Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending

Debate between Luke Pollard and Dave Doogan

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

It is certainly true that we inherited a broken defence procurement system; I think broken was the word that the shadow defence procurement Minister, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), used when he was on the Defence Committee. It must make for awkward team meetings, given that the man responsible for the broken procurement system, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), is sitting in those meetings as his boss. We have set out clearly that, as part of our defence reform work, we will create a new national armaments director. The new defence industrial strategy will be published in due course, which will set out how we will spend more with British companies, supporting not just the primes but small and medium-sized enterprises in all parts of the United Kingdom.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

Let me try to help the Minister understand where the Opposition’s concern is coming from: it is because of the realisation, or suspicion, that the arbiter of when and how 2.5% is realised is not the Secretary of State for Defence but the Chancellor. This is a Chancellor who scarcely understands the fundamentals of economics, much less the fundamentals of defence and the threat environment that these islands face. What will the path to 2.5% look like? Is there a date, or is it when certain criteria are met? Also, the Minister be clear on who the final arbiter will be? Is the Treasury saying, “2.5% when you need it,” or “2.5% when we decide it”?

[Luke Pollard]

The hon. Gentleman invites me to make the announcement that I am saying will come in the spring. To answer his concerns, I point him to the fact that the path to 2.5% will be set out in the spring.

Chagos Islands: UK-US Defence Relationship

Debate between Luke Pollard and Dave Doogan

Monday 2nd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

As a long-standing Member of this House, the hon. Gentleman will be familiar with how treaties are debated and agreed by this House. After signature, they come forward for ratification. This process was started a number of years ago by the Government that he supported. Eleven rounds of negotiation have taken place. We have secured a deal that is in support of the UK and US base on Diego Garcia, which will continue to operate well into the next century. When he and others see the detail of the deal, I am sure they will back it.

[Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)]

It is hard to imagine anything said from that Dispatch Box over the past five months that has survived contact with reality, and this is no different. In the tripartite relationship between the United States, the United Kingdom and Mauritius, two of those partners now have doubts about this arrangement, so what is the unseemly rush about? In the tension between national security and the human rights of the Chagossians, this Government, as usual, have managed to reconcile neither.

[Luke Pollard]

I am not certain whether the SNP’s record on national security really gives the hon. Member the platform that he is pretending to have on this one. I recognise, however, that he is trying to make a serious point about the deal. When the deal is signed, it will come before the House in the usual way. That will allow parliamentarians of all parties to look at the detail of the deal and take a judgment, and the House will vote in the usual way, as it will do on other treaties.