L

Lord Coaker (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 30 April 2025

Debate

National Shipbuilding Strategy

Contribution

My noble friend makes a really important point. Part of what I and the Government are trying to do is to ensure that the increase in defence spending is felt across the regions and nations of this country, whether it be the Yorkshire and Humber region and other regions of England, or Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But my noble friend is also right to point out that this cannot be just the huge primes; it has to be small and medium-sized industry as well. We have many such programmes and projects within the MoD that seek to ensure that smaller and medium-sized enterprises benefit. I want to know, not why we do not have another project to encourage small and medium-sized businesses, but why, over the last 10, 15 or 20 years, we have had project after project trying to generate more activity and support for such businesses. The truth is that we have not managed to achieve what we wanted. So I will go back to the MoD and say, “Why will the projects that we’re now introducing work, when they perhaps haven’t worked as well as they might have done in the past?”

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