that that should not be the benchmark. We should not be looking at France, which has had so much civil, economic and political unrest that it is heading towards a potential bond crisis. We should be asking a fundamental question: what level of growth does the economy need to address the challenges that I have just set out? The answer is that we need to at least get back to the growth trends that we had before the global financial crisis—at least 2% to 3% per year. We are a very long way from that.

The Chancellor lauded the fact that growth has been revised up for this year; he neglected to mention that from next year the position is very different indeed. He made no attempt to acknowledge the mistakes that this Government have made since they came to office. Huge mistakes by his predecessor, such as massive tax increases predominantly on businesses, have had the effect of lowering investment, raising unemployment, reducing output, and—because taxes are often passed on in higher prices—pushing up the rate of inflation.

We are now in a position where, if my reading of the OBR document is correct, due to the inflationary effect that this Government have in part induced, fiscal drag alone will result in more than 200,000 average days’ work being destroyed. We are left with almost the highest level of unemployment in five years, high and sticky inflation, high interest rates, massive servicing costs on our national debt and huge levels of borrowing.

In its document, the OBR sets out what is happening to real household disposable income across the forecast. If my reading is correct, it is lower now across every year within this set of forecasts than in the forecasts back in March. In other words, hard-working people up and down the country are getting poorer as a direct result of the actions taken by this Government.

[Graham Stuart]

I received a card from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation yesterday—I do not know whether my right hon. Friend also received one—suggesting that every family in Beverley and Holderness will be at least £440 a year worse off at the end of this Parliament. But today, on top of the points that he has already made, we are going to see not only disposable income being constrained, but debt going up in each of the next five years by more than was previously suggested.

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right.

That brings me to another point, which is that the Chancellor has taken a conscious decision to reduce the headroom, in the primary target, from around £24 billion to £15 billion. That is a mistake. If he had taken the radical measures necessary to get on top of public spending, particularly the welfare bill, he could have increased the headroom. He talks about the risks ahead—that is the very reason why we have the buffer of that headroom. If we have low headroom, we end up paying a premium on the debt servicing costs to which my right hon. Friend just referred.

The average headroom that Chancellors have come forward with since the instigation of the OBR runs at about 1.4% of GDP. In today’s terms, that would be about £40 billion of headroom. We are now down to £15 billion. Members across the House should therefore not be surprised if the Chancellor comes back at a future date and tells us, just as was the case with his predecessor, that the headroom has entirely evaporated, once again, because of reasons beyond his control. This is a mañana Budget. This is a Budget kicks the can down the road.

When the Chancellor resigned as Secretary of State for Defence, he made it very clear that his resignation from Government was nothing to do with the defenestration of the previous Prime Minister, and was instead a matter of principle: he did not believe that our country was going to be adequately protected as a result of not coming up with the money to fund the 3% of GDP on defence by 2030. He now has his hands on the levers, and he has failed to do even that on this occasion.

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[Peter Kyle]

I will make some progress, because lots of Members want to speak, and I have not even got on to the main argument that I want to make.

There are real benefits from this Budget. In my constituency, the council tax rebate will impact positively on 42,000 homes. The same will be true in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) and in others around the country.

The Chancellor also mentioned directly the defence dual use investment for companies doing dual-use innovations. When he was Defence Secretary and I was Secretary of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, we worked together, and it was the first time that the Secretaries of State of those two Departments came together to work on the strategic challenges and opportunities faced in the defence industry. I am really pleased that we now have a Chancellor investing in dual use. It will be based on the conversations and workstreams that we set up when we were those two Secretaries of State. Those two roles should work together going forward.

When Labour came to office in 2024, we inherited a growth emergency. Now we have taken solid steps forward, but we must still have the mindset that we are facing a growth emergency. It is my belief that we are on a motorway heading in the right direction but even now are only travelling at 30 mph.

I believe that the challenge we face is a complacency that was set down in previous times, when we took growth for granted. From the 1997 Government onwards, for a decade before the financial crash, I think it is fair to say that we felt that growth was dependable—that there was a sense of inevitability about growth. We could focus on all the social issues we wanted to tackle based on the proceeds of that growth, but we did not pay enough attention to underpinning growth and making sure that it was sustainable into the very long term.

[Graham Stuart]

I agree with every word that the right hon. Gentleman just said about the need to focus on growth. The question is: how do we get it? It seems that too many on the Labour Benches believe that it is by Government intervention rather than reducing the taxes that create disincentives for business. Is he as alarmed as I am at the more than £2.2 billion increase in taxes on business today—from writing down allowances to company distributions and business asset disposal relief, as well as the probable more than £6 billion reduction in lending that will result from the £1.5 billion bank tax?

[Peter Kyle]

The right hon. Gentleman’s intervention was longer than my speech has been so far. When I find that I agree with every word that somebody is saying, I usually sit down and listen to a bit more of it rather than trying to challenge it. Perhaps the rest of my speech will answer the questions that he raises.

In that decade, because of the predictability and certainty of growth, I think that growth policy was seen like any other policy. In other words, if there was a shelf with all the different policies of Government on it, growth would be one set of policies on that shelf. I know that there are a lot of analogies going around these days, and Liz Truss has blown a hole in analogy use as well as in our economy, but it is my belief that we now need to have the mindset that growth is the shelf itself. We cannot have successful social policies delivered in the way that all of us in this Chamber would like unless we have a solid, predictably-growing economy into the long term that provides security and prosperity and from which we can share investment fairly around the country.

We must on both sides of the House be as animated about economic growth as we are about creating prosperity, spending it and challenging the social ills in our society. We must care as much about economic growth as we do about rough sleeping, social care and international development—I say that as someone who spent my early life in international development. Tackling those issues depends on economic growth itself.

Public services are incredibly important. They are enablers of growth. We cannot have growth if people are arriving late to work, are too sick to work or are stuck on a Tory waiting list for treatment. We need to have the right skills in the right places. All of those things are absolutely essential, but we should not kid ourselves that such growth is not built on by private enterprise.

Thanks to the Prime Minister deciding that I could have some time over the summer, I was able to write an essay—now that Tony Blair has brought them back into fashion. I know that many Members will have already read it, making some of my words today obsolete, but let me refresh their minds about what I focused on. I confined the essay to my experience in Government and how we can configure Government more assiduously and dependably to unlock the economic growth that our country needs so much—focusing on what Government themselves can deliver. That experience comes from leading two Departments as Secretary of State. I saw in both those Departments that civil servants can deliver boldly when they have the authority to and when incentives align.

I will use one example—the automotive sector—to illustrate to Members the challenges that the Government face to unlock growth. Delivering support for the automotive sector means aligning energy, trade, regulation and all these different areas of policy. All are held by more than one Government Department, and each of those Departments has its own priorities. As Secretary of State in the Department for Business and Trade, at times I was prioritising the automotive sector and recognising how important it can be for growth. Let us bear in mind, when Jaguar Land Rover suffered its cyber-attack, 0.2% was taken off our GDP. When it was up and running six weeks later, 0.2% was returned to our GDP. The importance of industry is still fundamental. When the Prime Minister and the Chancellor talk about reindustrialisation, hon. Members should not underestimate its ability to deliver growth for our overall economy.

We have another asset when it comes to the automotive sector in our country. When we talk about frontier technology—I am looking for the Minister for Artificial Intelligence, who was in his place a moment ago—we think about the AI labs, most of which are in California, with some in China, but we have a frontier industry here in the UK in the automotive sector, and it is Formula 1, because 11 of the 12 teams do all their research and development and all the deployment of their vehicles right here in the UK. No other country in the world has that asset, and that filters skills through our automotive sector. The ability to grow that sector is huge, but that needs Government to work in an aligned way.

I discovered how different Departments with different priorities have oversight over things like automotive, and how sometimes they can slow down those priority areas. We need the structures and incentives in Government to be much better aligned, because we cannot have all these important sectors depending on Ministers’ ability to WhatsApp each other to sort out problems. We should have a system of Government that is already on the side of making pro-growth choices.

I want to say a few brief words about defence, which has already been raised in the debate. I am grateful to the Chancellor for the statements he has made on this. We focus on the percentage of GDP allocated to defence, but the debate cannot just be about how big a share of our economy we spend on defence; it must also be about how big an economy we have. If we were to achieve five years of 3% annual growth, 3% of our national income on defence would deliver almost the same amount of money as moving to 3.5% in an economy of today’s size.

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[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure, I think, to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), but may I challenge a couple of his points? He talked about the risk of higher mortgages. I might remind him that there have been six interest rate cuts since 2024, which will have supported his constituents by bringing down their mortgage bills. He also mentioned productivity. I remind him that the upgraded growth forecast from the OBR is due to productivity gains from investment in AI. There is positive news, and I am sorry that he has missed it so far, but he may want to spend a bit more time looking.

I welcome today’s Budget, because in these tough times we need to put in place the foundations to build the base for a competitive future and prosperity for all. I was surprised by the rather extraordinary response from the Leader of the Opposition, who almost denied the impact of the Liz Truss mini-Budget. Perhaps it may be worth reminding the House that the unfunded £45 billion of tax cuts led to bond prices plunging, sterling falling and the Bank of England having to intervene to prevent a financial stability crisis. It is important that we recognise what happened. That, alongside the fact that the welfare bill rose by £33 billion in the years to 2024, might help bring some honesty to the debate.

Let me speak about today’s Budget from the point of view of three key tests, because it needs to be a Budget for stability, growth and easing the cost of living. The Budget comes amidst unprecedented economic shocks, with conflict in the middle east and Europe, which has disrupted international energy and commodity supplies. The Bank of England identified the energy shock from the middle east as a major source of uncertainty in July 2026, so I welcome the Budget and, in particular, the Chancellor’s determination to combine fiscal discipline with a relentless focus on growth and tackling the cost of living.

Fiscal discipline matters. It is not simply about an accounting exercise at the Treasury; it is about credibility and national economic security. Indeed, the bond markets matter. In 2022 we saw what happens when investors lose confidence in the sustainability of public finances. However, fiscal discipline and growth are not competing objectives. Ultimately, having sustained economic growth, higher productivity, higher investment and more people in good employment is the surest foundation for sustainable public finances.

I am pleased that the UK economy has shown resilience, for which I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and to the stewardship of the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves). It is important not to talk Britain down, because we were the joint fastest-growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year, alongside the US. Borrowing last year fell to the lowest level for six years, the IMF has upgraded our growth to 1.3% for this year, and the IMF’s chief economist has said that we “stand out” on deficit reduction. I know that the Opposition may be disappointed by the OBR’s revision of the forecast.

I welcome the Government’s commitment as a priority to get energy costs down not just today, but for the future. I would welcome more clarity from the Government on whether they are reconsidering the expansion of the British industrialisation competitiveness scheme, which I believe may be coming forward in the 10-year plan. However, with global headwinds from the conflict in the middle east impacting us here and economies throughout the world, it is vital that we have our own plan for growth and for tackling the cost of living.

On growth, I will briefly speak about fiscal devolution and entrepreneurship. Business and industry must be at the heart of our plans for growth. It is important that we have a plan for building the principles of stability, partnership and innovation, with unleashing potential in every corner of the economy in the UK at the heart of our plans. That is why I was pleased to welcome the fiscal devolution road map, which is bold, ambitious and game changing. It recognises that we need to deal with the challenges of today and address the structural challenges to achieve higher growth tomorrow.

For too long Britain has been one of the most centralised major economies in the developed world, with only 5% to 6% of total tax revenue raised locally, while the OECD average is closer to 11%. However, fiscal devolution means more than devolving spending decisions; it is about enabling greater responsibility and stronger incentives to expand local economies and tax bases.

[Graham Stuart]

We have had devolution since the Blair Government, and Wales has become one of the poorest parts of the whole of Europe, although it has had serious and real fiscal devolution. If it has been so spectacularly painful for the residents of Wales to have such devolution, why does the hon. Lady think it will be so marvellous for people in other parts of the United Kingdom?

[Seema Malhotra]

I think there is an important debate to be had about how we make sure that fiscal devolution is successful and what the enabling factors are, but it has been successful elsewhere. As the right hon. Member will recognise, I was pleased as a London MP to see today’s commitments to establish a successor to the Elizabeth line business rate supplement and to support transport infrastructure in the future through some of the new mechanisms. It is important that we look at how fiscal devolution can accelerate projects that will unlock homes, create jobs and generate economic growth not just in the capital, but across the UK.

As we devolve—and I am putting this to the Treasury team—it will be important to confront another economic challenge, which is co-ordination. Economies do not stop at administrative boundaries; there are cross-regional economic spillovers. If we do not design institutions to take account of them, ensure appropriate accountability and evaluation, and help successful innovations in one region spread to others, what appears optimal for each region individually may not be optimal for Britain collectively. I look to the Treasury team to update the House on what can be learned from elsewhere about having co-ordination as well as devolution.

I was extremely pleased to see the measures supporting young entrepreneurs and also women entrepreneurs. I championed that in my previous work as chair of the APPG for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is oddly absent from debates about youth unemployment. We celebrate success when people have an initial public offering or attract a big investment, but we do not talk about the preceding journey or the inequality that often characterises it. So I am looking forward to the Government’s measures having an impact in encouraging entrepreneurship among young people across the country.

Let me say a few words on opportunity and the cost of living. I believe that the Your First Home scheme will make a huge difference not just to my constituents in Feltham and Heston, but also across the country. It is vital to have measures such as the 20% equity loan scheme to help first-time buyers, with a minimum deposit requirement of just 2.5%, to ensure the scheme is accessible to those who have a regular income, but have been unable to save for a large deposit. The council tax rebate, removing VAT from domestic electricity bills and the reforms to standing charges, alongside the first rail fare freeze in 30 years that was announced earlier this year and the freeze in prescription charges, are all important measures.

In conclusion, this is a Budget for stability and growth, and one that eases the cost of living. It is designed to raise Britain’s productivity and investment, and to spread opportunity to every part of our country by investing to save and investing to grow. Taken together, fiscal credibility, empowered regions, effective co-ordination and investment in human potential will lead to better growth that is productive, inclusive and sustainable. This is the time and the challenge that we as a nation must rise to.

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[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this Budget debate and to follow the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western). Like him, I tend to think that this Budget reflects the seriousness and the vision of the Chancellor, but unlike him, I do not conclude from that that the Chancellor has a deep and serious vision of the future for this country. On the contrary, he, alongside the Prime Minister, has come up with a whole series of small measures. In fact, there are more measures in this Budget than in any previous Budget, and their average value is lower than in any previous Budget. In other words, the Chancellor is fiddling. He is playing with little gifts that he can highlight and say, “We are doing this for business. Look, we are we are taking 70,000 businesses out of business rates.” Of course I welcome that, but it is inadequate in a high street that is falling and losing.

The Conservatives have a leader and a shadow Chancellor with a vision, and that is why our policy would take 250,000 high street companies out of business rates so that we can have the shops, the cafés, the pubs and all the other businesses that give chances to young people and give them that first job so that they can learn how to talk to a boss, how to engage with customers, and how to understand tills and money. That first job gives them a chance, whether it is a Saturday job or whatever. I know that Labour Members did not mean to do it, but that door has been slammed in young people’s faces by this Labour Government. That is why we have seen youth unemployment go up.

[Noah Law]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Graham Stuart]

I will happily give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment. I am sure that, when he meets young people in his constituency, he is exactly the same as me. I am sure he meets more and more young people who feel a sense of hopelessness. They feel that they are further than ever before from getting on the housing market, and some of them cannot even look that far because they are struggling to get that first job—that first opportunity. Today’s Budget shows that this Government still do not get it, but perhaps the hon. Gentleman does. Perhaps we can finally hear a non-partisan Labour intervention from someone who takes deeply seriously the need to get business going in this country.

[Noah Law]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words, but does he appreciate that, in the south-west at least, 56% of retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will be lifted out of the business rates system entirely? Is that welcome news to him? I hope he has some welcome news in his own patch as well.

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[Graham Stuart]

I think—I am not an expert on this, let alone on all those jobs in the hon. Gentleman’s region—that most are already outside of that system and are therefore not being lifted out. UKHospitality has suggested that as few as 10% of these businesses will be affected by the measure. That is my point to the hon. Gentleman, who I know is sincere and wants to properly reflect the serious challenges facing his constituents and his part of the country.

This Government do not get it. Instead of the bold measure we should have had—250,000 businesses being brought out to bring life, dynamism and hope back to his high street and mine—we have a timid Government playing on the margins. That of course is the central problem of today’s Budget, as was laid out far more eloquently and—as Labour colleagues would doubtless say—more reasonably than I ever could by the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt).

The Leader of the Opposition said that the Chancellor had received a hospital pass on inheriting the economic situation from his predecessor, but I remember someone once saying to me, “Do you know what the best thing you can ever have in life is, Graham?” I said, “No, I don’t. What is it?” They said, “A lousy predecessor.” On that measure, the Chancellor has been quite fortunate. And yet he comes forward with something this timid, this pallid and this lacking in inspiration, and gives a speech that entirely aligns with those qualities, and he is met with a near rapturous reception from Labour Members who have had to put up with the two previous Budgets, with their disastrous impact on the UK economy.

Why were those Budgets so disastrous? I can tell the House: it is because growth and wealth, which the former Business Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hove and Portslade (Peter Kyle), spoke about so eloquently earlier, come from the private sector. They do not come from a mission-led Government having a tight deadline to go and help rearrange governmental boards and improve the quality of people on them—that is peripheral. It is private business that creates them, but what did the former Chancellor do? She raised taxes on business by £60 billion. [Interruption.] More than £60 billion, I am told. The small businesses that I meet in Beverley, Hedon, Skirlaugh, Withernsea and across my constituency really want to grow and have customers who want to come in, but the tax position has meant that they cannot offer jobs to the young people I also meet outside those shops, standing around listlessly, who want those jobs. That gap has been widened by the £60 billion in taxes.

According to Government Members today, that gap has been narrowed because of this business rates reduction for 70,000 businesses. But that is not telling the whole story, is it? It is a sleight-of-hand Budget as well, which is why I think it is a disappointment. Business taxes have not gone up by another £60 billion—praise the Lord—but they have gone up by over £2 billion through fiddly measures. On top of that, there is the ever-popular call of, “Let’s attack the banks to feed the Labour Back Benchers,” who are so divorced from economic reality. The banks will be paying £1.6 billion in 15 months—that is if we believe that in 15 months, the Chancellor will say to this particular set of Back-Bench Labour MPs, “Oh, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s look forward to the day we take the tax off the banks.” I rather fear that the 15 months will be extended because of those people who have done so much damage before by leaning on their Front Benchers. Anyway, let us assume that it is real and it only lasts 15 months: £1.5 billion or £1.6 billion will be taken out of the banks.

You know, Madam Deputy Speaker, being a long-standing and experienced Member of this House, that the capital of banks has a big multiplier attached to it. When the Government take £1.5 billion or £1.6 billion away from the banks, they are not hitting the rich and helping the poor; they are actually massively reducing the pool of funding available for the very businesses that, if only the Government started to get some of their policies right, might get to a position, as they profoundly want to, where they can offer a job to that young person outside who cannot get one today.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for giving way during his discussion about banks. Is he aware that Barclays’ profits are up by 1.6%?

[Graham Stuart]

I am delighted. Only one thing is worse than fat, greedy, complacent, lazy banks—if that is how the hon. Member wants to characterise them—and that is broke ones, because once we have a bust banking system, the whole of society is stuffed. People cannot get on the housing ladder, start a small shop or get anywhere. That is why I plead with Labour Members, who I know have had little to do with private businesses—they have come from their charities, social work and trade unions, and have no understanding of business. It seems a populist thing to do to attack the banks, but in fact it hurts ordinary people and means that that small shop on the high street cannot take on the unemployed youngster outside.

[Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I will not give way if the hon. Member will allow me.

What is happening to business investment next year? According to the Government’s own figures, it is falling. What is happening to the debt of the nation as a result of today’s Budget, compared with the position earlier in the year? It goes up in every year of the forecast—five years of additional debt, and it was already scary. Labour Members such as the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western), whom I respect a great deal, and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) have been trying to say that this is a great Budget for entrepreneurs, but it is not. It is a Budget that allows a listing ship of state and the economy of this country to drift ever closer to the rocks. Year by year we will see debt going up, taxes going up and incentives going down, and without those incentives, those businesses in Beverley, Withernsea, Hedon and Skirlaugh, or wherever they are in my constituency, just cannot offer that job to that person.

To look at the specifics of the Budget, how is some of this being funded? The Chancellor skated over it as best he could, but he is going to tax amusement arcades. As if coastal towns such as Withernsea and Hornsea up the coast are not hurting enough, he is going put up tax on the entertainment of ordinary people going to the amusement arcade. He is an enemy of fun.

[Alex Ballinger]

rose—

[Graham Stuart]

I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Coastal communities are losing out, and savers are being hit by a £500 million increase in tax—again, I do not think that has come through clearly. Some Members talk about this being good for pensioners, but it is not. Those who have saved and put money away for the future are going to be taxed again and again. We will see tax reach a new peak of 37.9% next year, and according to the Government what is going to happen? It is going to go up again. We will have sky-high borrowing and sky-high tax.

One would have thought that the central challenge for this Chancellor would have been to ensure we had a firm plan for defence spending to reach 3% by 2030. Did he deliver that? No he did not, which suggests that he resigned more to get the job than to do the right thing by defence.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart). He is always very entertaining, and I am always intrigued by how there seems to be an inverse ratio between the number of interventions he makes and the number he takes. I reassure him that on the lousy predecessor test, this Government were truly blessed in 2024 by the former right hon. Member for South West Norfolk and the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak).

[Graham Stuart]

Touché.

[Jim Dickson]

I welcome the Budget, and it is a pleasure to follow distinguished members of the Treasury Committee from across the Chamber. As others have noted, when the IMF published its most recent forecast, it highlighted how despite the consequences of US military action in Iran, our economy is proving more resilient than expected, with 1.3% growth for this year and similar for next. That is largely underscored by the OBR forecast. I back our Government to exceed those forecasts, as they have done this year, and we wish them well in doing so. We should not underplay the damage done by the conflict, with price rises in important commodities such as oil and fertilisers pushing up inflation, but it is positive that the IMF has upgraded our growth prospects. That, I believe, is a testament to the work of the current and previous Chancellors, and it is welcome that we remain towards the top end of the G7 for growth, even though—as always—Members of the House would want growth to be higher, and we hope very much that it is.

In my view, it remains essential to reassure the markets that we will stick to the fiscal rules, and I welcome the Chancellor’s pledge today to keep doing so. We must ensure that we continue to keep sufficient headroom against those rules, and again the Chancellor has done that.That was recognised by the IMF, which singled out the UK among the G7 for the way that we are managing our debts. As shown in chart 3.4 in the Red Book, which sets out the distributional impact of the Budget, we are doing that while ensuring that those at the bottom end of the income scale do better proportionally than those higher up the income scale. I believe that means this is a proper Budget for working people.

This careful and fair economic management will allow us to ramp up defence spending to meet the spending target of 3% by 2030, after our armed forces, frankly, languished under the previous Government.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Lewin]

It is news to me that I will be writing the manifesto, but I am always open to a promotion. Our spending review will cover all elements of spending on public services, but this is a Government who have backed public services, unlike the Conservative party.

In a more uncertain world, it is imperative that the UK lives by our values. I have been going through the Red Book, and—this is on page 103—the single biggest increase in investment announced today is in our defence, to fund the defence investment plan. That is a very important statement of intent at such an uncertain time for our country, Europe and the world, which is further demonstrated by the package of £10 billion for additional support in loans to Ukraine.

Before the Budget speech, I was pleased to hear the Prime Minister reassert how important it is to him that we have a stronger economic trading relationship with the European Union. Also—I will be honest—I am slightly pleased by how much it upset the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), because that means we are going in the right direction. It is a sad state of affairs that the Conservative Party has drifted so far away from mainstream business opinion that they are saying they will not countenance any improvement in our deal with the European Union. That is why people in areas such as mine, Welwyn Hatfield in Hertfordshire, are no longer voting Conservative.

[Graham Stuart]

It is not that we do not wish to see a better deal with the EU. After we left, every day in government was about trying to get the EU to be more reasonable, and that is always a good endeavour. I think the fear—the hon. Gentleman would probably recognise this—is that we have a Government who thought it was a good idea to negotiate the giving away of British sovereign territory somewhere far away and then pay tens of billions of pounds for the privilege. They are not the people we want representing us in Brussels, are they?

[Andrew Lewin]

I think the right hon. Member is talking about the issue of the Chagos Islands, which has absolutely no bearing on the speech that I am making today, but if the Conservative party wants to hold to its position that the current deal with the EU is a good one, I will take that debate any day of the week.

Ajax Programme

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ben Obese-Jecty]

I thank my hon. Friend again, and I absolutely concur. With the delays to Ajax, we can no longer afford to fail to upgrade Challenger 2 to Challenger 3. The fact that the timeline of that has slipped to indefinite is a serious concern for our armoured capability.

A successful export programme would fuel development of the platform and allow it to improve over multiple iterations. It would enhance our own capability, and allow us to benefit from the first-mover advantage of adopting a common vehicle platform that can be expanded with the addition of an IFV and a mortar variant, putting us in the vanguard of armoured development in the drone age. But that cannot happen without the vehicle proving its capability—first with the soldiers, then with our allies. In a crowded field, that should be a top priority.

In “The Iliad”, Ajax loses a competition to Odysseus and, distraught by the result and conquered by his own grief, plunges his sword into his own chest, killing himself out of shame at his own failure. The irony should not be lost on any of us. Fix Ajax, and fix it quickly. There is a war coming.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called. We are looking at around three and a half minutes each.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend’s comment. It is important that we have certainty for those jobs and sustain and increase such jobs across south Wales, because that is integral to this Government’s growth agenda in communities in Wales and across the UK.

Merthyr Tydfil has a long, proud and historical association with the defence of our country. Merthyr was the largest iron-producing town in the world at the time of the industrial revolution, producing cannons and cannonballs for the Royal Navy, leading to a visit from Admiral Nelson himself in 1802 to the Cyfarthfa ironworks. Our area is keen to renew that role in the 21st century and play a part in creating quality defence capabilities with our dedicated and committed workforce.

As I mentioned earlier, currently more than 700 people are employed at the site and those skilled and long-term employment opportunities are vital to the ongoing regeneration of the valleys—an area where heavy industry, such as coal mining and steel, has now ceased, and new industry and employment opportunities are so important to creating hope and growth in our communities. In addition, as a proud supporter of the Union of the United Kingdom, it is hugely important that people across the whole of the UK feel included in the defence sector and ongoing Government investment in the defence capability should benefit communities in the UK and particularly the south Wales valleys.

In closing, I ask the Minister to address a few points. While I fully appreciate that the investigation has to take its course, does he have any indication of what timescale is in place for the investigations to be concluded? The longer the uncertainty goes on, the more impact it will have on the morale of the workforce in Merthyr Tydfil.

Finally, while I appreciate that the Minister is responding on behalf of the MOD, in the Chamber last month, I asked the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry if he would meet staff and trade unions at General Dynamics as soon as possible to provide them with as much reassurance as possible, something he committed to doing. Today I ask the Minister if he will undertake to raise with the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry the importance of that visit taking place at the earliest opportunity. In the event that the investigations take longer than expected, will he commit in the meantime to asking the MOD to find a way to provide regular updates to the staff and workforce until more certainty can be provided?

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

I will be bringing in the Front Bench speakers at 10.28 am.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Minister will be fully aware that an enormous amount of expertise, investment and effort has gone into the development of the Ajax vehicle, producing a vehicle of significant and unique capabilities. I absolutely understand that we want to ensure high-quality performance and safety, and there has been extensive testing of the vehicle over thousands of kilometres, with noise and vibration limits well within acceptable levels.

I understand that the latest testing will be completed shortly, so my ask of the Minister is simple: once the latest testing results are available for ministerial consideration, we need Ministers to give absolute priority to the analysis and consideration of those results and to ensure that decisions on next steps are made without delay. Time is of the essence, and we need clarity on Ajax as soon as possible. It would be unforgivable if the latest tests vindicated the quality and viability of the Ajax project, but ministerial schedules and the machinery of government then caused delays, compounding the problems and losing us valuable opportunities.

Uncertainty is a pervasive killer. Any delay will sow the seeds of doubt in the minds of potential customers. There has been huge investment in Ajax, and if it is to pay its way and justify the investment in such an advanced capability, we need to attract orders from abroad. There is an important opportunity to showcase Ajax in early February, and it would be crazy if that opportunity is lost through poor prioritisation of the Procurement Minister’s priorities.

Then there is the workforce. For them, uncertainty—the fear of losing their job—is devastating. We have a very loyal workforce in Merthyr, who have gone above and beyond to deliver on Ajax. They not only want jobs now, but to see a future for young people, and that is dependent on securing orders for Ajax. There are also all those who work in the supply chain.

Ministers may decide that further work is needed. If so, I again stress that it needs to be done as nimbly as it can be. Decisions on Ajax will have a ripple effect on wider industry. I support our industrial strategy and our determination to rebuild our industrial base to make sure we have the capabilities to develop the likes of Ajax. For too long, procurement procedures have looked only at headline price and failed to give due consideration to the huge benefits of securing jobs here in the UK—good jobs, tax revenue, social cohesion and, as brought home more vividly through covid and the Ukraine conflict, our resilience and security.

When we look at the current Ajax situation, we can see why some might ask, “Why invest? Why bother with the risk? Wouldn’t it just be easier to buy off the peg and let another nation take the risk?” Apart from the fact that we may end up with a substandard product, with the problems emerging only after purchase, what happens when, as we saw in covid, other nations prioritise their own needs or supply routes are otherwise sabotaged?

No one factory exists in isolation, and if we need further proof of our interdependence, the Jaguar Land Rover cyber-attack brought it home starkly. If the JLR crisis had led to one local company—for example, a supplier of a specific part for JLR—going bust, there would have been contagion, because that would have had an immediate effect on the other car companies it supplied. Conversely, if we implement our industrial strategy by supporting foundation industries such as steel and developing advanced technologies such as semiconductors, and we make the UK a vibrant hub of new high-tech industries, they will feed off each other. That creates an attractive environment for investment and aspirational workers. Ajax is an important part of this ecosystem.

To sum up, I urge the Minister and his colleagues to ensure that the necessary analysis is undertaken as soon as they are provided with the testing information and data, and that they make their decision without delay. Any delay would undermine confidence among potential purchasers of Ajax, lead to us missing vital opportunities in the purchasing timetables of key potential customers, further demoralise the workforce and undermine broader investor confidence in our industrial strategy. A lot depends on how the Minister handles this issue.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

I thank colleagues and congratulate them on their discipline. Last but not least, Chris Evans.

[Chris Evans (Caerphilly) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. It would be easy to blame the last Conservative Government for the operational difficulties burdening the Ministry of Defence, General Dynamics and the British Army from the outset of the Ajax programme, but I could not do that with the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) sitting in front of me. He was often a critic when he sat on the Government Benches, and I have lost count of the number of times he said that heads should roll at Abbey Wood—it is a shame nobody listened to him at the time.

When we stood here three years ago, 37 of 39 projects were marked as either red or amber by the National Audit Office. That is unacceptable. Criticisms of the Ajax project included realistic targets not being set for the vehicle’s bespoke capability, and its complex requirements being largely ignored. As we have heard, whistleblowers were not listened to, resulting in the Ajax demonstration and manufacturing phases overlapping, which posed acute technical safety risks.

Progress reports were also often vague or overly optimistic, as we experienced in November. Ministers were assured that Ajax had achieved initial operating capability and was prepared for the Salisbury exercise. We have to ask why that was the case. A gross overestimation put the health of 30 soldiers at risk, and that is the nub of the problem. This is not simply economics; as the Minister knows, when we send someone into theatres with obsolete equipment, we are putting their lives at risk. If they lose their life, it is their family we have to be accountable to. That is what we have to remember. It is not about the defence companies or the equipment; it is about the soldier we are sending into theatre, and we should never lose sight of that.

We also have to look at the cultural issue at the MOD, which the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford constantly spoke about. Between 2011 and 2023, the Ministry of Defence welcomed five project managers, and each served for approximately two to three years. The job was unsustainable due to the complexity and breadth of its portfolio, which did not allow for effective oversight.

I will now turn to the Morpheus project, which was unfortunately delivered by General Dynamics land division. It was intended to supply the computing system for Ajax, but the system fell short of its requirements, even though the same company developed it. Ajax was expected to be the Army’s first set of vehicles based on one fully digitised platform, which was to include advanced sensors and enhanced communication systems, allowing vehicles to gather and immediately share information with other units. In stark contrast, Morpheus incurred significant costs and a delay of three years, during which time Ajax’s ability to exchange information was severely limited. The platform had the potential to significantly improve the British Army’s digital capabilities, and this country could have been a world leader in that sector. Its failure was nothing short of unacceptable.

There is no doubt that the MOD has been and is a uniquely failing Department. In opposition, Labour called for the MOD to be the first Department subject to the new Office for Value for Money, with a commitment to commission the NAO to conduct an across-the-board survey of the MOD’s wants and needs.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

Order. I call James MacCleary, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

--- Later in debate ---

[James MacCleary]

My hon. Friend is a committed advocate for his constituents in Yeovil and has raised this on a number of occasions. I absolutely agree: we run a real risk of not only losing the ability to build our own—

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

Order. We will stay focused Ajax, notwithstanding the intervention.

[James MacCleary]

Indeed.

Let me be clear from the outset: the possible collapse of this multi-decade, £6.2 billion programme is deeply alarming. It demands answers, it demands accountability and, most importantly, it demands urgent action. The facts are stark and troubling. Just weeks ago on Salisbury plain, during what should have been a routine training exercise, more than 30 of our soldiers fell ill. They were not injured in combat or facing down an enemy on some distant battlefield; they were training on British soil in British vehicles built with British taxpayers’ money. They were vomiting, and they were shaking uncontrollably. Some spent 10 to 15 hours in these vehicles and emerged requiring urgent medical care.

That is not the first time we have heard such reports. Indeed, the Ajax programme has been plagued by issues of noise and vibration since mid-2020. A stop notice was issued in June 2021 and all dynamic movement was halted. The programme underwent what was termed “a significant reset”. Training resumed in 2023, only to be paused again in 2025. Astonishingly, this programme has been on pause for 20% of its entire life—20%.

What was the response from those in charge? In November, just before the latest incident, we were told that Ajax had achieved “Initial Operating Capability”. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry visited the General Dynamics factory in south Wales and declared that the issues were “firmly in the past.” He told us that he had been

“reassured from the top of the Army”

that the vehicle was safe. Indeed, the programme was apparently so successful that the MOD announced in November that it had just won an international award for mega-project of the year.

Three weeks later, the Minister had to return to the House to confess that he had been misled—misled by the Chief of the General Staff and the then acting National Armaments Director. These are not junior officials; they are the most senior figures in our defence establishment providing assurances about safety that have proven to be utterly unfounded.

I must ask, what kind of system allows this to happen? What kind of institutional culture permits such a fundamental failure of honesty and accountability? What does it say about the state of our armed forces that senior officials and officers declared initial operating capability when long-standing problems had merely been mitigated with new seats and earplugs in some cases, rather than actually fixed?

The Minister must now be absolutely clear about what the Government’s contingency plans are if Ajax is deemed unsafe. Moreover, he must explain what the impact will be on our NATO commitments if Ajax is further delayed due to required upgrades or scrapped altogether. Our allies are watching, and our adversaries are watching, and what they see is chaos.

This is not simply about one troubled programme, catastrophic though Ajax’s failures have been; this programme illustrates the deep-seated problems with defence procurement that have plagued our armed forces for years. They deserve better than the endless delays, cost overruns and capability gaps that have become the hallmark of how we equip those who defend us.

Let us consider the litany of failures. Ajax was ordered in 2014. It was supposed to be fully in service by 2019. Here we are in 2026, and not only is it not in service, but we are now investigating whether it is fundamentally unsafe. The vehicle was originally designed for weights of up to 26 tonnes. Through what defence analysts politely call “scope creep”—the Army loading the programme with 1,200 separate capability requirements—the weight ballooned to over 43 tonnes.

A single vehicle can now cost well over £10 million in its most expensive form, and what have we got for this money? We have vehicles that make our soldiers sick. We have a programme that has consumed vast resources and delivered nothing but embarrassment. We have General Dynamics winning awards for project controls while producing vehicles that cannot be safely operated. I note with interest that when asked whether performance bonuses relating to Ajax had been paid to officials over the last three years, the Ministry responded:

“This information is not held centrally and therefore can not be provided without incurring disproportionate costs.”

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

I thank the hon. Member for raising an incredibly important point. As she will know, I am personally dedicated to improving the experiences of women in our armed forces. She rightly highlights the Atherton report. We are taking forward several things to deliver that programme, such as improving how we take care of victims and introducing more accountability. I also highlight our support for the cross-governmental work on violence against women and girls.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

My constituent Katie has served in the RAF for 25 years. In preparation for her return to civilian life, she secured an MOD rentals tenancy to provide housing stability before she receives her pension next year and can buy a house of her own. At short notice, that tenancy was withdrawn, leaving her and her family facing potential homelessness, in clear violation of the armed forces covenant. Despite repeated appeals and over 28 days of silence from the Ministry of Defence, no resolution has yet been offered. Will the Minister please review this case urgently and the letter I sent to Ministers on 5 December to ensure that female veterans like Katie are properly supported during their transition back to civilian life?

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

I thank the right hon. Member for raising this case. If he would provide me with the details afterwards, I will of course take a closer look.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

As my hon. Friend rightly notes, the Armed Forces Commissioner Act, as I can now refer to it, received Royal Assent last week, which is a fantastic step forward. As she highlights, there is more to do; there are many aspects of service life where even small changes could make a massive difference to the overall experience of service personnel.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle). She served as a Minister in both this and the previous Labour Government with great commitment, and we thank her for her service. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]

Last week I travelled to Norway to sign the biggest British warship deal ever—a £10 billion contract that will secure 4,000 jobs for the next two decades. Last week I also visited Kyiv, during my fifth visit to Ukraine, where I met Defence Minister Shmyhal, visited a drone factory and chaired a meeting of the coalition of the willing with more than 30 Defence Ministers. The message to Moscow from one and all was of defiance and determination: the Ukrainians will keep fighting Russian aggression, and the coalition will step up support for Ukraine and preparations for a peace in Ukraine. Tomorrow from London I will co-chair the meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, attended by around 50 nations. This week I will also host the meeting of the E5 Defence Ministers here in London.

[Graham Stuart]

When I meet veterans across Beverley and Holderness, particularly at Withernsea or Beverley veterans breakfast clubs, the No. 1 issue they raise with me is homelessness among veterans—an issue that the Minister for Veterans and People will recognise. They ask what more we can do, and I share that question with the Secretary of State: what more can we do to ensure that those who have put their lives on the line to serve our country do not find themselves homeless in their later days?

[John Healey]

I share with the right hon. Gentleman, and, I think, every Member of this House, the pleasure and honour of attending such breakfast clubs with veterans in my constituency. He is right about the range of concerns that veterans raise, which includes the pressures of homelessness. Recognising the forces’ service in local authority housing priorities is our first step, and the £50 million going into the Op VALOUR system to increase support for veterans will also play a part.

War Memorials

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

Order. Speakers have around four minutes—that is an informal initial steer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman pre-empts me, but for the avoidance of doubt, most certainly—I am a great fan of the commission.

In total, the commission cares for large memorials down to individual graves in some 23,000 locations, encompassing more than 150 countries and territories around the world. I recently visited Rayleigh cemetery in the heart of my constituency. It has a number of individual wartime graves, which are beautifully tended by the commission.

In this context, I highlight a book published earlier this year by the acknowledged author Dr Tessa Dunlop, entitled simply, “Lest We Forget” with the subtitle “War and Peace in 100 British Monuments”. This excellent book summarises a whole variety of war memorials, commemorating events dating back to Roman times, right up to the present day. For the avoidance of doubt. I am not on commission from Dr Dunlop’s publishers, but I did meet her during the production of the book, not least because the 99th in her century of war memorials is located in my constituency at a place called Aaron Lewis Close in Hawkwell. Lieutenant Aaron Lewis was a commando gunner from 29 Commando Regiment, who was tragically killed during a mission in Afghanistan back in 2008. Working with the local authority, Rochford district council and the then-developer David Wilson Homes, we managed to arrange for a small square on that new development to be named in Aaron’s honour. At its centre is a memorial garden with a carved bench which commemorates Aaron’s service. For her book, Tessa Dunlop interviewed Helen Lewis, Aaron’s mother, who along with her husband Barry, have channelled their understandable grief at the loss of their son to create a wonderful charity called the Aaron Lewis Foundation, which has helped to raise hundreds of thousands of pounds, including to provide rehabilitation equipment for wounded service personnel.

Similarly, we now also have Samuel Bailey Drive in Hockley, named after Squadron Leader Sam Bailey, an RAF navigator who died in a tragic mid-air collision between two RAF tornadoes flying out of RAF Lossiemouth over a decade ago. There are 2,000 or more military charities in this country, ranging from the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and SSAFA, down to individual charities often founded by family members following the death of a loved one in combat. Clearly, it would be impossible, to name all of those charities this afternoon, but nevertheless, I should like to pay tribute to the work of all of them collectively. To paraphrase that famous wartime medley, when talking about the plethora of military charities we have in this country, perhaps I could just say, “Bless them all, the long and the short and the tall”. Dr Tessa Dunlop has written an exceptional book, and I can thoroughly commend it to anyone who is interested in the whole subject of war memorials and everything they represent.

I think we have 13 minutes left, Mr Stuart, so I will just take two more.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

Twenty seconds.

[Mr Francois]

Although I have already mentioned the National Memorial Arboretum, I would be failing in my duty as an Essex MP were I not to highlight Essex’s own version, which is known as the Living Memorial, at White House Farm in Rettendon. It was founded by enlightened landowners, Peter and Fran Theobald, a former RAF servicewoman, in 2009. I have visited a number of times down the years, including at the dedication of a memorial organised by the Rayleigh branch of the Royal Naval Association, of which I have the honour of being a member.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Mr Francois]

We have got 12 minutes left, sir.

[Graham Stuart (in the Chair)]

We have, and I am chairing. You are not.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank my hon. Friend for his service. It is absolutely vital that the voices of armed forces personnel and their families are listened to more. That is why we are establishing in the commissioner an independent champion for armed forces and their families. The commissioner will have an independent role, be able to scrutinise the actions of the armed forces and report to Parliament rather than to Ministers, and will not be beholden to the whims of either any Government of the day or the chain of command. That independence will allow the commissioner to scrutinise general service welfare matters, shining a spotlight on the issues that really matter to those who serve in uniform and their families.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The Government have said that part of their inspiration for the Armed Forces Commissioner was such a role in Germany, yet Germany has a parliamentary armed forces commissioner. Why is there that difference and why, in line with what the Minister said in an earlier answer, can we trust the independence of this new appointment?

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that the German armed forces commissioner is part of the inspiration for the role. Dr Eva Högl is a superb example of how we can scrutinise and champion the armed forces and provide solutions and a voice to those who serve. She sits effectively as a Member of Parliament in the German Parliament, which we did not feel was appropriate for the UK Armed Forces Commissioner, but the independence and the way she has pioneered much of that work in recent years is a real inspiration to us. We hope that such a workable example from a key NATO ally—people can raise issues with her and shine a spotlight on those issues to improve service welfare matters and as a result improve morale and the operational effectiveness of the armed forces—will give strength to the independence of the role.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I have had the privilege of visiting Warton, and I have seen the skills, the technology and the workforce’s commitment and dedication to that job. The reviewers of the strategic defence review will produce their final report and make recommendations in the spring. In the meantime, my hon. Friend rightly points to exports. It may interest him to know that, last week, I was in Turkey and Saudi Arabia to discuss with Defence Ministers the future role that UK-made Typhoons could play in the defence of both countries.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

Further to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford), I welcome the £2.9 billion of extra defence expenditure from next year. However, not only do we not have a timetable for meeting 2.5% of GDP, which the whole House would like to hear about; will the Secretary of State confirm that there will be no additional funding for the in-year pressures that this Department, alongside so many others, is suffering from?

[John Healey]

The Chancellor set out in her Budget on 30 October the steps we are taking, across Government, to deal with the £22 billion in-year deficit that this Government inherited. On the commitment to 2.5% of GDP, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has made it clear that we will set that path in the spring. I remind the House that the Prime Minister said at the NATO summit in Washington, back in July, that it was a question of the strategic defence review first, then the commitment and the path to 2.5%.

Oral Answers to Questions

Graham Stuart Excerpts

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robathan]

The hon. Lady raises a very important issue, of which I was not aware. Practitioners in the NHS certainly should get full medical records from the military medical services. If she were able to raise some specific cases with me, I would be most interested to hear them, and I look forward to hearing from her.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The reason why so much public money has been invested in BAE technology is to protect British interests and British jobs. What steps can Ministers take to ensure that jobs at Brough and other BAE sites are retained in this country and not shipped abroad?

[Mr Howarth]

As I have tried to explain to the House, since we took office we have made huge efforts, led by the Prime Minister, to promote these first-class British products. The Typhoon is a world beater—not, as some press commentators have suggested, a cold war legacy programme. It is the most advanced combat aircraft in the world today, and the Hawk is the most proven and effective military training aircraft. We are working flat out to try to promote those in the interests of the constituents of everybody in the House today.