Henry Smith
Main Page: Henry Smith (Conservative - Crawley)Department Debates - View all Henry Smith's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two ways of sustaining these skills. We either provide orders to the companies that employ them so that they do something useful and make things, or we simply pay them to stand idle and allow their skills to decline. We have chosen the former, which is the right way to go.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I welcome the Government’s announcement. Our independent nuclear defence has not only protected democracy in this country and around the world but expanded it. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential in an even less certain world that we continue our independent nuclear deterrent?
Mr Hammond
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend about the context of this debate: a world getting not safer but more dangerous; a world that, in spite of our ardent wish that the non-proliferation treaty succeed, is threatened by significant proliferation and the ever-present risk of state-sponsored nuclear terrorism.