Oral Answers to Questions

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I remind hon. Members not to walk in front of a Member when the Minister is answering their question. I call the shadow Secretary of State.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I echo the Secretary of State on the sad news from Iraq and, on behalf of the Opposition, send condolences to the family concerned. It is very sad news indeed.

I have a simple question for the Secretary of State: has the Treasury signed off the defence investment plan?

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman may not have heard me when I answered before, but I can say to him very clearly that the Prime Minister is determined that we publish the defence investment plan before the NATO summit.

[James Cartlidge]

No wonder the defence investment plan is so late: the Labour Government still have not worked out how to pay for it. The good news is that others have. Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary, has said:

“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”,

and Tony Blair himself warned last week:

“By the end of this decade, we could be spending more on incapacity and disability benefits than on defence. No serious country can do that.”

Is not the truth that whoever becomes the next Labour Prime Minister must do one thing above all else to boost defence, and that is to cut welfare and spend the savings on the British armed forces?

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman has a brass neck. There is no recognition of the fact that we are increasing defence spending by a record amount since the end of the cold war, no recognition that this year the defence budget will be £11 billion greater than in his last year in government, and no recognition that there are contracts in place, including the AUKUS pillar II contract, that we have signed and that he did not sign when he was the Minister responsible.