Paul Holmes

Paul Holmes

Conservative — Hamble Valley

Speaking in the House of Commons on 24 March 2026

Debate

Defence

Contribution

Like my hon. Friend, my constituency has a number of really important defence SMEs, and I make sure that I meet them. The delay behind the defence investment plan and the lack of action on the strategic defence review are filling them with utter dread. Those SMEs are going abroad to sell a lot of their technological advances, particularly in autonomous vehicles, because they cannot get into the Ministry of Defence. There is paralysis in procurement, where there is not the money to have that so-called sovereign capability. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government are talking about sovereign capability a lot, but they are not actually delivering on it, which means that a lot of businesses in the United Kingdom are going without?

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