Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch) needs to have a tough look at the reputation of her Government. She talks about welfare and she talks about defence, but it was her Government who crashed the economy. Under her Government, welfare spending rose by 0.7% of GDP in the last Parliament alone, and in the last year of the Government in which she served it rose by £33 billion. She knows—we all know—that reform is necessary, and reform is coming, because under this Labour Government we are reforming the social security safety net and ending the scandal of young people on personal independence payments, who, in droves, are being put on a benefit that they are less likely to come off than someone over the age of 55.

As the Prime Minister said earlier, Labour’s approach is a “names, not numbers” approach. There is a lot of thought going in, and I pay tribute to Alan Milburn for his thinking about how to reform the system as a whole. It is easy to talk about numbers and top-slicing, but that takes no account of the human beings at the heart of the benefits system.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a typically powerful speech, but, in my 21 years in the House, I have normally found that the person who holds her position gives a somewhat less partisan critique of the Budget, recognising that the primary role of all of us as Back Benchers is to hold the Executive—the Government of the day—to account, rather than just playing to our party political base.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I look to the reputation of my predecessor in this role, who took her job very seriously but would still make a point. It would be very difficult for me to stand up and, from the Government Back Benches, not react to those in the Conservative party who crashed the economy in 2022 and left a lot of the mess that we are now dealing with. I am passionate about these issues because I spend a long time looking at public spending and at the waste of the previous Government, as does the Public Accounts Committee, quite rightly. It should challenge this Government on any waste of taxpayer pounds, because taxpayers work hard for their money and they need to be sure that someone is watching the Government to make sure that they are spending it as well as they can. We know that that is not always a simple task.

I look to welfare reform. Yesterday, I was with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in my constituency of Hackney South and Shoreditch. We met with Scope, which is doing amazing work with disabled people. Some 72% of the recent cohort supported into work were still in work 26 weeks later—people who had been written off by the system. If we make sure that it is done properly through some of the devolution measures that the Government propose, we can make sure that the “names not numbers” approach is replicated across the country, where there are already good examples.

I welcome the Chancellor’s decision to fund the defence investment plan—again, I looked at this issue for many years as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. It is right that we stand with Ukraine—a cross-party position—and it is right that we spend the right money on defence. Unfortunately, the last Government reduced the money spent on defence to a ridiculously low level under austerity, leaving us exposed to the challenges we face in the world. I hope that we will have cross-party consensus that we need to increase defence spending and back the Chancellor in that mission.

[Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)]

I was very pleased to see the Chancellor announce £5 billion more in the Budget for defence research and development, which—[Interruption.]

[Chris Coghlan]

Does the hon. Member agree that the announcement of £5 billion more in the Budget for defence R&D through the British Business Bank could have profoundly positive implications for our national security and growth, as I have urged, if the Government scale it further from here?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I count the hon. Gentleman as a friend, because he serves on the Treasury Committee and is indefatigable in his attempts to ensure that the Government are listening about research and development in defence and across wider sectors. It sounds as though, between us, the Government have heard that message.

Before I move on to the main thrust of the Budget, I want to address the Leader of the Opposition’s comment about plan 2 student loans. The Treasury Committee looked at this issue, which is having a very big impact on that generation of young graduates—the engine room of Britain, and the people who will be funding and growing our economy in the years to come, and making sure that the ageing population is supported. We need to do everything we can, and intergenerational fairness is a big strand of the Treasury Committee’s concerns, but let us be clear: who set up plan 2 student loans? It was the previous Government.

I talk a lot about slow politics. Governments should make decisions that will stand the test of time in 10 or 20 years, as well as dealing with the challenges of today and the catastrophes that might occur, either globally or locally, next week. Plan 2 student loans were designed by the Conservative Government and left as a ticking time bomb for this generation to pick up. Although I am saddened that we have not seen a change to the threshold at which repayments are made, I hope that the Chancellor will consider that as part of his longer-term plans, to make sure that this generation has one fewer burden. I hope that we will see some talk about that in the weeks to come.

Before the Chancellor rose to his feet it seems that some bank shares increased in value. I am concerned about that and, with the permission of the Treasury Committee, I will write to the Financial Conduct Authority to see if there is any evidence of leaked market-sensitive information that may have led to that movement, because that would be a very serious issue. On that point, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on his very strong clampdown on speculation and leaks ahead of this Budget. He knows, as we all do, that stability is so important. He cannot completely halt wild speculation, but clamping down on leaks from the Treasury and the wider system is very important.

Despite the headwinds, the debt forecast has only slightly worsened. We have seen a Budget that pushes stability, and I welcome some changes in particular. The Treasury Committee looked at cash ISAs and the changes that were proposed in last year’s Budget, and as we said then, it was not the right approach. Building societies use cash ISAs to lend to home purchasers, and they were going to be particularly badly hit. Most people have much less than £20,000 in a cash ISA, and many never get anywhere near £12,000. The average is between £3,000 and £7,000, depending on how we cut the figures, so it is right that the Chancellor has made changes. I look forward to seeing the starter ISA for investors, and the Committee will examine the changes in detail, but the previous proposal had overcomplicated the system. The ISA is a trusted brand, and the Chancellor has taken a good step.

On the subject of building societies and mutuals, in a hidden corner of the Red Book is the announcement that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) has been appointed as the Government’s co-ops and mutuals champion. I commend him for achieving that position following his many years of hard work in this area. As the chair of the Co-operative group of MPs in Parliament, I am delighted that the Government are further leaning into the progress they have already made in supporting co-ops and mutuals. That is important for getting growth and the involvement of people in every community up and down the country, because this is a way of people owning and having a say in the shaping of their services and their outcomes, whether it is a credit union, a food co-op or a childcare co-op—the list goes on. There are many opportunities.

I welcome the reform of lifetime ISAs—again, something that the Treasury Committee produced a report on. The removal of the penalty payment seems like the only just approach to that. We have a challenge when products such as ISAs are created but do not work as well as they could, so I welcome the Chancellor looking at that.

I am delighted to see some changes in housing. In my constituency, house prices are rocketing through the roof, rents are high and thousands of people are living in temporary accommodation, and those in housing are often severely overcrowded. Every weekend I visit people who are living with three children in a one-bedroom flat—a very typical picture—with no freedom or agency to move, because the cost of housing is too high, the cost of rent is too high, and we do not have enough social housing. Indeed, it is cheaper to buy back from a leaseholder who is selling their property than it is to build new houses, so the VAT reduction for housing associations is a welcome first step.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I am a Member who represents a part of the United Kingdom where government is devolved. Despite the good intentions of this Government, the money that goes north sometimes goes into the tube and what comes out the other end is sometimes rather different, particularly on housing. Is that something the Treasury Committee could look at one day, to see whether what is delivered was the intention of His Majesty’s Government?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates a further area of my speech. I believe very firmly in devolution, but there are some caveats. That is something that we may consider. Of course, I chair the Treasury Committee, but I do not make all the decisions for the Committee—it is not an autocracy, unless its members choose to make it that way—so we will discuss that issue.

On housing, there are areas that are too detailed to go into the Budget, but I hope there is some discussion in the forthcoming spending review about system-built housing. In Murray Grove in Hoxton, in my constituency, some millennium products built by Peabody still stand the test of time. They were system-built offsite, which reduces the cost of construction and makes it faster, but we do not have enough throughput in the factories that do this for them to survive and thrive. That is a potential opportunity for us in the UK.

The Chancellor has a huge challenge. We are facing very difficult fiscal circumstances, but the wider picture is that we are seeing some green shoots of hope. According to early estimates, the economy grew by 1.8% year on year in the three months to August—the fastest pace since the country was rebounding from the pandemic in 2022. GDP has grown at an annualised pace of 2.7% so far in 2026, with early estimates indicating that growth has continued into the third quarter, and productivity has grown by more than 1% per worker in every quarter since the end of 2024. There is a degree of hope that if we keep stability and keep focused, we will meet some of the challenges.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making an excellent speech, as always. Given that there is some underlying positivity, is she concerned that although there is ongoing support for people with their energy bills, there is nothing for the tens of thousands of people in Cumbria, and the hundreds of thousands across the country, who are off grid and who rely on heating oil? Does she think that the Chancellor had room for a formal cap on energy bills for people who are off grid, whose bills have gone up threefold in the last year?

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman is a good campaigner for his constituency and raises these issues repeatedly, but there has been some support from the Government on that issue. The Treasury Committee will be poring through the detail of what the Chancellor has announced today, so he may take my plaudits today, but we will go through that detail to see how much this delivers cumulatively for a household, which I know is the mission of the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. On that point, we will wait for the detail, but there is a limited pot of money, and it must be targeted at those who need it most, notwithstanding the challenges the hon. Gentleman’s constituency faces. There are choices to be made.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

The House will be determined to know how this Budget is going to benefit Harlow. Does my hon. Friend agree that the £100 direct payment into the bank accounts of Harlow residents will make a huge difference this winter? By the way, it will help over 39,000 households in council tax bands A to D.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am surprised that the hon. Member failed to get the Chancellor to use the word “Harlow” multiple times during the Budget statement.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince)—I say that just to up his constituency’s mention count. Around 48,000 households in my constituency households will benefit from the council tax rebate for those in bands A to D. I am assuming the Government took this approach because it is a simple way of getting the money into people’s pockets, but how that works will need a lot of unpicking. It is an instructive figure, in fact, because people think that London’s streets are paved with gold, but one in two children in my constituency are living in poverty, it is among the top three for the pensioners deprivation index, and it has a very high level of deprivation overall, while there are also challenges with the cost of living.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

The hon. Lady may not have read the Budget Red Book, but GDP growth is forecast to reduce from 1.6% back in March to just 1% in 2027, and indeed GDP per capita is also forecast to reduce from 1.3% to 0.9%, so the numbers in the forecasts are actually getting worse, not better.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

As the hon. Gentleman rightly highlights, I have not had time in the moments since the Chancellor sat down to go through every graph in the Red Book or, indeed, the OBR’s forecast. Obviously, the Chancellor laid out the figures very clearly at the Dispatch Box, and we will be raising these issues in the Committee. It is easy to pick one measure that has gone down, but sometimes the figure will go up in a later year, and despite the headwinds, there is some room for optimism.

Let me let me be very clear—I think the Chancellor would expect me to say nothing less, as Chair of not only the Treasury Committee, but the Liaison Committee—that Chairs of Select Committees see our role as robust scrutineers of the work of the Government of the day, whichever party is in power and whichever party we are from, as a core part of what we do. There will be nowhere for the Chancellor to hide when he comes before us on 11 November, but I am sure he is robust enough to be prepared and to take on all comers.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)]

The trend started by my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) when he was Chancellor of providing £3.5 billion to spend on AI and digital in order to make all Departments, but particularly the national health service, more efficient, was sadly lacking from this Budget. As Chair of the Treasury Committee, could she suggest how Government spending on digital and AI might improve Government productivity?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The hon. Gentleman raises quite a detailed point, but we know that AI can add about 0.2% to productivity in the economy overall. I do not have direct figures for the NHS, but my sister Committee—the Health and Social Care Committee, ably led by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran)—will no doubt be looking at these issues. As he knows, the Committee corridor is examining the power of AI, covering both the costs and the opportunities, and I am sure the House will continue to discuss the opportunity to improve productivity in various guises and to scrutinise the Government very robustly on that.

What is interesting about the Budget is that some of its measures are for today, but it is clearly rooted in longer-term reforms, which I welcome, because we need to be thinking about the long term. One of those measures is devolution, and I am a firm believer that power should be devolved to the most appropriate level. In fact, when I was a baby councillor with the now chief of staff to the Prime Minister back in 1994, he and I were both responsible for devolving powers to areas within pram-pushing distance. I should say for younger Members that this was before the days of the internet, which perhaps dates me too much. Giving people a say over spending in their own local area can be a really powerful way of engaging people with the decisions that are made—not seeing politics as something distant and remote, but very much part of their communities.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I have given way several times, and a lot of Members are waiting to speak.

Whitehall is often just too distant—not just physically and geographically, but in attitude—from communities and towns up and down the country. I always say that we should not make decisions about people without people. However good our civil service is—and I pay great tribute to the many civil servants I have quizzed over the years about public spending—there will still be a challenge if we do not have the right people around the table, and that may be because they just do not know what is going on in a geographical area.

Our mayors have a very important role, but if money is to be devolved to them, there needs to be very strong local accountability. Of course, the last Government abolished the Audit Commission, which I think is a great sadness, and we have seen huge challenges in local government audit. The Mayor of London has the strongest accountability, with 25 London Assembly members able to challenge him openly and regularly about his spending, and powers to delve into the detail, but mayors in other areas do not have that.

I would say to the Government and the mayors that there is very good reason to have very strong accountability. First, a mayor will want to prove to their constituents that they have spent money effectively, and to be transparent about that, so that when they come up for re-election, people know that their mayors are not frittering away their hard-earned tax pounds and that they are delivering the things they want. Secondly, if a mayor spends money well in their area, they might prove to the Government that they can get more bang for the taxpayer pound than Whitehall achieves by doing it from a distance. Dare I say it, but there may even be times when the Government of the day do not give quite enough money to deliver what was promised, and mayors need the figures to prove that they have been short-changed. In all those circumstances, we need a stronger accountability process, and I hope that we do not go so fast in the drive towards devolution that we do not have those checks and balances in place.

I am very pleased about the moves on cheaper energy and clean power. The Chancellor mentioned GB Grid, which is a start, but about 400 projects are needed to upgrade the grid, and I believe that GB Grid covers 10 or 11 of them, so there is still a huge challenge to get the grid up to speed to meet the target of net zero by 2050. I think the pledge to buy and build only when new technologies will lower bills and be connected to the grid may be an important driver in that area. We may want to quiz the Chancellor about that—as, I am sure, our sister Committee, the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, will want to do with the relevant Ministers in due course. I welcome the energy cost reductions for businesses, because I think all Members across the Chamber have heard that businesses have been really struggling in that regard. I have also been pushing for the closure of the loophole on VAT for online marketplace sales, so I am pleased to see that.

On the face of it, this Budget looks as though it has done a good job, but the devil is of course in the detail, so I again put the Chancellor on warning that we will be looking through that detail over the next few weeks. We have the Office for Budget Responsibility before the Treasury Committee next week, alongside other economists, and we will have the Chancellor himself on 11 November, when we will have had a chance to go through all the figures in detail and can challenge him on what he has promised today and the promises for the future.

Overall, I think we must see cross-party support for the approach to support households in these challenging international times, when a lot of the things that buffet the Government are very difficult for them to control. We must support small businesses. Quite rightly, we all are lobbied a lot by our small businesses. People invest their energy in their businesses, and they need support. We need a long-term vision. Part of our challenge as scrutineers of the Government on the Committee corridor is to hold them to account for their 10-year plan—which we have yet to see—for reshaping the state and devolution. I again warn all Ministers sitting on the Front Bench that the Budget may feel good after the statement today, but we will be challenging them in detail about the money they are spending, whichever Committee they appear before.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the leader of the Liberal Democrats.

Defence Investment Plan

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Treasury Committee.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I have had the opportunity to look over defence equipment plans for the last 13 years, and have repeatedly seen—a profiling from over a decade—huge optimism about savings and efficiencies, which is how plans get across the line of affordability. Will the Secretary of State commit to ensuring that there is proper parliamentary scrutiny of the plan, through the Public Accounts Committee, the Defence Committee and, hopefully next week—if Ministers from both the Treasury and Ministry of Defence agree to attend—the Treasury Committee, at a meeting including Defence Committee colleagues?

[Dan Jarvis]

The Chair of the Treasury Committee makes important points. She will have heard my earlier comments about the requirement, when spending more on defence, to also spend more wisely. I am acutely conscious of the reputation of defence procurement spending, going back generations. We need to do much better, and we are in a process of transition to ensure that we do. I am keen to work closely with my hon. Friend and her Committee to ensure that it has the opportunity to provide the scrutiny on behalf of this House, which would be constructive to the process. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry would be pleased to appear in front of the Committee next week.

Defence

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House regrets that the Defence Investment Plan has still not been published despite the Government promising Parliament that the plan would be published in Autumn 2025; notes that the Government’s delay has frozen procurement and has stopped the UK from learning lessons from its long-standing support for Ukraine and left the UK vulnerable as the world becomes more dangerous; believes that the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 (Remedial) Order 2025 should not be proceeded with because they are a threat to morale, and that the Diego Garcia Treaty should not be ratified to ensure that the UK continues to have sovereignty over its military base; calls on the Government to publish the Defence Investment Plan as soon as possible; and further calls on the Government to increase spending on the UK’s armed forces, specifically delivering 20,000 more troops over the next Parliament, paid for by restoring the two-child benefit cap, and redirecting net zero funding to defence, to ensure that the UK spends three per cent of GDP on defence by the end of this Parliament.

It is a pleasure to open this Opposition day debate. I join the Liaison Committee, the Public Accounts Committee and the Defence Committee in asking the Government one simple question: when on earth will they publish the defence investment plan? Yesterday, the Prime Minister was unable to answer that simple question. It means that, at a time of war and conflict on multiple fronts, and amid the most dangerous time for our country since the cold war, instead of delivering rapid rearmament, Labour is presiding over a procurement freeze. Perhaps that should come as no surprise, given the Prime Minister’s constant habit of dither and delay.

Since 28 February, when the US and Israel started their campaign against Iran, the Conservative position has been that, had we been in government and the US had asked to use our bases, we would have granted permission. In contrast, the Prime Minister has not only dithered and delayed over sending the Royal Navy to the middle east, but constantly U-turned on whether to allow the US to use our bases. That is weak leadership when we need to stand strong in this dangerous world. Now, we are seeing the consequences of the Prime Minister’s weakness on the home front. As war wages around us, he is unable even to confirm whether the defence investment plan will be delivered this week. I urge the Minister to tell us at the outset of his remarks, but before he does, let us remind ourselves of what Labour Ministers have said before.

On coming into office, the Defence Secretary made a choice. He chose not to implement the munitions plan I had produced, which detailed comprehensively how we could rapidly replenish the vast amount of shells and missiles that we had given to Ukraine. Instead, he decided to launch a strategic defence review that would boil the ocean. In multiple written questions, we asked what Labour would do on specific capability, and the answer was always the same: “Wait for the SDR.” So we waited and waited—it was promised for the spring of 2025, and was delivered in the summer—but the SDR did not have any of the specific procurement choices that our entire defence industry is waiting for. After all the hype about the SDR, those decisions were punted into yet another review: the defence investment plan.

In June last year, the Secretary of State promised from the Dispatch Box that

“the work on a new defence investment plan will be completed and published in the autumn.”—[Official Report, 2 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 72.]

But summer turned to autumn, autumn turned to winter, and still there is no DIP.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[James Cartlidge]

Maybe the hon. Lady knows when we will get it; I give way.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I have to say, the hon. Gentleman has some chutzpah, given that one of his Government’s many defence reviews had more pictures than pages. I agree with him that we should be serious-minded on this matter—we need to be prepared for defence—but under his Government, projects were delayed and aircraft carriers were without aircraft, and the ongoing Ajax saga is still be resolved. He needs to take responsibility, too. Across the House, we all want to ensure that we are ready to defend our nation.

[James Cartlidge]

There was no question in that intervention, but I am glad that the hon. Lady agrees that the Government need to get on and deliver the defence investment plan. To be fair, MPs from across the House have said so, including the Chair of the Defence Committee. We all know that it is in the national interest for the DIP to be published.

After all, the defence investment plan being delayed has consequences, the most serious of which are for our military personnel, who we want to have the best equipment for their job. In taking the decision to pause urgent procurement and instead boil the ocean, the Defence Secretary walked into a Treasury trap. Procurement has been on hold ever since, and the Ministry of Defence has been forced to focus on in-year savings, including £2.6 billion for this year alone. Such penny-pinching explains why, until HMS Dragon finally arrived on the scene, we had no warships in the middle east for the first time in decades.

One of the most critical consequences of the delay to DIP is the Sea Viper Evolution procurement. The fact that a US destroyer intercepted at least one of the missiles that Iran fired at our sovereign territory on Diego Garcia underlines how important it is that our Type 45s are able defend against the most advanced threats. For the UK, that requires the Sea Viper Evolution upgrade for our Type 45 destroyers.

In my own SDR submission as shadow Defence Secretary, through numerous speeches in the House and in many written questions, I have repeatedly urged the Government to accelerate Sea Viper Evolution as a priority for our munitions plan. I am sure that members of the public who are watching this debate, worried about Iran’s attack on Diego Garcia, would expect such a capability to have been ordered as rapidly as possible. However, in a written answer this January, when I was once again chasing this critical upgrade, I received the inevitable response that continued progress on Sea Viper Evolution remains

“subject to the defence investment plan.”

That is the problem in a nutshell—the impact of Labour’s procurement freeze in real time. The reality is that Sea Viper Evolution is not due to reach full operating capability until late 2032.

--- Later in debate ---

[Al Carns]

We will publish the defence investment plan as soon as is feasible. The hon. Gentleman will not find anyone who wants more than me more defence spending at a faster rate, but this is a moment for serious decisions to be taken in the national interest. We need to get ourselves back on track. There has been a whole plethora of funding decisions over the last 14 years, which I lived through, and I am sure some hon. and gallant Members present lived through, that in the current environment are no longer fit for purpose.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I am sure my hon. Friend will remember that at one point when he was serving our country the last Government put an extra £4.5 billion into defence spending. However, time after time, every witness that came in front of the Public Accounts Committee told us how it was not solving their funding problem and was overspent many times. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need rigour in spending that actually delivers the kit to our men and women on the ground, in the air and at sea who are serving our country?

[Al Carns]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. We have a large defence budget, and in the past it has not been spent effectively.

I think we can collectively agree, on both sides of the House, that huge procurement mistakes have been made in the past that have resulted in either the wrong equipment or the money going the wrong way. We therefore need to take our time to get this right. As Conservative Members will know, the other reason we need to take our time to get this right is that conflict is changing; in some cases, it overtakes some of the capability that was ordered years ago.

Afghanistan

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It is more than four years since the previous Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, launched on behalf of this country the Afghan relocations and assistance policy with the full support of this House. There has been ample time for anyone who could conceivably believe they might qualify to make their application. None of those schemes, including ARAP, was ever conceived or designed to last in perpetuity, which is why we closed them at the beginning of this month to any new applicants, and why I have taken the decision, based on Rimmer and the other factors I have identified, to end the ARR scheme today. On the ARAP applicants—the sort of Afghans whom the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about—we will complete any remaining applications that are in our system waiting to be processed. On the Triples, we will complete the second phase of the review that we have given a commitment to them and to this House to undertake.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s support for parliamentary transparency and for the work of the Committee corridor in this House. I have no doubt that my excellent colleagues who chair the various Committees that are responsible will do a thorough job of examining this matter, and I hope that the Secretary of State will facilitate the sharing of any information that may need to be handled in a sensitive manner. When Labour was last in government, there were a number of breaches of this nature; a predecessor of his asked to be notified of every one, and most were due to human error. It is great that we are updating the IT systems and dealing with the security, but could the Secretary of State touch on the measures that will be put in place to guard against the human error that will inevitably creep in?

UK Nuclear Deterrent

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

Let me again put on record my thanks to all members of our Royal Navy who go out on patrol, not just on our Vanguard-class submarines, but also on our Astute-class boats—and the previous T-class boats—that defend our deterrent while at sea. They guarantee our security by ensuring that there is a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent every day, and have done so for over 70 years. Every Labour Member was elected on a manifesto commitment to a triple lock for our nuclear submarines: first, we will continue to support the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent; secondly, we will build four Dreadnought-class nuclear submarines at Barrow, which we are committed to delivering; and thirdly, we will maintain and provide all the upgrades that are required for the continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. That includes the renewal of our sovereign warhead, which the Defence Secretary will get to when he makes his statement on the strategic defence review later today. I am determined that we will guarantee our national security, and we will work across Government to do so.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the Chair of the Defence Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), on securing this important urgent question. He and the Minister referred to the need for full scrutiny by the House of such sensitive matters—something that has been pursued for over a year, under the previous Government and this one. Can the Minister provide any reassurance that that is finally progressing, after some delay when there was a change of Government?

[Luke Pollard]

Yes, I can. The Defence Secretary is open to those conversations, though there may still be a difference of opinion about the best way of scrutinising some of our most sensitive matters. I encourage my hon. Friend to continue her conversations with him.

Strategic Defence Review

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I pay tribute to Lord Etherton, who died recently; his review on the injustice to LGBTQ+ veterans was enormously important.

I really welcome this review from the Secretary of State. I have been around long enough to have seen the words “review”, “defence”, “strategic” and “modern” used many times. As the Secretary of State highlighted, the nadir was reached when the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) was Secretary of State, in a report that had more pictures than text. This report will live only if all Members of this House agree that it is long term, because as the Secretary of State knows, chopping and changing and stopping and starting programmes can cause real problems for our men and women on the ground. Does the Secretary of State agree, and what is he doing to make sure that we embed the review for the long term?

[John Healey]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome for the strategic defence review, which recognises the threats that we face and maps out the framework for the investment decisions that will deliver it, make our forces stronger and make the British people safer. I will work with Members from all parties in the House whenever national security and the safety of our people are at stake. I welcome her support.

I also welcome my hon. Friend’s chairwomanship of the Treasury Committee. I hope that her Committee will take an interest in the defence investment at the heart of the SDR and at the heart of our plans. The record defence investment that the Government are making in this country not only reinforces our national security, but can drive economic growth and bring a defence dividend that will drive the mission of this Government to increase economic growth and bring jobs, business and new tech to every part of the country.

Diego Garcia Military Base

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Of course we are not going to ask that. We deeply regret the way that the Chagossians were removed from the islands. We have expressed that sentiment as a new Government since July. We have made provisions in the treaty to support the Chagossian communities, but the hon. Gentleman will recognise that there is a wide range of views within the Chagossian communities and groups. Some of them see the value of this deal, and some of them support it. The important fact for us is that the legal challenge in the High Court demonstrates some of the legal difficulties that would continue to bedevil the operation of this base without the deal that our Prime Minister has signed today.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for explaining—in as much detail as he is able on the Floor of the House—why he believes that this is a necessary act, and I trust him to have the security of the nation as his top priority. However, elements of the treaty cannot be talked about, even at the point when this House may vote on it. There is only one Member of this House who has access to all areas of Government spending: the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). Does my right hon. Friend agree that some areas need deeper scrutiny, and will he support our plan to have a scrutiny Committee that can examine sensitive issues, including this one?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend knows that I have had discussions with her and the hon. Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) about the capability of the House of Commons to scrutinise and hold to account the Government— of whatever party—in areas of necessarily highly secret and confidential activity. She knows that I have a different view about how to deal with that challenge, but deal with it we must.

Armed Forces Readiness and Defence Equipment

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I really welcome this debate, in which five former Defence Ministers are speaking. That is probably a record—certainly in recent years. I very much thank the Chair of the Defence Committee for laying out the global challenges this country faces and some of the capability concerns. Given the expertise in the Chamber, I know that we will hear more about that.

I stand here as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which sometimes feels a bit like the second Defence Committee because of the amount of time we spend examining the vast expenditure that this country makes on defence. Taxpayers give this money to the Government trusting that it will be spent well, but sadly all too often we see that it is not spent as well as it should be. We see money going in but we do not see the capability coming out that we require. The PAC examines that defence spending and the delivery; our job is to look at the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of how taxpayers’ money is spent by Government. As I say, the Ministry of Defence too often falls short on that.

The Committee has huge concerns about the MOD’s ability to deliver projects on time and to budget. This report is only one of our latest on the subject. Just because we have war paint on ships or something is very important, interesting and exciting technology to support our men and women on the frontline does not mean that it should not be treated like any other major project in Government and be managed well and properly. There is no point in having something perfect but late if our frontline personnel need it. As our report highlights, recent global events, which I will not go into, as the Chair of the Defence Committee has outlined them, throw into sharp focus why it is so vital that we deliver on time and that we have the capability, including industrial capability, to ramp up when something, such as munitions, for example, are used apace.

The PAC has examined the annual equipment plan from the MOD for more than 12 years. We have done that throughout the time I have been a member of the Committee, for the past nine years of which I have had the privilege of being its Chair. The defence equipment plan is the 10-year programme for the capability that the MOD says it requires and it lays out how that will be funded, and where the challenges and gaps in funding are. All bar last year’s plan were deemed unaffordable, but the PAC took the view that even in the year when the plan from the MOD came out as affordable, it was based on assumptions that were not realistic, and we did not believe it was fully affordable.

In simple terms, affordability is about the gap between the capability the plan lays out and the money available. As the plan covers 10 years, there have been times when Ministers, including some of the former Ministers present and perhaps even the current Minister, might have come up with reasons for that. They say, “Over 10 years, it is fine. We’ll juggle it a bit. We will balance a bit. We’ll get efficiency savings here and there.” We have seen those arguments and excuses far too often, and the efficiencies do not arrive or issues arise and defence programmes are put off and delayed. By delaying them we see a reprofiling of the costs, but no real reduction in them, and we see those chickens coming home to roost.

This year, the gap between the capability required and what is affordable is £16.9 billion—so it is nearly £17 billion over the 10-year period. We can then add in what the Army would deliver. It is perhaps worth my explaining that for some odd reason—the PAC has taken a strong view on this and even the permanent secretary at the MOD has acknowledged that there was an anomaly—when the Commands and the MOD put in their costs for the programmes, most of them put in the full costs of all the capability required, but the Army puts in only the costs of what it could afford. If we add in the capability that the Army actually requires, we are adding a further £12 billion to that nearly £17 billion, thus making the gap even bigger. There has been a clear deterioration in affordability. It is fair to say that £10 billion of that is because of inflationary costs—we partly know the reasons for that, but I am not going to go into them now—and about £2 billion is to do with foreign exchange costs. Again, the PAC examines those regularly with the MOD and the Treasury, but however we hedge it there will be some challenge on foreign exchange because of the nature of some of our defence procurement.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that has been made worse by the MOD’s tendency to purchase off-the-shelf solutions from the United States in dollars, which is now accounting for a huge amount of the defence budget? As she says, even with hedging, this is a deadweight around the defence budget.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point, and we could almost have a whole debate about that. We do not have time to go into the full detail today, but I will touch on our defence industrial strategy. That is what a lot of this comes down to; if we are buying things off the shelf, it can sometimes be more cost-effective, but we need to be careful and cautious, because the longer those projects are for, the greater the risk of foreign exchange challenges. There is also sometimes a risk to our own sovereign capability and the longevity of some of our defence industries.

We recognise that, with our allies, we work in an international world on this. So there is no straightforward answer, but defence industrial strategy is an area that not only the MOD but the whole of Government should be looking at, as it is vital. Both the Chancellor and shadow Chancellor talk about growing the economy, and our defence industries are based in areas where, if we could up the skills and jobs available, it could provide a major boost to the economy. So there are a lot of opportunities there.

The MOD has not credibly demonstrated how it will manage its funding to deliver the military capabilities the Government want. Our latest report says that they need to get “firmer control of defence procurement” because of this very large deficit in respect of the capability requirements needed. The budget has increased, and I am sure the Minister will stand up to tell us how much extra money is going into defence, but this is about not just the money, but how it is managed. The budget has increased by £46.3 billion over the next 10-year period compared with what was set out in last year’s equipment plan. As I said, the PAC has warned that the deficit is even bigger than expected, so that extra budget will be taken up by the deficit if it is not managed down. Part of the reason for that deficit is inflation, but another major impact on it is the costs of the Defence Nuclear Organisation, which is responsible for the vital nuclear deterrent. Those costs have increased by £38.2 billion since last year’s plan.

One of our Committee’s other concerns is that the MOD has been putting off making decisions about cancelling or reprofiling programmes. Reprofiling is not always a good thing, but sometimes we have to trim according to what is necessary. If the MOD cannot afford the plan, it should take a hard decision, but it has optimistically assumed that the plan would be affordable if the Government fulfilled their long-term aspiration to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence each year, despite there being no guarantee that that will happen. Of course, in an election year there is not even a guarantee as to which party will be in government to consider that. We know, and the Defence Committee will know even more than the PAC, how much the MOD is increasingly reliant on the UK’s allies to protect our national interests. That means that we also have to play our part by making sure that we are delivering that.

For all the time that I have served on the PAC— 13 years this year—the MOD has been led by optimism bias, and it is now pressing on based on not optimism but the sniff of optimism, as there is so little left in that approach that will deliver. We must call that out and call a spade a spade, by saying that the MOD can deliver only what is affordable. So either the money goes in or the MOD trims what it is trying to do, because the approach of trying to do everything all at once and not being able to afford it is just not going to work.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I am listening carefully to what the hon. Lady is saying. I have not cast my eye over the report she is speaking about. She talks about the Government or the MOD trimming projects. The lessons of George Osborne slashing the number of Type 45s in half have had a huge impact on naval capability, and of course we have more than 530 Ajax tanks to come. When we say that we must make savings, are we talking about a false economy? In the long run, it is far better to increase the GDP spend than to slash projects and totally undermine how the defence programme was originally laid out.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I am tempted by the right hon. Gentleman to go into all sorts of long discussion about how the PAC looks at these issues. Resetting projects and programmes can certainly be problematic, and sometimes stopping something part way through can be expensive. Equally, however, altering the requirements part way through can add on costs. When I talk to the commands or the centre, one problem I find is that people sometimes want to gold-plate what they are procuring, and we sometimes need to look at doing those things in a different way. Brutally, let me say that the current situation is not affordable, which means we must make hard decisions about whether something is stopped or no longer procured, or more money is made available. As I have said, and as the PAC repeats ad infinitum, if more money is made available, we need better project management.

The MOD is also saying very clearly that it will not make any decisions until the next spending review. As everybody in the Chamber knows, that is supposed to be in November, but a general election is looming. A spending review is usually six months after the first Budget of a new Government, so we could be floating on the fumes of the current spending settlement until the summer of next year. In certain cases, we will still be pouring good money after bad; the Ministry of Defence needs to tighten up on that, because it cannot live on hope alone.

I touched on industry in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). Industry needs a consistent and certain supply of business to keep the supply chain going, both for resilience and to ensure there is proper investment in the necessary infrastructure. We have seen some of our private sector industries leave equipment and buildings to crumble because they have not had continuity of supply. Some blame lies with them, not just with the Ministry of Defence, but consistency of supply is vital and getting that right provides a potential boon to the economy.

The Committee looks at procurement a lot. For the last decade or more, we have been saying that senior responsible owners need to be in place for far longer. They need to be where their expertise is needed for the right period of time, and then be moved on for the next phase of the project. We need to reward people who stay in those jobs, rather than expecting civil servants or military attachés to roll over on a three-year basis, thinking they just need to keep things ticking over. They need proper ownership and proper reward when they get things right. The MOD is beginning to move in the right direction on senior responsible owners’ skills and longevity, but it still has a lot of work to do to catch up to where it needs to be.

I touched on funding timeframes. The Treasury needs to seriously consider properly controlled longer-term budgets, as it is beginning to do in certain areas with the defence equipment plan. That does not mean giving carte blanche to the MOD; those budgets need to be tightly controlled, as the Public Accounts Committee has made clear. However, controlled longer-term budgets are vital.

Finally, the Public Accounts Committee has access to many areas of Government and all areas of spending, if we choose to look at them. I pay tribute to my fellow Committee members who have never leaked a single piece of information, of whatever sensitivity, in the last nine years. However, the Committee looks at certain issues through opaque glass and it is now time to have full transparency. I want as much information as possible to be in the public domain, but the mechanisms of open, public committees are not always appropriate for certain sensitive areas, including defence.

In our latest report, the Committee recommended that there needs to be a new mechanism and approach that allows Parliament to properly examine such issues in the right, secure context. That might be along the lines of the Intelligence and Security Committee, although we would certainly not be looking at information in that area and not in exactly the same way, because the Public Accounts Committee needs to be more fleet of foot on certain day-to-day spending issues. It is time we had transparency so the British taxpayer knows that every tax pound that is spent, whether on defence or on sensitive matters in other Departments, is being seen and scrutinised by senior parliamentarians who know what they are doing. It is an early thought of the Committee, but important to raise. We need full transparency so that officials and Ministers who are spending taxpayer money in this area of vast expense are properly scrutinised on their work.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

May I begin by saying to the Minister for Defence Procurement, for whom I have great regard and who is trying to reform our broken procurement system, that everything I say in the next few minutes is not personally aimed at him? To quote “The Godfather”:

“It’s not personal…It’s strictly business.”

At his speech at Lancaster House on 15 January, the new Defence Secretary now famously said that we are moving

“from a post-war to a pre-war world”.

His words clearly resonated, both nationally and internationally. For example, when I was on a visit to Washington recently, those words were played back to us by Pentagon officials. Shortly after, in an unclassified letter to all Conservative MPs, the Defence Secretary stressed the need for industrial improvements and to rearm, in terms reminiscent of the 1930s.

However, let us consider what that actually means. The head of the MOD, a senior Cabinet Minister, has said, in effect, that we are now likely to go to war. Although he did not specifically state who with—be it Russia, China, Iran or someone else—that one statement, which I fear may turn out to be true if we do not rapidly improve our conventional deterrence, has incredibly serious implications for our entire defence and security posture. The much-vaunted integrated review has now been completely overtaken by events. In a world with increasing Iranian-inspired violence in the middle east, sulphurous threats over Taiwan emanating from Beijing and now the state-sponsored murder of Alexei Navalny, even the most naive liberals surely have to concede that the Defence Secretary might just be right. The integrated review, and its 2023 refresh, are completely lacking in any great sense of urgency in response.

Similarly, the MOD defence Command Paper, which was meant to dovetail into the integrated review, also lacked a sense of urgency, even to the point of retiring a number of key frontline systems, such as radar planes and tactical transport aircraft, in favour of new equipment, arriving much later in this decade. Many analysts expected that to change post Ukraine, but no major equipment decisions were altered, despite Putin’s barbaric invasion in February 2023—something that some members of the Defence Committee effectively predicted in a debate in this House some six weeks before the invasion began.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

The right hon. Gentleman is in the unique position of being a member of both the Public Accounts Committee and the Defence Committee. Does he share my view that it is a bit like groundhog day when hear the words “defence” and “review” in whichever order? I do not know how many such reviews we have had in the last few years, yet we never see the step change necessary to ensure we will deliver the capability our country needs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Meg Hillier]

Given what the hon. Gentleman has just said, does he agree that it would be good to have tighter scrutiny of that spending, which might mean a new system set up so that we can look at sensitive matters?

[Danny Kruger]

I defer to those on the Front Bench on what transparency is appropriate, but I recognise the point made in the hon. Lady’s Committee’s report and I think in the Defence Committee report about the difficulty of getting the information that the Committees need to do their work. I recognise that nuclear is identified as a separate line in the budget and is protected in theory, but I am concerned about what might be a marginal increase in this enormous budget. It is around a quarter of our total defence spending. If that increases even marginally and the shortfall has to be made up from our conventional defence budget, that entails a significant reduction in that conventional spending, which is so important at the present time.

LGBT Veterans Independent Review

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the disregards and pardons provisions in part 12 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. They have the effect of expunging those offences, which are no longer offences. That clearly applies to what we are debating today. The answer to his question is that that expunging of material will be complete in relation to offences that are service offences and go outwith the civilian—then criminal—offences listed in part 12.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituent worked for the Secret Intelligence Service between 1975 and 1984. In 1984, he was offered a posting overseas, at which point he declared that he was gay, and he was then dismissed expressly because of his sexual orientation. I thank Lord Etherton for the review and for meeting me to discuss this. Clearly, the review does not cover my constituent, but he and others in his position do not even have the comfort of being able to go public at any point because of the nature of their employment. Has the Minister spoken to colleagues in other parts of Government? If not, will he undertake to do so, because this experience should not be prolonged for those in the secret element of service to this nation?

[Dr Murrison]

I am more than happy to discuss the details of that constituent’s concerns separately. This is a review into the way in which Defence handled the matter between 1967 and 2000, and Lord Etherton’s terms of reference were drawn up accordingly. From what the hon. Lady has just told me, I do not think that her constituent will be covered by the review, but I am more than happy to have a conversation.

Service Family Accommodation

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

Issues of recruitment and retention are, of course, broad-based and multifactorial. All sorts of issues go into determining levels of recruitment and retention, but the hon. Gentleman raises a fair point. I would hope and expect that, at the time of entering into the contract, it was made crystal clear that Pinnacle had to deliver on it, because otherwise the implications for service families—not just the individual serviceman or woman, but their families—would be deeply profound. It has not measured up to that, and I think we need to establish in very short order what it said, when it said it and whether it was being entirely up front about what it could deliver.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Public Accounts Committee has issued two reports on this—one in 2016 and one in 2021—and there is also, of course, the excellent report by the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), which highlighted the same issues. Yet another contract was let earlier this year with the same problems. There is a rottenness at the core of the MOD’s ability to contract to deliver on this service, and worryingly, it also delivers on major warships, armoured vehicles and so on. What is the Minister going to do to make sure that there is a real difference? Financial penalties do not deliver better heating systems. Will he undertake a root-and-branch review of how the Ministry of Defence contracts for these services, and will he listen to some of the recommendations made in recent reports?

[Alex Chalk]

There are two issues here. First, there is the issue of the overall quality of the stock. I have spoken about the fact that that does need to improve. In fact, the £350 million to which I referred is principally directed at the 20% of accommodation that requires the most support. As I have indicated, 96% of all service family accommodation meets the decent homes standard, but we need to make sure that that £350 million goes where it is needed and has the maximum impact.

Secondly, the hon. Lady asks a fair question about ensuring that these contracts are properly entered into in the first place, and it is one that I am keen to get to the bottom of. DIO needs to ensure that it does everything possible to do its due diligence on contracts and make sure that, ultimately, we all end up with something that will deliver. That is absolutely what I am focused on.