Defence in the High North

John Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the shadow Minister for his kind words about the work of the Committee. Capability gaps, particularly with regard to submarines, were mentioned by the Committee at length, and my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) was also forthright in making that point. The capability gaps in the delivery of future subs must be addressed urgently. For example, we received evidence suggesting that the production of certain assets was advancing at a “leisurely” pace. That needs to be addressed. Ultimately, as the Committee’s report on AUKUS highlighted, the next-generation SSN-AUKUS is incredibly important and we must ensure that we are investing at pace so that our Australian friends also have that capability at pace. For much of the time at present, we are left in a situation where many of our assets, including submarines, are in either maintenance or deep maintenance.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I commend the Chair of the Defence Committee and his colleagues for a tremendous report. As he rightly mentioned, Scotland is effectively on the frontline of the new potential battleground of the High North. Will the Chair be circling back to the report to see whether there has been progress? Scotland is critical to closing the frigate gap; BAE Systems on the Clyde and Babcock in Rosyth on the east coast are building warships even as we speak. I am concerned by recent comments made by Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney, who claimed that Britain is in some way abandoning Scotland to the Russian threat, when in fact one of the real threats to national security in this country is the Scottish National party’s separatist agenda: it is not sure whether it wants to be in NATO or out of NATO, and it wants the nuclear submarines out of Faslane. It is a strange picture, so I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman might go back to that?

[Mr Dhesi]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his incisive comments. He will be pleased to note that Scotland had several mentions in our report, as well as in the wall-to-wall coverage that the hard-hitting report attracted. There was much mention of the need to strengthen our capabilities in Scotland. Obviously, the Scottish Government need to make sure that they are aligned with some of the investments that are being made by the UK Government. That is really important, because during our visits to Scotland we saw that many of those working in the industry, as well as those serving, are very much looking to the UK Government and the Scottish Government to work in partnership. The hon. Gentleman mentioned NATO. Let nobody be in any doubt that NATO is a cornerstone of British defence. I therefore fully concur with his views on that question.