Alan Strickland

I beg to move, That this House has considered SME participation in defence procurement. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I recognise that procurement is not usually a topic that gets pulses racing, but the threats posed to the UK and our allies certainly should. Central to our ability to rise to these challenges is using the defence industrial strategy to unleash the inventiveness, ingenuity and creativity of British industry. I will cover three things: our need to respond to the changing face of warfare; adopting a proactive entrepreneurial approach to acquiring the defence supplies we need; and the practical steps we can take to place small and medium-sized enterprises innovation in the service of our national defence. I turn first to our need to respond to the changing face of warfare. Technology has been rapidly altering the nature of warfare at a pace rarely witnessed before. We see this most clearly in Ukraine, where drone technology has rewritten the rules of modern conflict. Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and the resulting war have shown us the incredible speed at which military technology is advancing. Reconnaissance drones paint detailed maps of occupied territory, helping to guide unmanned attack drones in strikes on Russian vehicles and equipment. The role of this technology is now so important that a dedicated branch of the Ukrainian military has been established to deploy it. Here at home, I have seen first hand the RAF’s latest unmanned air systems as part of an armed forces parliamentary scheme visit. Drones, artificial intelligence and rapidly evolving satellite technology are being used to redefine all aspects of conflict, from the battlefield to the information war, to who controls space. Amid those significant and growing global threats, it is vital that Britain is at the forefront of developments to ensure that we can defend not only ourselves, but our allies and interests across the globe.