Strategic Defence Review

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

It is always important that public money is well spent and that we can demonstrate good value for money. We still have some way to go on the reform of defence, but the steps we have taken already and the action we plan in the future will help us to ensure that we can get better value for the British taxpayer and better value for the British forces.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

The review describes responsibility for space policy within Government as “fragmented”, so its proposal for a “reinvigorated Cabinet sub-Committee” to set the strategic approach to space is to be welcomed. That will clearly have significant implications for the development of a vertical-launch satellite facility at SaxaVord spaceport in Shetland. Will the Secretary of State ensure that hardwired into that Sub-Committee is a process of engagement for the operators at SaxaVord and the communities that host them, so that both might be empowered to deliver on this most important strategic objective for the country as a whole?

[John Healey]

At the heart of the SDR’s insight and recommendations is a new relationship between Government and industry—one that we have already started to put in place and that allows industry and potential investors to see the challenges that we face and contribute their ideas and innovation to solving them. That principle will be applied just as much in space as it will in other areas of new capabilities that we need to develop.