Michelle Scrogham
Main Page: Michelle Scrogham (Labour - Barrow and Furness)Department Debates - View all Michelle Scrogham's debates with the Ministry of Defence
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Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
First, I should note that, for all their chatter outside this Chamber on defence, there is not a single Member of the Reform party here. They are utterly incapable of having a serious conversation when it comes to defence.
I would like to congratulate the shadow Defence team. I did not believe it was possible to reduce their credibility on defence any further, but they have managed to lower the bar once again and slither under it. To suggest that we should restore the two-child benefit limit to pay for defence spending shows such a lack of understanding of what is happening in society. Under their Government, for 14 years, the people living at the poorest edges were working—those people on benefits were working and still could not pay the bills to feed their families and put the heating on. That tells us that the Conservatives do not understand working people. They assume that anybody receiving a benefit is a scrounger or does not want to work. [Interruption.]
I will not give way, because I have heard so much from the Opposition on this. It is outrageous. The shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), was the Defence Procurement Minister who left 47 out of 49 programmes not on time and not on budget. The Tories’ legacy was a procurement programme that was overcommitted, underfunded and unsuited to the threats we now face. They cut frigates and destroyers by 25%. They cut minehunters by more than 50%. There was a lot of pearl-clutching when they were asking where HMS Dragon was, but we know why HMS Dragon was in dock: it was there because it was under maintenance. We could not send it because it is the only one we have, built under the Labour Government, and the Conservatives did not bother to build any more during their term of office.
Michelle Scrogham
No, I will not be taking interventions. Lots of Members would like to contribute to the debate who have not had a chance to speak because the time has been taken up. The Opposition can feel free to mutter from the other side, but they should perhaps use the ears that are painted on instead of flapping the lips.
I am astonished at the brass neck of shadow Ministers in criticising our readiness, when it was their Government who slashed £12 billion from defence in their first term, and continued that trend throughout their sorry record of 14 years, including by slashing spending on counter-drone systems by 70% in their last year in office.
Few MPs will feel the cost to their communities of the chaos and choices made by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition as keenly as I do in Barrow and Furness. The Opposition Benches are filled with those who were responsible for wreaking carnage on the communities I grew up in. The price of the coalition was to delay the nuclear deterrent; the cost to my community was economic devastation, with 10,000 families where the main breadwinner was out of work, 10,000 skilled workers losing their livelihood, and an industry that is struggling to recover to this day.
It takes nuclear welders 15 years to train and achieve the level of experience that we need to build those boats, but the coalition Government threw that away like a spoiled child with a toy, who expects it to be there when they want to come back to it. Critics at the time said that delaying the replacement for Trident would cost the taxpayer more in the long run as it risked losing skills, and increase the costs of repairing existing Vanguard submarines, which would have to last for longer. MPs at the time said that they did not think the delay would happen, because that would be the “maddest” decision to take—and yet they did it. Those critics forgot to mention the impact on our incredible submariners, who are spending over 200 days at sea on Vanguard, as we stretch that capability beyond its limit. Had it not been for the recklessness of the coalition Government, Dreadnought would be in service now.
After 14 years of hollowing out our defence capabilities, Conservative Members have the nerve to come here today and attempt to blame this Government—a Government who have increased defence spending to its highest sustainable level since the cold war, and who are investing in our armed forces to give them the largest pay rise in two decades and the homes they deserve in order to turn around the recruitment crisis that we inherited from the Tories. This Labour Government are once again cleaning up the mess left behind by those on the Opposition Benches. We do not get to decide when other countries attack, and we can never predict instability around the world. We can, however, predict that history always repeats itself. We can never take peace for granted, but this Labour Government are delivering on defence where the Conservatives failed.