Oral Answers to Questions

Luke Pollard Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a very important issue. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of her constituents. It was a very important summit that we held on Monday. I was pleased to bring together people from the police, across Government Departments, community groups, the judiciary, healthcare and a wide range of activities to recognise the importance of taking a holistic, collective approach to dealing with knife crime. We will be consulting on a statutory duty to deal with knife crime as a public health issue, which is important, to ensure that everybody plays their part.

After the summit I was able to meet a number of families who had lost children—I say children, because these were teenagers—as a result of serious violence involving knife crime and a shooting. The horror and devastation of these attacks is brought home when sitting down and listening to the families who have seen promising young lives cut short in this tragic way. We are committed as a Government to working not just across Government but with society as a whole to deal with the scourge of serious violence, which is taking so many young lives.

[Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q8.   Back in June last year, I asked the Prime Minister to help fund the recycling of the 20 old nuclear submarines tied up and rotting in Devonport and Rosyth. Today’s National Audit Office report shows that the Ministry of Defence has no funded plan to do this work, and no submarines have been dismantled since 1980—that is the year I was born. Will the Prime Minister now extend the civil nuclear clean-up to make sure that it includes all the Royal Navy submarines, so that we can deal with this issue, and make that part of her legacy in office?

[The Prime Minister]

We remain committed to the safe, secure and cost-effective defuelling and dismantling of our nuclear submarines as soon as is practically possible. The MOD continues to act as a responsible nuclear operator by maintaining its decommissioned nuclear submarines to meet the necessary safety and security standards. I think its commitment is illustrated by the recent success in the initial dismantling of the submarine Swiftsure, which has been followed immediately by the initial dismantling of Resolution. The MOD will continue to work with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to achieve steady-state disposal of our laid-up submarines as soon as possible. We are working on this. The Labour Government had 13 years as well, and what work did they do during those 13 years on this decommissioning issue?