Oral Answers to Questions
Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts(1 day, 2 hours ago)
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Luke Pollard
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising the important role that universities play. In the defence industrial strategy, published a few months ago, we set out our ambition to create a defence universities alliance, bringing together the very best cutting-edge research that is being done in our universities. We are working with Universities UK to put that together, and there will be further announcements in short order, but I hope that the universities on the right hon. Gentleman’s patch will participate so that we can grow our economy and keep our nation safe.
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry (Luke Pollard)
As we move towards warfighting readiness, the Government are investing more of our rising defence budget in new technologies and innovation, and the need for more innovative solutions to address emerging challenges is paramount in these darker and more dangerous times. On 1 July we launched UK Defence Innovation, a £400 million fund, and we will spend 10% of the equipment budget on innovative technologies that will deliver for defence.
Sadik Al-Hassan
What pathways and training programmes are Ministers establishing to ensure that young people, such as those in my constituency, can develop the specialist skills that they need in order to become the defence innovators of the future? Is the Minister working with local colleges, universities and defence industry employers to create hubs of apprenticeships and career opportunities?
Luke Pollard
As a fellow south-west MP, I know just how important it is for us to invest in defence skills in the south-west and across the United Kingdom. The defence industrial strategy includes the £182 million package that we will deliver via defence technical excellence colleges with our colleagues in the Department for Education, but we need to go further, encouraging all our defence businesses—big and small—to invest in skills so that we have the workforce of the future, able to deliver those cutting-edge technologies. I shall be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what more we can do in Somerset.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
The Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry (Maria Eagle)
The Government’s modern industrial strategy, launched last week, announced a 50% increase in MOD spending with small and medium-sized enterprises to £7.5 billion a year by 2028, reversing the downward trend under the previous Government. Our new SME hub will help small firms to access better opportunities, and our reform of defence procurement, along with ringfenced innovation funds, will give SMEs access to the defence dividend. This Government’s increase in defence spending will provide jobs and growth across the UK.
Maria Eagle
My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. There is some flexibility under our procurement rules to specify national security grounds upon which to make a decision. Half our spend is already through sole-source contracts. I am of course happy to meet him and his SMEs. We are delivering for defence by promoting new procurement models that are easier for small firms to access, and our SME hub will engage directly with SMEs to help them to access defence supply chains.
Sadik Al-Hassan
In my constituency of North Somerset, many small and medium-sized enterprises are springing up to support our country’s rearmament efforts. In Nailsea, one such company, 1415 Industries, was recently blocked from opening a business bank account due to blanket prohibitions and excessive delays by retail banks, hindering its ability to organise seed funding and bid for procurement contracts. Will the Minister meet with me to discuss the case of 1415 Industries and the wider problem relating to financial institutions and their interactions with defence SMEs that the case highlights?
Maria Eagle
I recognise my hon. Friend’s point, and I will of course meet with him and his SMEs. Over the last six months, the Defence Secretary and I have convened stakeholders from industry and finance to discuss this issue and make it clear that defence is an ethical sector that they should support. The strategic defence review committed us to developing a dedicated financial services sector strategy, which we will aim to publish in spring 2026. That should give us a further opportunity to make sure that the finance industries know what a good investment defence can be.
Oral Answers to Questions
Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts(5 months, 2 weeks ago)
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John Healey
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. [Interruption.] He is quite right, in that during the last Defence Question Time he talked about our not being excluded from the Security Action for Europe defence fund that would include EU states. I would have thought that he would welcome this afternoon’s agreement, because this is the open door to those arrangements. Let me ask him this: does he therefore agree with his party leader, who declared before even seeing the agreements that will be signed today—including the security and defence partnership agreement—that she would tear them up?
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
Earlier this month the nation celebrated 80 years since Victory in Europe Day, and the Government announced the Operation Valour programme, a new UK-wide veteran support system to ensure that veterans have improved access to essential care and support. It is backed by a new £50 million investment, starting this year.
Sadik Al-Hassan
The rights of the charity PTSD Resolution—which provided vital healthcare services in our stretched NHS—to deliver services that imprisoned veterans desperately need have been taken away in England. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how the MOD and other signatories to the armed forces covenant can support the case of veteran prisoners, and to explain why precious support from a charity has been taken away?
Oral Answers to Questions
Sadik Al-Hassan Excerpts(9 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Luke Pollard
As the right hon. Gentleman will recall from the Bill Committee, which in parliamentary sitting days was only a few days ago, we are raising issues around a number of things, including the one he raises. It is subject to a consultation, as he knows, so a decision has not been made. It is a responsibility for the Treasury, rather than the Ministry of Defence, but I undertook to write to him, and I will do so.
Sadik Al-Hassan (North Somerset) (Lab)
Mr Paul Foster (South Ribble) (Lab)
The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)
I thank my hon. Friends for raising an exceptionally important matter. The deal to sell off most of our service family accommodation in 1996, then rent it back and upgrade it, is probably one of the worst deals I can think of. The recent Annington homes deal, supported by those on both sides of the House, was delivered at speed by this Government, and it saves this country and the taxpayer £600,000 a day, or £230 million a year. It puts us back in the driving seat of owning all our family accommodation. It allows us to renovate or rebuild as required over the next five to 10 years and long into the future. In the medium to long term, we have a once-in-a-generation, lifetime opportunity to rebuild all our accommodation.
Sadik Al-Hassan
May I wish a happy new year to you, Mr Speaker, to Members and to constituents in North Somerset?
Morale in our military hit record lows under the last Government, and I am proud that this Government have already delivered the largest pay rise for the forces in more than 20 years. Does the Minister agree that this housing deal is the next practical step in the action that this Government are delivering to improve service lives for dedicated personnel?
Al Carns
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I have lived in some of the accommodation and I have seen how bad it is, and this deal will allow us to change that. Over time we will have a chance, saving £230 million a year, to give the people who serve this country the deal they deserve when it comes to housing.