Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Wallace and Neale Hanvey

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

It is already underwritten by contractual guarantees. In Barrow-in-Furness, BAE is recruiting for 11,000 to 17,000 jobs. Derby is investing for the next generation of reactor, and that is starting. The key point about AUKUS is that it not only gets a commitment from the Treasury and the Government for the British replacement of the Astute class but locks in the potential of the Australian supply chain and working together collaboratively on skills in both countries. That process is already under way, with £2 billion recently unlocked to start building the infrastructure needed in both Derby and BAE in Barrow, and that will continue. This is further down the path than the beginning, but the real work starts now.

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

10. What recent estimate his Department has made of the (a) timescale and (b) cost of the renewal of Trident.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ben Wallace and Neale Hanvey

Monday 7th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

First, let me pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) who served time on the Treasury Bench for the Department. They will be greatly missed, and I thank them for their effort and passion. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham will continue to hold the Department to account on women in the armed forces. Her report is incredibly important.

I wish to announce to the House the decision to accelerate the procurement of the Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship. In the face of an illegal and unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s reckless disregard for international arrangements designed to keep world order, it is right that we prioritise delivering capabilities that safeguard our national infrastructure. It is clear that effectively to address the current and future threats, we will now invest in MROSS ships that protect sensitive defence and civil infrastructure to improve our ability to detect threats to the seabed and to cables. I have also therefore directed the termination of the national flagship competition with immediate effect to bring forward the first MROSS in its place. I shall make further announcements on our continued naval investment in the coming weeks.

[Neale Hanvey]

Our whistleblower has alleged that staff from HM Naval Base Clyde were recently moved from building 201 in Coulport, where warheads are managed, to building 41 elsewhere, due to a serious radiation breach. Can the Minister advise me about the following? How many such events have been registered in the past three years? How many such incidents have been reported to the public? If he cannot do so, can he please set out why the people of Scotland, who are overwhelmingly opposed to weapons of mass destruction, are ignored by the Westminster parties, including his?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Member has read out a list of claims. I will be happy to write to him to answer those claims. I suspect the people of Scotland are now rather thankful they have a nuclear deterrent, in the face of a very provocative Putin.