Speeches by Scrogham.

“Secretary of State, you have described the defence reform as a Parliament-long programme. How far along do you feel we are in the programme? What aspects are complete, and what aspects do you see that remain to be done?”

“You mentioned the National Armaments Director and said it will help defence become an engine for growth, which I appreciate is working for Barrow-in-Furness. How much priority do you expect the director to give to developing the UK’s defence industrial base while making acquisition decisions?”

“General, you are recommending some significant changes within defence, but also in the way that defence engages with other actors. Do you feel that our defence system is ready and able to deliver? If not, what does it need to enable it to make those changes?”

“Dr Hill, areas of resilience often rely on other Government Departments, on industry and on wider society to make changes. How confident are you that changes can be achieved? What action do you think is needed to support that work?”

“Do you think they are equipped for the challenge of actually making those changes?”

“We had a review recently in my patch where we brought defence together. One of the biggest sticking points was the fact that the SMEs could not get into the MOD. What you are saying is, “Reduce the bureaucracy and it will work better”.”

“Should we believe that it is possible to achieve it this time round? What do you think are the biggest stumbling blocks that we would come up against?”

“Previous reviews have talked about transformation and have used the same sort of language. Why do you feel they have found it so difficult to achieve?”

“I met recently with Jaysley Beck’s mum. She does not have any confidence that this is changing quickly enough, if at all. What would you say to her, faced with that? What would you do, in her position, to make this happen quicker and make sure that the people coming into this service are protected and they feel as safe…”

“Moving on to people again, the Committee continues to get really concerning reports about bullying and harassment, particularly against minority groups and women. What has been done in your time to try to put that right? Where do you see that changing? What has gone wrong?”

“Given those restraints—you mentioned the black hole in the funding, and we all know what the challenges are—what priority should this Government place on the High North, as opposed to Ukraine or any other area of conflict?”

“Perhaps we can focus on the UK’s Arctic policy for a few minutes. We touched on the strategic defence review a little bit earlier, but what do you think the review actually tells us about this Government’s approach to the Arctic and the High North?”

“Brigadier General, if you can bring it directly back to the SDR, do you think the Government’s approach towards Arctic policy is the right one?”

“Not so much Ukraine, as we are looking at the High North. What do you think this Government should be prioritising for that area, given our constraints?”

“I recently met the mother of Jaysley Beck, who tragically took her own life after being sexually assaulted and abused within the services. I was really impressed by her mother’s strength and her campaign. Does the Minister agree that the Bill will give more powers to family members, and that maybe we can avoid these tr…”

“I am sure that the whole House is in no doubt about just how proud we are in Barrow and Furness to be building the submarines that keep our nation safe. The commitment to expanding this country’s submarine programme, with up to 12 SSN-AUKUS boats to be built in our shipyard, is the start of the next chapter of that ill…”

“We have heard a lot about SMEs and the challenges that they face in gaining access to MoD and different contracts. We have, in my patch, the nuclear deterrent and, inexplicably, we have small SMEs in the same patch that are not in that supply chain. Is this something that you hear often? How do we deal with that challe…”

“Given that the space sector is not solely defence, what challenges are you facing in engaging with multiple Government Departments? Dr McGibbon: We cover space and semiconductors. We cover DSIT, DBT, defence and the space sector. There are advantages to being dual use, but the disadvantage is that you can be pointed in…”

“How would you change that if you had a magic wand?”

“You touched briefly on covid. That escalated people’s thoughts on just how unprepared we are. We saw the lack of supplies in the NHS. Particularly in Cumbrian rural areas, which is my patch, that rurality and the difficulty within the community was raised during that in particular. Everybody automatically assumes that …”