Graeme Downie

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) on securing this debate. The first debate I led in Westminster Hall on 15 January 2025 was also on the UK submarine service. It is an important issue which we should always keep coming back to periodically—perhaps some of our colleagues from other parts of the United Kingdom will take turns next time round. I want to talk about the naval base and dockyard at Rosyth in my constituency. Just last week I had a ten-minute rule Bill on submarine recycling—a programme which I will come back to later. Rosyth was a critical part of the submarine service during world war one, from where squadrons of submarines left for the battle of Jutland. In the second world war it was particularly a base for Polish submarines. If anyone has the time, including perhaps the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who is sitting opposite, to read up on the history of the Polish submarine Orzeł, they will find that it is a fantastic story about not only the boat itself while it was based at Rosyth, but the antics—shall we say—of some of the crew, which are famous around Fife. I am delighted that there is a memorial to the crew of the Orzeł and other Polish members of the community who served with the Royal Navy in world war two being constructed very close to Rosyth. It is a reminder that when the UK fights wars, we tend to fight them with our allies and that we will continue to do so in the future. Rosyth is also a very key part of current submarine activity. We currently have missile tubes for Dreadnought-class submarines being constructed at Rosyth with fantastic hard work and high-end manufacturing being done there. Indeed, the manufacturing standards are so high that they are also building the same equipment for the US Columbia-class submarines. Anyone who has dealt with anything about defence will know that for the Americans to give up that level of investment in one of their key pieces of technology shows exactly how important that workforce is. Indeed, they are also building parts of the next Virginia-class submarines as well. Again, that is a testament to the fantastic workforce at Rosyth.