Wayne David
Main Page: Wayne David (Labour - Caerphilly)Department Debates - View all Wayne David's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Where possible, we should do all we can to ensure a huge proportion of UK content in all the contracts we deliver so that our forces get the kit they need.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
I welcome the new Ministers to their posts. A little more than three months ago, a prominent Conservative Member of this House said:
“We must continue to hammer home the importance of sovereign capability”—[Official Report, 16 July 2019; Vol. 663, c. 277WH.].
That was, of course, the new defence procurement Minister, speaking before she was promoted. Thinking about the fleet solid support ships, for example, can I ask the Secretary of State why his Ministers do not practise what they preach?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to comment on an ongoing competition. As he knows, if we were to prejudice that competition, both the UK taxpayer and potentially UK industry would be at risk of being sued by the other consortium. The Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), whom I welcome to my team, was not the Minister at the time of that competition, so to hold her to account in that way is unfair.