Michelle Scrogham
Main Page: Michelle Scrogham (Labour - Barrow and Furness)Department Debates - View all Michelle Scrogham's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(3 days, 3 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
I think everybody will know—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the Chair of the Defence Committee—that the Defence Committee has been calling for the DIP to be delivered for quite some time. The businesses in our patches, including small and medium-sized enterprises, need urgent clarity on where they go and where they invest. That is vital.
I say kindly to those on the Opposition Benches who have been yelling from sedentary positions that they should not be proud of what they delivered in 14 years. I gently say that what the Government inherited on defence was an absolute bin fire, and the Opposition should be ashamed of the mess they left us. Does the Minister agree that it is absolutely right the DIP is presented accurately and for the situation in which we find ourselves today, not three years ago when the world was a different place?
Luke Pollard
I thank my hon. Friend for her question and for how she presented it. She is absolutely right that we need to increase investment. Barrow in her constituency is a really good example of that. There has been a massive increase in employment, with people working in the BAE Systems facilities building the latest generation of nuclear submarines. The commitment is for up to 12 SSNAs to be built in Barrow. That huge investment, not just in our nuclear deterrent but our hunter-killer fleet, shows that when we get defence spending right and we put the effort into skills and communities, defence really is an engine for growth. She will see that writ large when the DIP is published.