Integrated Review

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This Government continue to invest massively in projects that will bring benefit to the whole of the UK, including Scotland. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there will be further investments in Lossiemouth, and that there is no threat to the Black Watch, which he and his colleagues sometimes like to raise in order to alarm people.

We will continue to invest massively in overseas development aid, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned. We are very proud of what we are doing—and by the way, it delivers 500 jobs in East Kilbride. We will continue to invest in shipbuilding, which drives jobs across the whole of the UK, and particularly in Scotland. It is fantastic to see ships being built by apprentices in Govan, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has. The only thing that endangers those investments and our working together as one UK—working with all the fantastic people in the armed services in Scotland—is the reckless referendum that his party insists on calling at the most inapposite time possible for this country.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I very much welcome the comprehensive ambitions set out in this important integrated review paper. There is a 1930s feel to the scale of challenges that we face today, with rising authoritarian powers, weak global institutions, and an absence of western leadership and collective resolve. I was hoping for a Fulton, Missouri moment when we finally call out China for the geo-strategic threat that it is, and a commitment to our aid budget. I do hope that the Prime Minister will summon that Atlantic charter spirit of working together with our closest ally, the United States, to strengthen the rules-based order, such as advancing the G7 to the G10, which could form the backbone for revising the trade and security standards that our ever-dangerous world so desperately needs.