National Shipbuilding Strategy

Baroness Winterton of Doncaster Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

If I have understood the noble Baroness’s question correctly, figures have been published on that. If we are talking about Royal Navy ships, as I have already outlined, eight Type 26s are being built —started, to be fair, under the previous Government, of which she was a supporter—by BAE on the Clyde, and five Type 31s are being built at Rosyth by Babcock. Those are the starting points of real improvement and of increases in the number of ships being built. Of course, we need to do more, and we will try to do so.

[Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend the Minister mentioned the supply chain, which can be incredibly important for companies in areas such as Yorkshire and the Humber, and crucial for growth. Too often they have complained that the process of tendering and finding out what is available has been incredibly difficult. Does the MoD have a clear strategy to address the problems previously faced by small supply chain companies, so that they can benefit from the orders that are placed?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a really important point. Part of what I and the Government are trying to do is to ensure that the increase in defence spending is felt across the regions and nations of this country, whether it be the Yorkshire and Humber region and other regions of England, or Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But my noble friend is also right to point out that this cannot be just the huge primes; it has to be small and medium-sized industry as well. We have many such programmes and projects within the MoD that seek to ensure that smaller and medium-sized enterprises benefit. I want to know, not why we do not have another project to encourage small and medium-sized businesses, but why, over the last 10, 15 or 20 years, we have had project after project trying to generate more activity and support for such businesses. The truth is that we have not managed to achieve what we wanted. So I will go back to the MoD and say, “Why will the projects that we’re now introducing work, when they perhaps haven’t worked as well as they might have done in the past?”