Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

David Simmonds Excerpts
Monday 16th March 2026

(1 day, 12 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Louise Sandher-Jones Portrait Louise Sandher-Jones
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The last Government had 14 years to fix defence family housing and failed, delivering instead record low levels of satisfaction. We have reversed that disastrous privatisation of our military housing, we have a landmark housing strategy to renew or repair nine in 10 homes, and we are creating a new defence housing service. That is how to put the interests of British service personnel first.

David Simmonds Portrait David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
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My constituent, Vijay Odedra, has been telling me how his small business, CapnoTrainer, has been working with the Royal Navy to improve the fighting capacity and resilience of our sailors. While we wait for the defence investment plan, will the Secretary of State tell us what steps he has in mind to harness the innovation in our small and medium-sized enterprise sector?

Luke Pollard Portrait Luke Pollard
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I welcome the hon. Gentleman promoting a defence SME. There are defence SMEs in every constituency that do a good job. We created the Defence Office for Small Business Growth to support more SMEs in gaining defence contracts and to increase the direct spend that the Ministry of Defence has with them. I am very happy to meet him to discuss the SME that he mentions.