Speeches by Pollard.

“There is a risk that if we do not have skills investment across the entire supply chain what you will see is primes being able to support their skills base, a hollowing out of adjacent industries and a hollowing out of supply chain. Ultimately that is not good for economic growth, it is not good for our economy, and it…”

“I agree that a clear demand signal is a necessary part of where industry gains advantage and can make investment decisions against. It is one of the reasons why we set out the approach of having the strategic defence review that looks at the threat and the changes that demands, the defence industrial strategy that says…”

“I will answer that question in two parts. The first one is that we have continued to sign contracts with industry as we developed the DIP. There have been 1,400 major defence contracts since the general election and 90%-plus of that spend has gone to UK-based firms. That is a record that we are proud of. I recognise th…”

“The £50 million of MOD funding for the Scottish defence growth deal is still being spent in Scotland.”

“I am expecting that to be in the defence investment plan.”

“I will bring Calum in, in a moment, because his team is one of the broad teams that have been working on the Defence Office for Small Business Growth. The reason we stood it up in the first place—to get at why we are doing this—is because we want to spend more money with SMEs and we know from the engagement that I did …”

“Within the defence investment plan, although it is quite high level, for obvious reasons, and does not go into line item spend, there will be a total figure for how much DNE is being allocated as part of the defence investment plan. Some of those items can be broken out from that. A number of those, for obvious reasons…”

“I, along with the former Defence Secretary, and the Chancellor have been pretty clear that we want to see more shipbuilding in UK yards. When it comes to the Serco tugs contract, it began under the previous Government, was well progressed by the time we got there. It included the decision-making on who to procure tugs …”

“It has been a key policy that we have adopted since coming to office that we want more of an increasing defence budget spent with British-based companies. Quite uniquely as one part of the United Kingdom, Scotland has nearly every single major prime—I think it has every major prime—compared to other regions that might …”

“We are still seeing investment by those large firms in defence. I want to set out a clear demand signal in the DIP for a variety of platforms, which will give people more confidence to invest, but we are still seeing defence companies invest in these areas and we are still seeing a new contract signed that creates more…”

“I am hoping that now the elections are out of the way in Scotland we can have those conversations in person soon. I know that the officials already correspond regular around both the Scottish growth deal and the other aspects of the Industrial Strategy that apply to Scotland. We have good, official level conversations;…”

“It is worth saying that within the defence industry, because of the nature of it, quite a lot of those roles are for UK citizens only. Where we have brought in the enhanced English language requirements in immigration, that is to encourage greater interoperability with society. Also, importantly, it is to reflect the f…”

“As a reserve Department, we do not have a Barnettisation formula for defence spending because it is a reserve spend. As part of the £182 million skills package, we have allocated £20 million for the devolved administrations. Scotland gets the lion’s share of that, but it does cover Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.”

“Yes, and so that is part of our £250 million UK-wide commitment to those five growth deals. They were allocated by my predecessor before I took this particular role on in the last reshuffle. We will continue to spend that, and we have seen the first tranche announcements of that, for example, the £5 million that has go…”

“I will make some progress. That was a clear answer to the questions that have been asked on the matter. When it comes to defence spending, which was raised by a number of colleagues across the House, let me be clear: this Labour Government are spending more on defence. I welcome a debate that asks how we can spend even…”

“I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for her comments. HMS Raleigh is an important training establishment for the Royal Navy. Right across the country, whether in the Navy, Army, Air Force or the new direct entry scheme for cyber, we have some brilliant people training the next generation of talent in our armed forces.…”

“No, I will make some progress. We are spending more of this increasing defence budget with British companies. The hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) mentioned Kraken in his constituency, which I visited very recently. He will be pleased to hear, if he is not familiar with this, about the increased orders that …”

“I am still going to make some progress. Let me now answer the questions about the inheritance that we face. I have already spoken about the SDR wanting us to move from expeditionary warfare to warfighting readiness, but we now need to deliver the changes that we have set out. We have made good progress, but we inherite…”

“I thank our armed forces for their work to keep this nation safe every single day—the regulars, the reserves, the cadets, the civil servants who back our forces, and the men and women of our defence industry who keep our fighting forces on the frontline with the kit and equipment that they need to keep Britain secure a…”

“I am still going to make some progress. Let me also be clear about the inheritance that we have in housing and in morale. We inherited a situation where many of our armed forces were living in housing that was frankly unacceptable. They had black mould in their children’s bedrooms, leaky boilers and leaky roofs. We are…”