Defence and Security Industrial Strategy

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

My hon. Friend is right that the vast majority of steel on the Queen Elizabeth was from UK sources. I am delighted at the role that Scunthorpe played in that, and I hope that there will be many more opportunities in the future. The shipbuilding programme we are setting out obviously produces opportunities for UK steel manufacturers. We will make certain that our pipeline is made freely available, and I sincerely hope that there are plenty of opportunities that will be exploited.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I strongly welcome the emphasis of the statement on making more in Britain, because we cannot be properly defended if we rely on imports for crucial things. Is the UK undertaking a full audit of the designs, intellectual property and rare materials we would need to manufacture all our crucial defence equipment here, were we to face a blockade or other hostile action against our imports? President Biden is currently carrying out such a supply chain analysis for his country.

[Jeremy Quin]

As my right hon. Friend will know, the supply chains in defence are vast, but it is an analysis that we are undertaking. We are doing it project by project, making certain that the most crucial are investigated first, but we are doing an analysis of our supply chains, and that is being elevated to the Defence Board, to make certain that we have greater oversight of what goes into our crucial defence kit and equipment.