Sir Bernard Jenkin

Sir Bernard Jenkin

Conservative — Harwich and North Essex

Speaking in the House of Commons on 2 June 2025

Debate

Strategic Defence Review

Contribution

The document says that “this will allow us to grow our nuclear-powered attack submarine fleet to up to 12.” Is not the truth—and let’s speak the truth—that that is the ask to the Treasury, and the spending review has yet to decide what the defence programme will be? I hear what the Secretary of State says, when he says with his full force and sincerity that “we will fund this defence review”, but how will he achieve that without much more significant cuts to other budgets? No Government can afford to spend and borrow much more, if anything at all, so how will he get the necessary cuts through to fund this big increase in defence spending, beyond 3.5% because we all know we will need more than that?

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