Lord Lansley
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(4 days, 6 hours ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from my noble friend Lady Hayter and then from the noble Lord, Lord Lansley.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for the points that she makes. I of course agree very much with her. As she knows, it was announced yesterday that we are increasing the defence budget by £2.2 billion in 2025, taking additional spending on defence to over £5 billion since the Autumn Budget. She is absolutely right that defence spending is a huge contributor to the future growth of our economy. That is why in the industrial strategy we have set out eight sectors that we believe will fuel the growth of the economy in future, and defence is one of them. Shortly in the spring, we will publish an industrial strategy for defence, which will set out how we can get highly skilled jobs throughout the UK as a result of the increase in spending that we are carrying out.
Lord Lansley (Con)
When the Government came into office, the disability employment gap was 28.6%. With the £1 billion return-to-work funding that the Minister has referred to repeatedly, what is the Government’s target for reducing the disability employment gap by the end of this Parliament?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am afraid that I do not know what that target is. If there is one, I will find out for the noble Lord and write to him.