Strategic Defence Review

Lincoln Jopp Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I do indeed; my hon. Friend is right. She is a strong champion for Barrow and its shipyard. As she will know, the investment programme that we have confirmed is about increasing the ability to produce more submarines more rapidly, and reaching the point where we can look to design, build and launch a new attack submarine every 18 months. That will allow us to respond to the threats that we anticipate in 10 and 20 years’ time, and to meet our NATO commitments.

We will succeed to the extent that we have a Government ready to invest, and a town in Barrow and a supply chain of proud workers from across the UK who are willing to lend their professional expertise to this most important mission: securing our nation’s defences for the future; contributing to a stronger NATO; and reinforcing our ability to generate jobs and prosperity, including in Barrow.

[Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. When I worked on defence reviews at the Ministry of Defence, they all had up and down arrows. From what I have read of this defence review in the brief time we have had with it, there seem to be a lot of up arrows; I could really find only one down arrow, which was about not extending the Dreadnoughts’ out-of-service date beyond 2050. Does the Secretary of State want to roll the pitch a bit and indicate where capabilities might be de-emphasised, or indeed lost?

[John Healey]

The strategic defence review sets out a vision and framework for decisions over the next 10 years and beyond. It can be delivered only because of the historic increase in defence spending—the largest since the end of the cold war—that this Government have made. That is the basis on which we will make our decisions, and on which we will deliver the SDR’s recommendations.