Oral Answers to Questions

Antonia Bance Excerpts

Monday 3rd November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)]

6. What steps he is taking to help strengthen the defence industrial base.

[Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)]

11. What steps he is taking to help strengthen the defence industrial base.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

I know the whole House is united in condemning the dreadful attacks on the LNER train from Doncaster to London over the weekend, and our thoughts are with the victims, their families and their friends. This is also the period in which we mark remembrance. Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your ceremony in opening the garden of remembrance for constituencies this morning. We will wear our poppies with pride, and we will remember them.

In September, we published our Government’s new defence industrial strategy, backed by nearly £800 million in funding. We are making defence an engine for driving economic growth. We are backing British jobs, backing British industry and backing British innovation.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Healey]

UK Defence Innovation has been set up to transform defence’s innovation system. One of its priorities is to foster collaboration with small and medium-sized firms in fields beyond defence, just like A&M EDM Ltd in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I have set out my determination to see Britain become the best place to start, grow and invest in new defence companies.

[Antonia Bance]

It is always good to follow another Member for the Black Country. I was recently very pleased to meet with Babcock International, which is based in Walsall, just over the M6 from my constituency, where it makes armoured cars. Can the Secretary of State comment on future opportunities for defence manufacturing in the Black Country and the wider west midlands?

[John Healey]

The west midlands has a very proud tradition of being at the heart of British invention and engineering, and it has huge potential for the future of defence engineering and invention. In the last year, the Ministry of Defence has spent £1.7 billion directly into the region, which is the highest level for the last 10 years. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), met with the Mayor of the West Midlands just last week to discuss what other opportunities there may be for firms such as that and areas such as that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) in the west midlands.