Caroline Dinenage
Main Page: Caroline Dinenage (Conservative - Gosport)Department Debates - View all Caroline Dinenage's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I agree with my hon. Friend; this is a classic example of a coincidence of interest between the strong and resolute defence of the United Kingdom and the support of a high-technology manufacturing base.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I welcome the announcement, which is clearly great news for world-class British engineers, skills and jobs. However, does the Secretary of State agree that this is also an economically sensible decision to avoid the costly skills gap we saw in the run-up to the Astute-class boat programme?
Mr Hammond
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two ways of sustaining these skills. We either provide orders to the companies that employ them so that they do something useful and make things, or we simply pay them to stand idle and allow their skills to decline. We have chosen the former, which is the right way to go.