Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Pritchard Excerpts

Monday 19th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The access of SMEs to defence is very often through primes and subcontracting, rather than directly with the Ministry of Defence itself. It is the certainty of long-term relationships and long-term contracts for the primes that allow them to pass those benefits on to smaller firms. That is why it is significant that when my hon. Friend joined me at the Derby Rolls-Royce factory when I announced the eight-year £9 billion Unity contract for Rolls-Royce, 240 small firms were part of that submarine supply chain.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I do not wish to end the Defence Secretary’s glittering career here on the Floor of the House, but may I praise him as my new favourite Minister—alongside the Defence Procurement Minister—for today announcing the new £400 million investment in my Shropshire constituency for Rheinmetall to build a new gun barrel factory? I thank him and his Defence Procurement Minister for working with me, across parties and in the national interest, to ensure that the UK has the very latest and most technologically advanced Challenger 3 tank—the best in NATO.

[John Healey]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. We will always work across parties in the national interest and in the interests of defence— I hope he is wrong that doing so may ruin my career. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for noticing the £400 million investment in its Telford factory that Rheinmetall is announcing today. That is a direct response to the UK-German defence agreement that I signed in October, and it is confirmation that this is a Government who are delivering for defence.