Oral Answers to Questions

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Louise Sandher-Jones]

My hon. Friend raises an important case, and I am sure that everybody who read the report into Jaysley-Louise Beck’s death would agree that it was a hugely tragic and deeply saddening case. There is a duty on me—one which I feel very deeply—to make sure that we do everything we can to address the behaviours my hon. Friend mentioned. The Raising our Standards programme is addressing cultural behaviours to strengthen leadership and ensure that when complaints like this are made they are dealt with appropriately. We are also establishing an Armed Forces Commissioner to make sure that where any investigation into these types of behaviours is taken out, we can have full trust in the service to do right by any service personnel, whether they are at the lowest ranks or the highest.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

Last week, I was in Turkey with the Prime Minister to sign Britain’s biggest fighter jet export deal in a generation. The £8 billion contract for 20 Typhoons is a win for European security, the British economy and 20,000 UK workers. It comes just weeks after we won the biggest ever warship deal—a £10 billion contract with Norway that will secure 4,000 jobs over the next decade. These deals demonstrate defence as an engine for growth. Today we go further and publish our defence housing strategy, in which we plan to upgrade 40,000 forces family homes and build 100,000 new homes for military and civilians alike. This plan is backed by a £9 billion investment over this decade—more than double what was in the Tory plans. This is a Government delivering for defence and for Britain.

[Phil Brickell]

May I congratulate the Secretary of State on the Turkey deal last week? A year on from his signing of the Trinity House agreement with his German counterpart, can he outline what progress has been made on implementing that deal, in particular to boost industrial collaboration and drive greater investment into integrated air and missile defence?

[John Healey]

Indeed, we are a year on from the Trinity House agreement, and our co-operation over the next year will only deepen further. Within weeks, we will have German P-8s flying out of Lossiemouth. We have a new cyber programme to conduct joint activities. We have accelerated work on a new 2,000 km deep precision strike missile, and a new £200 million bridging deal to support the British Army. I have to say that this agreement is more important now than when we signed it a year ago.