Luke Pollard MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment · Hansard source

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  The Government are delivering for Defence by addressing the deep retention and recruitment crisis that we inherited from the Conservatives. Last week I announced more detail on a brand-new fast-track cyber entry to boost UK cyber-defence, bolstering our capabilities in response to the growing threats and addressing a global shortage of cyber-talent. I also announced the award of a new contract for a tri-service armed forces recruiting service.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment · Hansard source

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  I assure the right hon. Gentleman that his passion is also felt on the Government Benches, and the ministerial team want to support all our veterans. The issue that he raises is difficult for me to comment on as it is subject to ongoing legal matters, and he will appreciate that it is hard for a Minister to comment in such circumstances—

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment · Hansard source

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  This is a matter that the Ministry of Defence has discussed today with the Northern Ireland Office—it is a Northern Ireland Office lead, and we will be working closely with it on that. Announcements have already been made in relation to this by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and I reassure the hon. and learned Gentleman that a career in the armed forces is a brilliant career for anyone looking at it. This Government will continue to support those people who serve, and those who have served, to ensure that they get all the support they need to defend our country in service, and benefit from that service after they have left uniform.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment · Hansard source

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  It is vital that we seek to invest in Defence Medical Services, especially as we live in more difficult and contested times where we may need to use its expertise and that of the national health service across the UK to support a warfighting effort. I know the Minister for Veterans and People is looking forward to visiting Whittington later this year. I hope that when the strategic defence review comes out, my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Sarah Edwards) will see the path to investment and support that we are offering Defence Medical Services as we look to create a whole-of-society approach to our defence.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces Recruitment · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s question none the less. The Ministry of Defence is continuing our conversations with the Northern Ireland Office, which is the lead Department for such matters. We will continue to support our veterans, and we will continue conversations with the Northern Ireland veterans commissioner as to how we can support veterans in Northern Ireland in particular.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces 2030 Recruitment Target: Women · Hansard source

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  We inherited a retention and recruitment crisis, which must be addressed across all different cohorts. Increasing female representation benefits our warfighting and readiness, but we are still some way from where the hon. Lady and I would like us to be on the issue. The latest figures from October 2024 show 11.9% female representation in the regular forces and 15.9% in the reserves.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Armed Forces 2030 Recruitment Target: Women · Hansard source

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  This is an important topic, and it really matters. Implementing the recommendations of the Atherton review and raising standards, as the Minister for Veterans and People has spoken about, will benefit everyone in the armed forces, but women in particular. We need to improve culture and behaviour, and focus on women’s health and wellbeing. New policies are being brought forward to address that. We are also standing up more work on calling out crimes and behaviour that is unacceptable in our armed forces. Everyone should have a place in our armed forces, because defending our country requires a whole-of-society approach. We must not neglect any part of society.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We live in more difficult and uncertain times, with increasing risks to UK homeland security. That is an evolution from some of the strategic assessments in previous reviews. It is for that reason that the strategic defence review is looking not only at how we support our NATO allies, with a NATO-first approach, but at how we invest in capabilities to ensure that we are looking after the UK homeland—and, Mr Speaker, the UK homeland includes our overseas territories.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  Clyde is an important base for our national security. It is one of our critical military assets, and we work closely on it, not just with the Scottish Government and local councils, but across the entirety of Government. The success of our defence does not rely just on the actions and decisions of the Ministry of Defence; it is a whole-of-Government approach that keeps our nation safe. In these more difficult times, we will ask for more of a whole-of-Government approach, to ensure that the men and women of our fighting forces, and the civilians who support them, have what they need to keep our nation safe.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the hon. Member’s question—it is a good one. We are seeing more risks posed to our critical underwater infrastructure by players who wish harm to our national security. We already have brilliant capability in RFA Proteus, which is able to support our infrastructure and that of our allies. When the strategic defence review is published in the spring, I am sure that there will be more developments in that direction.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  I am familiar with the campaigning work of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), who has raised similar concerns. If the right hon. Lady writes to me about that, I will be happy to meet her to discuss it further.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right. We are increasing our defence spending. In the Budget, we increased defence spending by £3 billion, and in the spring, after the publication of the strategic defence review, we will set out a path to spending 2.5% of our GDP on defence.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  As a Navy brat and representative of a naval constituency, that is foremost in my mind. It is not just the Royal Navy that defends our critical national infrastructure; in the case of the Yantar, that was done by the RAF, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the Royal Navy, as well as a joint integrated operation of all our forces working together to defend our interests. Anyone threatening our infrastructure should be in no doubt that the UK possesses formidable capabilities to defend itself—and we will.

• 10 Feb 2025 · Undersea Infrastructure · Hansard source

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  The Government are delivering for defence with strong measures to protect our underwater critical national infrastructure. We have declassified the activities of the Russian spy ship Yantar. We have called out its activities by saying, “We see you. We know what you’re doing,” and we will robustly defend our critical national infrastructure.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend that we have to spend more on defence. I think everyone in this House agrees with that, and that is why this Labour Government are spending more on defence: an extra £2.9 billion as announced in the Budget and a pathway to spending 2.5% of our GDP, which will be announced later in the spring.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s words about Holocaust Memorial Day. His Majesty the King has been in Auschwitz for the 80th anniversary, and he spoke for the nation when he said that we will remember this evil long after the survivors of the Holocaust have passed. I have set out clearly that, in the spring, we will lay out a path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence. We will also publish a strategic defence review, setting out what we will spend the money on and how we will respond to emerging threats. As the hon. Gentleman will know from the Defence Secretary’s statement last week, we will make it absolutely clear to those who threaten us that we will use the formidable capabilities available to us to defend the UK and our allies. We inherited a situation in which, during their entire time in power, not a single Conservative Government spent 2.5% of GDP on defence. The last time that 2.5% of GDP was spent on defence was under the last Labour Government. We have inherited falling morale; a retention and recruitment crisis; service personnel living in mouldy, broken homes; and a hollowed-out and underfunded military. That is what the SDR will seek to fix, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to give us his full support. Having listened to last week’s debate, the hon. Gentleman will know that those who die on active service are exempt from the inheritance tax provisions. He will also know that the Defence Secretary has uplifted CEA support to 90% for those who privately educate their children while serving in the military. We will continue to support our armed forces, renewing the contract between the nation and those who serve. We will publish the defence review in the spring, when we will also set out our path to spending 2.5%.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  It is certainly true that we inherited a broken defence procurement system; I think broken was the word that the shadow defence procurement Minister, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), used when he was on the Defence Committee. It must make for awkward team meetings, given that the man responsible for the broken procurement system, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), is sitting in those meetings as his boss. We have set out clearly that, as part of our defence reform work, we will create a new national armaments director. The new defence industrial strategy will be published in due course, which will set out how we will spend more with British companies, supporting not just the primes but small and medium-sized enterprises in all parts of the United Kingdom.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  The strategic defence review will set out clearly what threats the nation is facing and what capabilities we need. I would expect to see renewal of our capabilities, because we have seen from the war in Ukraine that warfare has changed. Some of the assumptions about how we structure our armed forces and how we fight have been challenged by the experience of warfare in Ukraine, and that is one of the reasons why this SDR is so important. It will set out the evolving capabilities that we need and how we will deliver them to keep our nation safe.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  I have a lot of time for the right hon. Gentleman. He did not plug his “Shifting the goalposts?” Defence Committee report, which clearly set out changes in GDP spend on defence. I believe that he used the report to argue for more defence spending when his party was in power. Now that we are in power, we are doing it: we increased defence spending by £3 billion in the Budget and will lay out a path to 2.5% in the spring.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  The shadow Defence Secretary was certainly a regular user of the helicopters, so he will be able to advise colleagues whether they were good value. It is true that the Government need to demonstrate our support for our armed forces. We are doing that by making sure that we invest more in defence, and we have also given our armed forces the largest pay rise in 20 years. Recruits’ pay is up 34% under this Labour Government, and we are creating a new direct entry to cyber to make sure that we can get the people we need in the future. It is not just the kit and capability but the people that this Government are investing in, and we will continue to do so. I expect to see more of that in the defence review published in the spring.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  Lord Robertson is conducting the externally led strategic defence review based on the terms of reference that were agreed with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister. Lord Robertson will publish it in the spring. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is looking forward to it as much as I am.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  It is certainly true that we have a manifesto commitment to put the armed forces covenant fully into law. That will come forward in the armed forces Bill in due course. We set out from the Dispatch Box last week that the inheritance tax does not apply to those members of our armed forces who die on active service. The other areas are subject to a Treasury consultation, and the Treasury will make an announcement in due course.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  It is certainly true that the last time this country spent 2.5% of GDP on defence was under a Labour Government. The Tories cut defence spending as a percentage of GDP over their time in power. It is important that the strategic defence review wins cross-party support when published. I hope that the shadow Defence Secretary will be able to offer the Government a common position, so that what is published will be not just Labour’s defence strategy but Britain’s defence strategy, and we can be strong at home as well as secure abroad.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for his question. He is right that last week we declassified information about the activities of the Russian spy ship Yantar, including revealing details of the surfacing of a Royal Navy submarine to deter the Yantar’s activities loitering above our critical national infrastructure. It is absolutely right that this Government make the case that warfare has changed, especially when it comes to the protection of our critical underwater infrastructure. Making the case that we have formidable abilities, but also being clear in the SDR about how we will invest in those capabilities alongside our allies, is essential. The SDR will be published in the spring, when I am sure he will be able to see more about that.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Fiscal Policy: Defence Spending · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman might have missed the debate in which it was set out clearly that the deal we have secured to ensure the long-term future of the Chagos islands began under his Conservative Government—11 rounds of negotiations under the Conservative party, I think it was. The UK-US base on Diego Garcia is strategically important, which is why it is absolutely vital to secure its long-term future free from any constitutional threat. That is what the deal does, and I hope that when it comes before the House the hon. Gentleman will be able to back it, just as I will.