Speeches by Eagle.

“It is certainly true that there are a lot of nations looking to buy armoured steel vehicles. We do not make armoured steel that is suitable for such vehicles in Britain. To the extent that we are making armoured vehicles, our prime contractors buy it from elsewhere. As we are all ramping up defence production across Eu…”

“No, although what I can say is that both the MOD and our suppliers procure a tonnage that is less than 1% of the UK’s annual raw steel production. In that sense, the industries that we are talking about in the defence industrial strategy are not big users of steel.”

“The whole point of procurement is to try to make sure we get what we need. The industrial strategy is about meeting the requirements that are set out in the SDR, when it is published, about the capabilities that we need to invest in. The industrial strategy is how we will do that. Procurement, as I have already said, w…”

“There will be goals and targets because, as part of implementing the industrial strategy, we will need to know what counts as implementation. There will be targets.”

“We have not decided what they are yet. I dare say that that is going to come into it. I know the Defence Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, via the defence growth board, will be interested in making sure that we are delivering economic growth. That will be one of the arrangements for overseeing the implemen…”

“We have to avoid being in that position again, absolutely. Part of the problem has been the extremely long-term procurement processes that take years. There has also not been centralised, focused intent, driven by strategy. You have different budget holders saying, “We would like some new tanks for the Army,” or, “We w…”

“I would not describe them as fast, middle and slow.”

“Yes is the answer to that.”

“I do not yet.”

“They cry out for certainty, and they cry out for some understanding of what we want.”

“On long-term partnerships and contracts, you might have seen the Unity contract that we signed with Rolls-Royce, which gives multi-year certainty about procuring on the nuclear side in a way that has enabled them to establish an academy to start thinking about making sure they have the right skills to do this over a nu…”

“We did not want to produce an equipment plan this year before the strategic defence review sets out what capability we need. We are committed to having increased transparency with parliamentary colleagues. The Public Accounts Committee is very interested in this as well. We are not trying to hide what has been revealed…”

“First of all, on access, at the moment it is almost impossible for a small or medium-sized enterprise to decide to try to get a defence contract. That is partly because it is hard for them to know who to contact at the moment. A lot of our contracting arrangements require quite significant waits and the production of v…”

“The establishment of UK Defence Innovation has not been announced for that long. It was announced in the last three weeks. There is a bit more detail today in the spring statement about the budgets that it will have and its aim. It will sit under the NAD in the NAD group of the Department. As I have said, that is being…”

“I will try to find out whether we have an organogram. I will let you have it, if we do.”

“It is dangerous if Ministers start drawing organograms.”

“DASA does great work. UK Defence Innovation is not going to replace DASA. DASA will still be part of the ecosystem. UK Defence Innovation is going to bring together some of the initiatives that already exist across defence in a more coherent way.”

“I am hoping that the hub will be able to signpost any small firm.”

“I have to do this from where we started, which is 108 frameworks and only 4% direct spending on small firms. I want to improve that. I think a hub will improve that.”

“We will have to see. There is a big meeting on 19 May. We are hoping that we will be able to sort out the UK-EU defence and security arrangements, and that will hopefully give us access to ReArm and SAFE. We have good bilateral defence arrangements, as well as arrangements through NATO, which mean we already can and do…”