Stuart Anderson MP: speeches

Speeches

• 1 Sept 2026 · Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas · Hansard source

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  In a remote area such as South Shropshire, just over half of my constituents have high-speed internet, so face-to-face banking is absolutely important. We have seen the issue in Bridgnorth, Church Stretton and Ludlow. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government have to take that into consideration? It is not one size fits all.

• 30 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  A high-profile child sex offender was released into a village near a school in my constituency. I was told about this by local residents. Over three months ago, I wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister expressing huge concern. He refused to meet me and said that this was down to the Probation Service. Why is the safety of South Shropshire’s children not worth a meeting to discuss this issue? This is a huge issue for my constituents.

• 30 Jun 2026 · High Street Regeneration and Unlawful Storefronts · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this important debate. South Shropshire residents really value their high street—the 4,500 people who filled in my survey explaining what was important to them on the high street are testament to that. Unanimously, businesses said that taxes were too high and it was so hard to make a profit. Established businesses that have been operating for many years are struggling to make a profit under the current conditions. Residents also spoke about parking, accessibility and how they get to the high street—a big issue—but also about the state of the high street, from cleanliness to pop-up shops. On pop-up shops, which many Members have already mentioned, we have the Turkish barbers, who have the skill of Sweeney Todd and serve about two people a day, can be closed for months on end and then open, and the vape shops, which have neon signs and displays that are not in keeping with any South Shropshire town. From Ludlow over to Bridgnorth, we see them changing the shape of the high street. Residents do not like it, it is not appropriate and we need to call it out. I am working with a rural crime officer; we have recently met with the chamber of commerce and local businesses in Ludlow. I am also working with a dedicated police officer in Bridgnorth specifically to look at this problem. It is a complex issue, but we are asking local residents to feed into the police and me any operations on the high street that they believe are illegal. We need to do everything we can to ensure that genuine local businesses can thrive and to get rid of shops that do not belong there, that present a blight on the high street and, in many cases, are fronts for organised crime that need to be closed down.

• 24 Jun 2026 · Farming: Financial Sustainability · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Member for securing a very good debate. On food security, in south Shropshire, just outside Onibury, there is a campaign to stop over 130 acres of solar panels going on good agricultural land. The plans would make it harder to be resilient and to provide food security as a country. Does he agree that no solar panels should go across good agricultural land?

• 24 Jun 2026 · Farming Road Map and Profitability Review · Hansard source

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  South Shropshire farmers wanted to see an action plan that prioritised food production. The road map does not do that, and it will not happen unless the Government decide to do all food procurement through supply chains that prioritise South Shropshire farmers and other farmers around the country. Will the Secretary of State commit to prioritising British farmers in the Government procurement process?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for taking my intervention. I, too, served with 20th Armoured Brigade and was deployed in operations from Germany over to the Balkans. She talks about mismanagement. She is in a position where, unless more funding comes forward, the Government are about to make some of the biggest cuts to the armed forces during the most hostile situation since the second world war. How does she square that circle?

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst). He speaks with passion on defence, and he clearly wants to increase our defence presence. I have listened to the debate and I am sounding an alarm. I grew up in a military family; both my parents were in the military. I left school and joined the military, and my brother served in the military. I spent my entire career in security and defence, and since coming to Parliament, everything I have done, outside traditional constituency engagements, is about backing security and defence. I am delighted to be graduating next month from the Royal College of Defence Studies. It has been brilliant to spend a year immersed in the best strategic command course in the world. I reiterate the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we are in a very serious situation, but rhetoric, or party political lines, are overtaking that, and we are missing the fact that we need to rearm to face the current situation. In 2024-25, there were 54 to 55 conflicts around the world—those figures might be adjusted, depending on the source. That is the largest number of conflicts in any one year since the second world war. If we believe that we can stop a major conflict, why can we not stop minor conflicts? There is complete instability, and the whole geopolitical situation has changed. Discussions that we are having now would have seemed impossible—beyond the realms of fantasy—five or even three years ago. We need to put that in perspective and really think about it. When Government Members start to talk about “14 years of hollowed-out defence”, they make an illiterate defence argument. They are taking a moment in time and comparing peace with war. We need to look at the situation over the past 100 years and learn from history. At the end of the second world war, Clement Attlee demobilised the military, because that was the right thing to do, as we did not need 5 million soldiers. Similarly, at the fall of the Berlin wall, the majority of the world de-armed and reduced the scale of their defence spending. However, the situation has changed. In 2022, defence spending was 2.22% of GDP, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, not 2.1% as the hon. Member for North Durham said. There is no denying that the whole world has changed since 2014, or even since 2022, and we are in the most volatile situation. The debate is about whether we should measure from the end of the cold war or the end of the second world war. I firmly believe that we should measure from the end of the second world war. I believe that we will see a global conflict in the coming years, but we are not prepared to defend our nation. I believe that, at this stage, we cannot meet our article 3 NATO commitment to defend the nation for the period of time expected. Everybody talks about article 5, but there are three things that every Defence Minister and politician must look at when we speak about defence: readiness, lethality and survivability. Everything we must do is there. We talk about numbers, but are we funding the readiness of our armed forces? Are they as lethal as they can be? Do they have the ability to survive any conflict? We are not looking at the expeditionary side of warfare that we have seen in the middle east in recent years; we are looking at how we fit on the world stage, and how we prepare for a global conflict, while hoping that it never happens. We have to look at those three areas, but there is always a debate. Are we are ready enough? Should we spend more money on lethality, or should we look at survivability? The most important of those areas is readiness, but I am not saying that the other areas are not important. We have to be ready. If we are not, we cannot go to war. In 1999, after I got married—I celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary on Friday—I said to my wife, “See you in six months,” and deployed straight to Kosovo. When we arrived in theatre, there were no Army barracks. We found derelict, flea-ridden accommodation—blokes were covered in flea bites—and we moved into houses that had been abandoned, as people were still being ethnically cleansed. We did not have the kit, but we were about the most lethal bunch of soldiers you could see. We adapted. The readiness came from what Field Marshal Slim described in the Burma conflict as spiritual morale. You can take equipment away from soldiers and break everything, but if they have the spiritual morale to fight, they can get through everything. We are burning out that morale in the military over time, bit by bit. Let me go back to when I was on the Defence Committee, from 2020 to the middle of 2022. My name is on many reports that absolutely destroyed the Government of the time. That gave me many difficult conversations with the Whips, but calling out the Government was the right thing to do, because we were not able to procure equipment. We were not ready and able to prepare for the world as it was at the time. The Chief of the Defence Staff has recently said that we will have to cut operational services and training capability. Those are big issues, but he has also touched on something that most people do not mention: the resource spending. We have resource departmental expenditure limit spending and capital departmental expenditure limit spending. CDEL buys the ships, tanks, planes and big items, but they have to be run, and we have to pay our troops, so we have to look at the resources around that. Resource is about 62% of defence spending at the moment, but it is nowhere near enough—the balance is off. We are looking at big projects. It is great to be looking at issues such as how we fund new submarines and the Type 83, but will the global combat air programme be crewed or uncrewed? That is another debate; I have some good views on that that I would love to share another time. At the moment, the debate is about what war we are preparing to fight. The hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) has mentioned that the DIP did not fund enough preparation for wars that we may be fighting in the future. It is always hard to predict the future of warfare. It is easy to take lessons from Ukraine, and just think that that is what warfare will be, and while we should take those lessons, we need adapt and prepare, moving forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) mentioned the 18 defence primes. On the scalability of technology, I believe a disruptive model is coming, or is needed, in the defence industry. Two weeks ago, I was delighted to be at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with NATO, discussing nanotechnology—even though I left school as a lad with no GCSEs, and joined the armed forces as a rifleman. Time has moved on.

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  rose —

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  No. Let us look at how technology and innovation are moving forward. In some ways, we need to think differently. We need an understanding of how we prepare for different warfares. It is not a matter of nanotechnology on the one side and aircraft carriers on the other; there is a bit in the middle. We should look at the scalability of new technology, as artificial intelligence develops and quantum computing comes online. The battle space will be completely different, and we have to move into that space. People often say that the nature of warfare is changing, but it is not. The nature of warfare is brutal, and will always be, but the character of warfare is changing, and we have to be prepared for that. Let me go back to my point about readiness, lethality and survivability. All the things that happened on our watch, on Labour’s watch before us, and on Labour’s watch now, are chipping away at the spiritual morale of troops. I have a son who is a serving soldier, and I am watching that happen bit by bit. He is told, “That exercise is cancelled because we cannot afford it,” “You have to do extra time on deployment because we cannot rotate you through,” and “We are not going to order equipment, because the DIP is not ready.” All those things chip away at spiritual morale. There is one issue that we are dealing with that cuts to the heart of every veteran. I sat with a load of veterans watching the football last week—I will be watching football tonight with serving personnel, and spending time with veterans and colleagues—and I have heard at first hand what they are saying. I served for 18 months on Op Banner during the troubles, and the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 is cutting through. Regardless of the political debate here, serving soldiers believe that they will not be protected by the Government when they go on operations. We can argue the issue, and go back and forth on it, but that is what is landing, and what they believe. A change to what we have in place would be a betrayal to our veterans. It would remove spiritual morale—that British fighting spirit that I have spoken about. It would make us not ready, not lethal and unable to survive. Unless the DIP comes forward with the correct funding for the correct defence products, we will be in a serious situation, and I do not believe that we are ready for what is coming over the horizon.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I am struggling to see where the JEF, NATO and another alliance, even with our own sovereign capability, come into play. Those frameworks are already in place to enable us to stand up on the stage. It is about our funding of our capability. To the earlier point about strategy that Members were getting confused about, a grand strategy will be set out by the leader of the country, and the strategic defence review is a strategy of defence within that grand strategy.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right to mention defence being underfunded—I called it out under the last Government and I call it out under this Government. The previous Defence Secretary talked about 30 years of defence underfunding. We talk about the DIP going line by line and getting this right, but if it does not come out with correct funding and it is anywhere near the numbers quoted by the previous Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), that will probably be felt most in the hon. Member’s constituency with its shipbuilding and, as she mentioned, submarine capability.

• 22 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

• 22 Jun 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  I am very conscious of the words that we are saying to veterans. In the Minister’s response to a written parliamentary question on 28 May, she said that UK veterans faced a six-month wait when applying for war pensions in 2024-25. It is now 18 months at a minimum. I know that because I am going through the process, after a minor amputation of my foot. That period has more than tripled on her watch. Was she aware of that? Is that acceptable? It is a bare minimum of 18 months before there is even a response.

• 21 May 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I do not support this Bill, and I believe that the reasoned amendment is the right way forward. I will set out clearly the devastating impact that the Bill is about to have, in real time, in my constituency. We have a great local business called Amodil. It is a British family-run business that started with a couple of people in 1976 in Cleobury Mortimer, South Shropshire. I recently went to Cleobury to meet Paul, Chris, Ben and the team, as well as Rob Cooper from the British Stainless Steel Association. The business was founded by Paul Slingsby, who at 75 still works in it today. It is the UK’s largest privately owned supplier and stockholder of stainless steel long products, with more than 1,200 customers—about 20% of the UK market. The people who run Amodil know what they are on about, and they were completely blindsided by the announcement on tariffs. They had not been told, and none of their customers or suppliers, or the people they were involved with, knew anything about it, so they came straight to me. I have written to the Minister multiple times and had one response. He needs to sit down with the largest British business in this industry and have a serious conversation. The big issue that Amodil faces is the tariffs on the stainless steel products it brings in that cannot be made in the UK in the required quantity or type. The Government want to protect the steel industry as an industry of vital strategic importance—I get that—and they want to protect jobs, but for the almost 1,000 jobs they will save, many thousands more will be lost, and I will say exactly where. The UK cannot meet domestic market demand, and a huge gap will be created. Businesses such as Amodil will be forced to import, and tariffs will drive up costs by 50%. There is not the cash across the industry to absorb those extra costs without mass redundancies. The costs will be passed on, meaning that manufacturers’ costs will go up. What will happen then? The customer will buy the finished product from manufacturers overseas at a lower price, and those products are not subject to tariffs. That does not level the playing field for us. The UK does not produce enough stainless steel of the right type or quality to meet demand. Amodil currently has 5,000 tonnes of stainless steel in stock, 2,000 tonnes of which cannot be, and is not, made in the UK. It could take up to 15 years to get some of the skills right. Large-diameter bars of a certain grade are not made in the UK and those bars are vital to key industries, such as aerospace, defence, pharmaceuticals, oil, automative, general engineering and many more. If the tariffs are put on these businesses—Amodil is the largest British business in the field in the UK and there are many others—they will be priced out of the industry. I really hope the Secretary of State can see the importance of this matter.

• 21 May 2026 · Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for saying that. I will follow up personally with him and with Amodil to see if we can talk about a way forward. I said to Amodil, “I believe that this is an unintended consequence of what the Government are trying to do, and once I point this out clearly, there will be a way forward to look at it.” The long and the short of it— I will put my speech to one side—is that there is a certain size of rod that only the UK can make. I watched it at Amodil’s facility a few weeks ago. When it gets past that size, it is not made in this country, but it is needed by so many of those critical industries. Looking at steel as a whole, this matter is just one part of the stainless steel industry. If the Secretary of State, or one of the Ministers, will sit with me and the team at Amodil, they will be able to see, within a matter of minutes, where the gap is and how to plug it. It is along the blanket grading for all the bars. I request a pause for, say, just six months—or if we can talk with Amodil in a matter of days—so we can sit down and look at this, because there is a massive knock-on impact that will seriously hurt the stainless steel industry, and one of the largest employers in my constituency will be massively hurt too.

• 21 May 2026 · Middle East: Economic Response · Hansard source

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  On tariffs, I want to explore what the Chancellor said about “significant quantities”, because a significant quantity for a supermarket can be of a completely different scale from a significant quantity for a small South Shropshire farmer. Will the Chancellor guarantee that no South Shropshire farmers will be undercut by the measures on tariffs, and that none of the supermarkets will pass on the cost cuts to British farmers?

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  If the defence investment plan is the Secretary of State’s priority and the Prime Minister’s priority, is it completed and just waiting for the financial sign-off, or is there a gap in capability to be able to complete it?

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley (Mark Sewards), who clearly understands the topic. He spoke passionately and gave a great speech. I want to turn the attention of the House to the following countries: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Norway, the US, Denmark, Greece, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands. What do all those countries have in common? Well, last year they all funded their defence with a higher percentage of their GDP than the UK did. To put that in perspective, only two NATO countries spent more on defence than we did in 2021—so there has been a significant change. I ask myself, “What do those countries know that we do not?” I am fortunate to be a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I have spoken with representatives—Ministers and other parliamentarians —from every one of those countries, and they realise that the world is changing. We face probably the most volatile geopolitical situation in over 80 years; as I have continually said, I do not believe that the world is going to go back to how it was and how we have seen it within our lifetime. Those countries understand that the world is rearming. They look at the threats they face from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, which are trying to break down democracy and destabilise the world—and we just heard a great speech from the hon. Member for Leeds South West and Morley about the impact this situation is having on the streets of the UK. So what do those countries see in the UK? Many believe that we are leaving the room—that we are not standing up on the international stage anywhere near as much as we did. I will back that comment up. One of my proudest moments on the cross-party NATO Parliamentary Assembly was in 2022 in the Latvian Parliament. The Defence Minister there said to the UK and the US, “Hold your head up high. You have led the world in this—you have funded and you have led—and we need to follow.” That was a really proud moment. I have fed this information directly to the Secretary of State, but in the same cross-party forum last month, a NATO Defence Minister—I will not say which country he was from—said, “With all due respect, the UK are not leading; they are not even in the room, and they are not funding as they were.” I could not disagree with him. That was one of my saddest days at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. We need this investment in defence. We need to clearly chart a course so we can ensure that we are funding where we need to be. I am saying this out of respect for Defence Ministers; I believe that there is a credible set of Defence Ministers, but the argument is not currently being won. We have dropped in the rankings. The NATO average for defence spending is about 2.76% and we are averaging about 2.4%, give or take. The argument that we have the largest sustained defence funding since the end of the cold war is a bit of a mockery, because we are comparing a peacetime situation to the most unstable geopolitical situation of our time. They are not comparable. If we look at the facts, we see that in 2019-2020, spending went up by 0.2%, which is similar to the situation now. I called that out at the time. The Defence Committee was united in the last Parliament six and a half years ago, after I got into Parliament, when we said that we needed spending of 3%. That was the cross-party position then. We need to get to that position now. We need our ships funded, we need more troops, and we need drone warfare—we have seen what is happening in Iran. We must expand our technological approach to defence. The shape of defence is changing, and we need to look at this issue really seriously if we are to be able to stand on the world stage. Our military strength has always been the bedrock, and our global soft power has given us authority and a platform to stand up for British values, but on the world stage at the moment, that authority is waning and our platform is shaking. As we chart our course, we have to have a serious response today—I am not interested in what has happened over 10, 20 or 40 years. As we have heard from hon. Members on all sides of the House, defence funding was significantly higher many years ago. It has been very hard to put that across to the public, but that conversation is getting easier. When they see the impact on fuel prices of what is happening in the middle east, they ask, “Will I be able to fly away on holiday in the summer?” All those equations are coming to the forefront, and people are asking those questions. When I used to speak at dinners or events, every so often, someone would talk about defence. Now, almost every question is, “Can we defend ourselves, and can we rearm?” I am pleading with the Ministers to win the argument, because I know that every single one of them wants more funding for defence. I am pleading with them to do whatever it takes so that we can rearm and have the armed forces we need, and can stand on the world stage with our head held high.

• 28 Apr 2026 · Park Home Owners · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for securing such an important debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who is here beside me, is unable to speak in the debate, but I want to put on the record how important park homes are in her constituency. It is important to raise that. Let us say that a couple of relatively modest means want to move to a park home. They will probably look first at Shropshire, a beautiful county where we have 39 outstanding park home sites. I do not want to downplay the rest of Shropshire, but obviously they will choose South Shropshire, the most beautiful constituency in the country. They purchase a park home, but as we know, circumstances change: they can plan for the next five or 10 years, but something could happen in a matter of months that means they have to resell that park home. The current 10% commission on sales means that, if they have to move within the next six or 12 months, they will lose that 10%, which they will have to pay out of the sale price. In no other housing market in the UK would we expect—unless there is a significant rise or a crash during that time—to move because of personal circumstances and lose 10%. I have spoken to park home owners in Hollins Park and Highley Park Homes who feel that that traps them into their park homes and that they are unable to get out. The information is available when they set out to purchase, but if their circumstances change, that causes an issue. This blatantly discriminates against park home owners compared with owners in the rest of the UK housing market. People argue that commission is based on the value of the land as a form of stamp duty, but sellers do not pay stamp duty; buyers do. There is also a taper mechanism for stamp duty in the UK, which is not the case with commission. On top of that, park home owners pay pitch fees as well as site fees. I have met various site owners and know that some look after their park homes excellently, such as in Homelands Park in Chorley, but other sites have unsurfaced roads and huge problems. In 2002, a study reported that commission makes up only 17% of site owners’ income. I am aware that they need a viable business model, but it should not be the commission model that comes on the back of my park home owners. This problem has been raised across the many sites in South Shropshire. Park home residents deserve a far better deal than they get. I want the Minister to look seriously at the position of park home owners in South Shropshire, to ensure that they get a fair deal and to get this commission scrapped, because it does not work. It is an outdated model and I would love to see it go.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Strategic Defence Review: Funding · Hansard source

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  I have served on operations under both Conservative and Labour Governments, and I can tell horror stories of how I was treated, which led to 15-plus years of complex PTSD. When I finally rebuilt my life, I wanted to ensure that nobody ever had to go through what I went through. As soon as I got here six years ago, I worked cross-party to say that anything under 3% on defence spending—this was in the last Parliament, when my Government were in charge—was unacceptable. There is not a serious professional in the defence industry who thinks the current level of spending is adequate to meet the world’s needs. Does the Minister think that it is a serious investment that we are making at the moment?

• 15 Apr 2026 · Cost of Heating Oil · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this important debate. South Shropshire is a very rural, remote area, and its beauty is unrivalled, as many Members will agree. With 53% of my constituents off grid, this is a major issue. When the war in Iran increased the heating oil prices literally overnight, many constituents got in touch with me to raise their concerns. Paul from Eardington saw his heating oil quote go up from 53p to £1.39 per litre—an increase of about 150%—in almost 24 hours. That is a huge impact, and his story resonates across my constituency. Many of my constituents have not been able to fill up because of the 500-litre minimum. A big shout out to Cambers of Harley: when I was buying my wheelbarrow at the weekend, I saw 25-litre containers, which provide fuel for people who cannot afford 500 litres. Despite many having praised it, the Government’s £53 million of energy support has penalised my constituency. Shropshire council has more than 53,000 off-grid households, of which more than half are in my constituency, yet it has been allocated only £750,000. That equates to £14.29 per house, whereas the average across the country is £35. Why is South Shropshire missing out? My constituents need support. I want the minimum order level to be addressed, and I want future provision to ensure that my constituents, particularly the hardest hit, can have heating oil without having to choose between that and food.

• 15 Apr 2026 · Cost of Heating Oil · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Dr Allin-Khan. I would also like to declare that I use heating oil.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Loughborough (Dr Sandher). I do not think that I have heard anyone call for 20% of spending on defence, but I like it. I am not sure how we would maintain the reversal of the two-child cap if 20% of spending went to defence, but he made a very good speech. I will set out a few key points on what we are looking at, where the world is today, where we have been, and what we must do to deal with the threat. As I have said many times—colleagues are probably getting sick of me saying it—there is a challenge to the world order as we know it. I do not believe that anybody alive has experienced such a significant change. We face the ultimate volatility, like the fall of the Berlin wall or 9/11. Given the current position of the US Government—on Venezuela, in what they said about Greenland, and in the attack on Iran—everything has been thrown in the air. Many people expect life to fall back to where it was and to continue, but there is a challenge to the world order between China and the US, and there is a commodities race over oil and rare earth metals. How do we get global supply chains working and moving forward? Rare earth metals are not actually rare, but it can take 15 to 17 years to get them out of the ground once they have been found. Most of the electronics that we have on us, including wearables, require such metals. At the moment, about 90% of those resources are controlled and processed by China, and there is a huge push to change that. The US is moving to change it, and our policy seeks to shift around that. When AI and quantum come together, defence technologies—including drone and autonomous warfare—will take a huge leap forward. If we do not get this stage right, we will be so far behind. The second world war was about who could produce the most tanks, planes and troops at scale, with the right strategy. Now, technology can shift the dial exceptionally quickly. I know that the Minister has spoken about the drone passion, autonomy and things like that. That is the right direction. It is not either/or; there is a whole plethora of things that we need to. The defence investment plan unlocks the next phase of where we can go.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  I definitely do. I have had the reserves deployed with me when I have been on operations, and they were a great asset. Scaling up the reserves is vital. We have the article 3 NATO commitment, and we need to ensure that we can fulfil that. It is not just about the reserves staying here and the regulars flying overseas. Integration is key, and I would be keen to see that. Let us look at how the rearming of the world has changed. After the illegal invasion of Russia into Ukraine, the world sat up. At that stage, defence spending was at 2.1%. I will be clear: as soon as I was elected, with hon. Members from across the House, I called for 3%. I felt that even 3% was not enough during the previous Government, and I said that all the way through. The Defence Committee was united. We did procurement reports right the way through 20 or 30 years of procurement failings. I am not just saying this to make a point now. I still believe that if defence spending is not at least 3% of GDP today, we do not have the ability to put the plan in place on the scale we need. From 2021 to now, we have gone from 2.1% to 2.4%, but the problem is that the NATO average is currently 2.76%. In that short space of time, we have gone from being roughly the third highest defence spender according to percentage of GDP to being the ninth or 12th, depending on which table we look at. It is good that, as the Government say, we have made the biggest increase since the cold war, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) said, we need to look at what it was like post war. We are not moving as fast as all the other peer nations. We had a great start, but that has now started to deplete over decades of a peace dividend. We need to take this seriously as an urgent priority and invest on the necessary scale. The delay on the DIP is having an impact. I know that if Ministers had a choice, they would have the DIP here today. We have to get this right. It has gone past the time when we expected the DIP to be produced. I have spoken to so many in the industry and so many serving personnel who are screaming out for it. I have struggled to find anybody who thinks we have the time for this. I hope the Minister will take away the importance of the DIP being produced—I am positive that he wants it today—to unlock the next phase. There are many areas where there is consensus in this House on how we should move forward and prepare this country for war. We are losing standing on the world stage because of our current capability, which has seen getting on for 30 years of under-investment. We do not have the ability today to project power on the scale that we did 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right on that. How we work with our partners is important, but we have to invest and have a clear plan to hold our head high on the world stage. I will finish on this point. We are told that the Department is working at pace on the DIP. I probably know about pace better than anybody in this House. I was proud to be a member of the Royal Green Jackets, which had the fastest pace in the British Army at 140 paces per minute, and the double-off was 180—unmatched by any regiment in the British Army. We need this pace now. We need the defence investment plan to be delivered to unlock the next phase of doing what is best for the British people.