UK Defence Spending

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) [V]]

I am hugely grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for securing a debate that has such enormous implications for my constituency. I declare an interest as a long-standing member and former north-west regional secretary of Unite the union.

I am immensely proud to represent a town that is home to the historic Cammell Laird shipyard. From its slipways have sailed some of the most advanced and technologically sophisticated ships ever seen in British waters, including, recently, the RSS Sir David Attenborough, which is due to make its maiden Antarctic voyage later this year. For far too long, however, British shipbuilders like Cammell Laird have been disastrously let down by procurement policies that have totally neglected to invest in jobs and skills at home, instead buying defence projects off the shelf from abroad. That is why Sir John Parker’s independent review of the national shipbuilding strategy, which was clear in its recommendation that defence vessels be open to UK-only competition, was so welcome. So too was the decision to scrap the coalition Government’s ruinous “open competition by default” policy, which saw price trump social value and left British suppliers out in the cold.

But we must go further. That is why my party is calling for a policy of “buy British by default”, which would require Ministers to prove that a defence project cannot be built at home before buying from abroad, alongside an expanded definition of good value that includes the potential benefits to British manufacturers, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the employment and training opportunities that these companies create.

This must begin with the bidding process for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s new fleet solid support ships. With the competition now open, I call on the Minister to provide a cast-iron guarantee that these vessels will be built and designed in their entirety in the UK. At the moment, the Government are allowing bidders to work with international partners as long as the ships are integrated in a UK shipyard. This simply is not good enough. As the GMB and Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions have warned, it risks leaving the lions’ share of the work to be offshored, with UK workers and companies missing out. I therefore call on the Minister to ensure that the contract is awarded to the Team UK consortium, comprising Babcock International, Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems and Cammell Laird. This would guarantee or create at least 6,500 jobs across the UK, as well as countless more along the wider supply lines, and of the £800 million spent by the Ministry of Defence, at least £250 million would be returned to the Treasury in the form of income tax, national insurance contributions and lower welfare payments. The choice is simple.