Luke Pollard

Luke Pollard

Labour (Co-op) — Plymouth Sutton and Devonport

Speaking in the House of Commons on 15 June 2026

Debate

Defence Investment Plan

Contribution

My hon. Friend is assiduous in raising the people involved in tech. I have visited Suffolk, which is an area where SMEs do really well; indeed, I have been to a Ukrainian drone manufacturing company that has set up in that part of the world. We need to learn the lessons from Ukraine, and that means more autonomy, more drones, a more joined-up way of thinking and a change in the way we fight, if only because the way that Russia has fought in Ukraine shows that some of the doctrine we have traditionally followed and inherited from the Conservatives—the difference between the close and the deep, how artillery and drones work together, and how we can hold ground and take it—have changed fundamentally. That is why we are setting out, in the defence investment plan, the implementation of the SDR: to start the process of getting us to a more lethal force.

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