Trade Negotiations

Ian Roome Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

I thank my hon. Friend for her focus and concern, regarding both the work on online harm and the digital services tax. As I sought to reflect earlier, those remain undisturbed and unchanged by this agreement. We have listened carefully to the concerns from different parts of the House on online harms, and we have worked hard to advance the UK’s national interest in the agreement that is reached. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend for recognising the significance of the move in tariffs in relation to steel and aluminium, which, again, represents a significant benefit to the foundations of the UK economy. In that sense, we worked hard in the course of this deal, not just for automotives and the supply chain, but for steel and aluminium.

[Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)]

One area that is important to this country and worth billions of pounds is defence. What changes will the deal bring to the proposed defence industrial strategy for the big primes and for small and medium-sized enterprises, which this Government, and all of us, want to support?

[Mr Alexander]

Only in recent days I have been involved in discussions, notwithstanding the work we have been doing on India and the United States, in relation to the defence component of the industrial strategy. We aim to bring the industrial strategy and its defence component to the public in the coming weeks and months. A huge amount of work is happening within Government. The hon. Member is right to recognise that one of the challenges is how we can have defence procurement in the United Kingdom that does not simply reward some of our outstanding primes, but recognises that the character of modern warfare is changing, whereby we are moving from a small number of large platforms being the central feature to a large number of small platforms. We can look, for example, at drone technology in Ukraine and the transformative effect on the battlespace. We are therefore deeply mindful of the point he makes: we need to ensure, in terms of defence procurement, that we have a whole-economy effort that recognises not least the digital and technological contribution of modern warfare. Digital is a key part of the agreement we have reached today, and we will work closely with the United States to advance our shared interest.