James Cartlidge MP: speeches 2024

Speeches

• 14 Oct 2024 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  Thank you, Mr Speaker. I associate all of us in my party with your comments about the late Alex Salmond. The most important point about the SDR is that it must not be used as an excuse to delay increasing the defence budget to 2.5% of GDP. In September, in answers to written questions, the Department said that it would set out a path to spending 2.5% of GDP on defence “as soon as possible”, but last week, at the Dispatch Box, in his middle east statement, the Prime Minister said that the Government would go to 2.5% “in due course”. We all know that there is a massive difference between the two, so which is it?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Strategic Defence Review · Hansard source

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  That is a concern. In 2010, just to remind the House, the black hole in the defence budget was bigger than the defence budget, and we were left a note saying that there was no money left. It is significant if the wording is no longer “as soon as possible” and is now “in due course”. It is in the national interest to go to 2.5% because of the threats we face as a country. If the Secretary of State told us now that he was fighting hard with the Treasury to go to 2.5% in the Budget at the end of this month, he would have our full support. Is that what he is doing?

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Thousands of children of armed forces personnel face unaffordable increases to their school fees because of this Government’s ideological decision to charge VAT on education. That could have the perverse effect of forcing experienced personnel to quit the service of their country just when we should be seeking to maximise retention. Will the Minister therefore confirm that children of armed forces families will be exempt from the new VAT rise, and furthermore that that exemption will apply from January when the new tax kicks in?

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Secretary of State for early sight of his statement, and for the briefings he has provided to me and all parliamentary colleagues. I associate myself and my party with the condolences he expressed regarding the tragic death of Lieutenant Leyshon. As we have confirmed previously, I reiterate without reservation that, as Labour did when in opposition, we will continue to do everything possible to support the Government over Ukraine. We remain steadfast in our total condemnation of both Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and his conduct of the war, during which he has shown no regard for human life, even, it would appear, that of his own service personnel, with losses now at terrible levels on all sides. Indeed—this was one of the Secretary of State’s most striking points on the operational situation—it is an extraordinary testament to the brutal disposition of the Putin regime that their strategy continues to rely on the mass sacrifice of infantry personnel. That said, the Secretary of State is surely right to remind us that, despite the extraordinary naval success Ukraine has enjoyed in the Black sea and the surprise incursion into Kursk that has thrown Putin’s regime into confusion, Russia remains a formidable foe and nothing at all can be taken for granted. On the contrary, it is clear that the UK must continue to do all it can to support Ukraine’s Government, people and armed forces. On the Conservative Benches, we are proud of the role our Government played in showing real leadership in respect of Ukraine. If Ukraine had fallen early, the world would have been in a precipice situation akin to the late 1930s, but we made a huge difference to avoiding that outcome by being the first nation to train Ukrainian troops, the first to provide main battle tanks and, in particular, the first to provide long-range weapons. In August, President Zelensky commented that Britain’s support for Ukraine has slowed down recently. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of those comments? On these Benches, we recognise that a key part of our leadership has been bringing other allies on board, which must continue in key operational and logistical decision making. Nevertheless, we have also shown leadership as a sovereign nation that believes wholeheartedly in Ukraine’s fight for freedom. As such, I confirm that we would have no hesitation in supporting the Government in continuing that leadership were they to confirm that the Ukrainian Government have maximum freedom of operation with regard to all the munitions we have supplied, including long-range missiles. On the provision of additional munitions and the latest news shared by the Secretary of State, I welcome the announcement of £160 million for air defence missiles to be produced, of course, in Belfast. That underlines the intention we had in government, when the latest round of support commenced, to ensure a maximum degree of benefit for the UK defence sector in our support for Ukraine. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that remains a top priority and that, as we supply Ukraine with more and more drones across defence, he will ensure that we rapidly learn the lessons of their deployment so that we can build the ecosystem for our own sovereign uncrewed sector? We agree that supplying Ukraine with arms has been the right thing to do but—and the public feel this very strongly—that must be accompanied by the replenishment of our own stockpiles and platform inventory. A top priority of our funded, timetabled commitment to 2.5% was an additional £10 billion to replenish our munitions. Is the Secretary of State still committed to that extra £10 billion for munitions? Can he confirm that the delay in setting out a clear timetable to 2.5% will not lead to the deferment of any major munitions orders, either this financial year or next? The Secretary of State spoke of Russian artillery outfiring Ukraine by 3:1, and he knows the crucial importance of industrial output. That being so, does he recognise that we must urgently fire up production across our own defence sector by committing to 2.5% as soon as possible? Finally, one lesson from Ukraine is the vital importance of maintaining air superiority in battle. In relation to our future combat air capability, I asked the Secretary of State a set of written questions on 29 July on the sixth-generation global combat air programme spending, and he has to date answered only the questions on historical spend, not those on the current financial year. Will he therefore confirm whether his Department will be deferring any spending on GCAP planned for the current financial year?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is an absolute champion of the defence industry in Northern Ireland. He is right: one of my last visits was to the Thales factory in Belfast, which of course is home to the next-generation light anti-tank weapon, the lightweight multirole missile, and other key munitions. In terms of aerospace, the first small and medium-sized enterprise forum that I held as Defence Procurement Minister was in Larne in Northern Ireland, on Armed Forces Day last year. Spirit was one of the attendees, and I am confident that it has a strong place in the future of British aviation in the defence sector, as long as we put the funding in place and keep with the programmes. Having said all that, there must obviously be debate when we are spending this amount of money on a capability, and I understand why there are those who question the sums of money involved, the timeframes and so on. To be clear, as a former Defence Procurement Minister, I would not support a programme that was purely about spending such a vast amount of money just on a new core platform to replace Typhoon. That brings us to what GCAP is really about, which the Minister mentioned in her opening remarks, to her credit. On one of my last visits to a land company—a company manufacturing armoured vehicles for this country—the chief executive I spoke to referred to the GCAP of land. The point is that, although the “A” stands for air, when we talk about GCAP in military capability terms, it is equally about how we work with autonomous and uncrewed systems. That is the key to the sixth-generation concept. I am very passionate about this issue—I was proud to bring forward the first defence drone strategy at the Ministry of Defence—and although there are those who are concerned about the timeframe, I would just make the following points. First, the timescale for delivering GCAP is very ambitious compared with that of Typhoon; secondly, we can gain capability benefits from GCAP on a much shorter timescale. We have heard the Chief of the General Staff talking about the need for the Army to be able to fight a war within three years, and when I was Defence Procurement Minister, I was keen to ensure that all the services were looking at what they could do to boost lethality and survivability in the near term. Surely, the key to that is how we make use of uncrewed systems. The United Kingdom is incredibly well placed in that regard: we jointly lead the maritime coalition in respect of Ukraine alongside Norway. Of course, Ukraine’s greatest military success has been naval, having pushed back the Russian fleet using what we might describe as innovative weapons rather than traditional naval deployments. Likewise on land, the incredible importance of drones cannot be overstated, including the psychological impact on those who are fighting out there.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend, who not only served on the Committee but was an Armed Forces Minister, makes an excellent point. There are those who argue that we should go beyond 2.5%; I would argue that 2.5% is still a significant jump for this country. We had a funded plan, and that 2.5%—crucially and critically, with the pathway we set out, which became an accumulation of significant additional billions of pounds for the MOD—enabled us to afford GCAP and stabilise that programme. I want to make one crucial point about the uncrewed domain. To be frank, for the uncrewed side of the Navy, Army and Air Force, those programmes are not funded: hitherto, the funding has come primarily from support for Ukraine. That is entirely logical because, under the defence drone strategy, we were very clear that there is no point in the Army, for example, ordering large-scale drones now; it might order them to train with, but the technology is changing so fast. What we as a country need to build, as I set out in the drone strategy, is the ecosystem to develop those drones, and we are doing that. I have always said—I said it during my statement on the integrated procurement model—that my most inspiring moment as Defence Procurement Minister was visiting a UK SME that was building a drone for use in Ukraine. It was a highly capable platform, but brilliantly, it was getting feedback and spiralling it—as we call it—the very next day. On GCAP, it should be a technology for the whole of defence—it should be a pan-defence technology of how we team with uncrewed systems, how the Navy fights with an uncrewed fleet above and below the surface, for the Army and of course for the Air Force. I have two final points on military capability, as a couple of points have been floating around in the press. The first is that the Army is putting out its opposition to GCAP. I find that idea impossible to believe. Of course, if the Army wants to succeed, it needs the support of the Air Force and so on. That is why an integrated approach to procurement is so important, not single service competition. There has also been the point that we should choose between GCAP and AUKUS, as if, when the next war comes, the Russians will step into our dressing room and ask if we would like to bowl or bat: would we like to fight on land or sea—what is our preference? The fact is that we do not know where the threat will come from, but we know that it is growing, so we should support both GCAP and AUKUS, not least for the enormous economic benefit they bring. You will be pleased to know, Mr Speaker, that that brings me to the last part of my speech, on the economic benefits of GCAP. There are those who say we should buy off the shelf. We would stress how, in a state of ever greater war readiness, it pays to have operational independence and sovereignty. In particular, investing in the great tradition of UK combat air offers huge economic gains for every part of the country. In 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that the Tempest programme alone would support an average of 20,000 jobs every year from 2026 until 2050. Those are well-paid jobs in every constituency up and down the country—including many in Lancashire, as you will know, Mr Speaker. Scrapping GCAP would hit our economy hard. Even delaying or deferring GCAP expenditure would undermine our brilliant aerospace industry, which was on display this past week at the Royal International Air Tattoo in Farnborough, and cast doubt over the vast sums of private investment that are waiting, from which hundreds of UK SMEs stand to benefit. An interesting point was raised by the Leader of the Opposition when asking the Prime Minister about exports and discussions with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is an incredibly important point. I was clear that, in reforming procurement, we have to have exportability at the heart of it because otherwise industrial supply chains wither. It is as simple as that. The demand from this country is not big enough. This has been the French lesson for many years, which is why they have put so much effort into export, and we need to do the same—whether it is GCAP, or any other platforms or capability manufactured by the United Kingdom. To undermine GCAP is to undermine our economy, our future war-fighting capability and relations with our closest international partners. The Government should instead embrace GCAP wholeheartedly and confirm that they stand by their previous position of steadfast support. Then they should commit to a clear timetable on 2.5%, so that we can turbocharge the programme by investing not only in the core platform, but in the associated technology of autonomous collaboration and a digital system of systems approach, enabling the mass and rapid absorption of battlespace data. To conclude, the best way to win the next war is to deter it from happening in the first place. Part of our overall deterrence posture is to signal to our adversaries our preparedness to always be ready to out-compete their technology. How can we send that deterrent signal if we have such mixed messages on our largest conventional military programme? We support this statutory instrument, we support GCAP and we support the powerful gains it will give to the United Kingdom’s economic and military strength.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I do not regard it as a strange partnership. All my experience of dealing with GCAP and meeting my Italian and Japanese counterparts, particularly industry representatives from all three countries, and working so closely together—there is already so much work going on—tells me that this is about developing a brilliant platform that is needed by all three nations. There will always be a multiplicity of platforms from different countries, which I think is perfectly healthy. What is good about the hon. Gentleman’s question is that he has opened up the debate about sovereign capability, which I will come to shortly. I just wanted to finish my point about the uncrewed domain, and what it means to be sixth-generation.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend’s question is an interesting one. Whenever I was in front of the Select Committee—it was always a great joy and privilege to be cross-examined, particularly by my colleagues on the Conservative Benches—there was always a debate about when we withdraw platforms and when we bring in their replacements. That will never go away, and I wish the Armed Forces Minister well when he has the unique privilege and experience of going in front of the Committee. What I would say to my right hon. Friend is that we have to accept that, as a matter of avionic reality, the Typhoon will reach the end of its service life, and we as a country have to replace it. GCAP is key to that, with the construction of the new core platform. While investing in the best combat air capability does not guarantee air superiority in the future, it offers us the chance to deny adversaries such potentially deadly freedom of operation by maintaining technological competitiveness. However, there are those who ask, “Why don’t we simply go off-the-shelf and buy more F-35s?” I noticed similar views being expressed in The D aily Telegraph this very day, and there is even a rumour that some Government Departments, such as those I mentioned earlier, may take a view along those lines. We must be clear that the F-35, while a brilliant and highly capable aircraft, is a fifth-generation platform, not a sixth-generation one. It is not optimised for the battle space that is likely to pertain by the late 2030s, and the United States—which, after all, possesses and manufactures the F-35—is itself investing in a sixth-generation programme, as are our adversaries.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  May I associate the shadow Defence team with the remarks from the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition about the terrible attack on a British solider in Kent? Our thoughts are with his family. I can confirm that we support the measures before us and recognise that they are necessary to deliver into law the administrative governance of the global combat air programme. Although this is a Foreign Office measure, the statutory instrument was prepared with strong input from the Ministry of Defence—it certainly crossed my desk when I was Minister for Defence Procurement. May I put on the record that it was a great honour to serve in that role—with significant responsibility in relation to GCAP—alongside the two previous Secretaries of State, Ben Wallace and Grant Shapps. It was a privilege to engage with our international GCAP partners from Italy and Japan, whom I had the pleasure of hosting last September in Lancaster House for trilateral discussions. This is not just about delivering UK military capability in the crucial area of combat air, but about doing so to the benefit of two great partners, and, in the case of Japan, one that faces the threat of China and Russia right on its doorstep. Since that trilateral, the project has achieved significant goals, not least the signing of the international treaty last December that we are legislating for today. The treaty establishes the legal basis for the formation of a new GCAP international organisation, the GIGO. I am delighted that we are able to agree that the international HQ of the GIGO will be in the UK, but that, in keeping with the spirit of equal partnership that underpins GCAP, the first chief executives of the GCAP agency and joint venture are from Italy and Japan. As such, the SI before us effectively enables this international treaty to enter into effect, with further important measures on immunity and privileges that are necessary for the effective operation of the GIGO. All that said, although the SI is necessary to deliver GCAP’s governance arrangements, it will not directly deliver a single aircraft. Alongside this SI, we need the Government to back the GCAP programme wholeheartedly by ensuring that it has the funding necessary to deliver our sixth-generation fighter capability. Indeed, it would be quite extraordinary for the Government to ask us as a House to approve the regulations if they were at the same time seriously contemplating scrapping UK involvement in GCAP. Yet that prospect has figured prominently in the press in recent days. While the best of British defence aviation has been gathered at the Royal International Air Tattoo and Farnborough, incredibly the Government have not been able to repeat the wholehearted backing of GCAP that they gave prior to the general election. In responding to the statement from his predecessor Grant Shapps on 18 December last year, when he confirmed the trilateral agreement for the GCAP treaty, the now Defence Secretary said: “Developing a sixth-generation fighter will ensure that we can continue to safeguard our UK skies and those of our NATO allies for decades to come. It will inspire innovation, strengthen UK industry and keep Britain at the cutting edge of defence technology.” I totally agree with his remarks. Yet fast-forward to the present, and, as we have just heard at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister is only able to say that the programme is “important.” Meanwhile, the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), who is on the Front Bench and for whom I have great personal respect, said: “It's not right for me to prejudge what might happen in the defence review”. He thus implied that the defence review might not continue the UK’s commitment to GCAP. We now need clarity from the Government for Parliament, industry and our international partners. We are being asked to approve this SI to deliver a key stepping-stone to the GCAP project, so are the Government still committed to it? This is my guess about what is currently happening. I would be truly staggered if the Government were to withdraw from a programme that they have previously given such full support—not because theirs is a party that does not know a good U-turn, but because it would bring international ramifications that do not bear thinking about either for the Foreign Office or the Ministry of Defence. Rather, in my view, we need to have in mind another Department—one that I have also had the pleasure of serving in—the Treasury. I suspect that the overall question of whether the Government are committed to GCAP is a red herring. What really matters is whether they are committed to funding it this year, with important spending decisions to be made right now. They will be in the inbox of the Secretary of State, under “Funding decisions on GCAP.” We want the Government to continue that funding in the years beyond, and we want to know whether they are using the review as a chance to shift spending decisions to the right. It is not unprecedented in the history of the Treasury for it to work in that way under successive Governments, probably. It might offer illusory short-term savings, but it would cause immediate and lasting pain to the most important conventional defence programme of our time. To be clear—and I mean this—I have the greatest respect for the way the Treasury has to balance the books and be responsible for the nation’s finances. I was delighted that the previous Government proposed moving to 2.5% once it was affordable—we were prepared to make difficult decisions to fund that 2.5% by reducing the size of the civil service to pre-pandemic levels—and once it was sustainable. Far from this Government inheriting what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has described as the “worst economic inheritance” since world war two, we did what we promised and moved to 2.5% only once the economic conditions allowed—namely, when inflation was back to target, with healthy economic growth and a deficit heading towards a little over 1% over the forecast period. That is our clear pathway to 2.5% versus Labour’s uncertainty and delay, which makes the real difference. To understand the direct short-term importance of 2.5% and its relevance to GCAP and this statutory instrument, we need only go back to what the Secretary of State said the response to the statement from his predecessor Grant Shapps in December. He said: “This month, the National Audit Office reported on the MOD’s equipment plan. It exposed a £17 billion black hole in Britain’s defence plans and showed that Ministers have lost control of the defence budget.” —[ Official Report , 18 December 2023; Vol. 742, c. 1137.] It is not so much that we lost control of the defence budget; rather, Putin invaded Ukraine and sent inflation soaring all around the world. In a world that was then in a rush to rearm, that context caused an inevitable hit to the costs of major defence projects and matériel. I have never pretended otherwise. Bearing in mind that the equipment plan—the MOD’s forward inventory—accounts for over 10 years, the NAO’s assessment of a black hole did not take account of one thing: moving to 2.5% by 2030. As I said in my wind up to the Thursday’s debate on the Gracious Speech, by setting out a fully costed and clearly timetabled pathway to 2.5%, we were able to deal with those funding pressures head on, and ensure that our largest two programmes—the nuclear deterrent and GCAP—would be stabilised, and, as a result, properly funded into the future. I asked the Foreign Office Minister who responded to my to confirm that the Government’s timetable would not put funding of either programme at risk. There was no answer, and we have had no answer today, either. That is the problem. The Government can afford to bring forward this SI and to continue building the administrative apparatus for GCAP, but we fear that they cannot afford to approve the funding requirements for the next stage of building the actual aircraft, because of their vacillation on reaching 2.5%. We Conservatives are clear that we support the SI on the basis that we are also supporting GCAP as a whole, including by putting in place the funding necessary to deliver its requirements over the urgent timescale that all three member nations require. That is a key point: for all three nations, GCAP is all about pace and timetable. For the UK and Italy, that means replacing the Typhoon before it is withdrawn from service towards 2040; for Japan, with equal urgency, it means replacing the Mitsubishi F-2. That is why any delay or deferment, whether caused by the lack of a clear timetable to 2.5% or otherwise, is so important and critical. Overall, it is my view that withdrawing from GCAP now would be the equivalent of scrapping the Spitfire programme in the 1930s. It is that serious. However, if such an outcome is seriously under consideration—and we know that there are those in government who are hugely sceptical—I will explain why we are ultimately supporting this SI. It is because we on the Conservative Benches believe that GCAP is a military necessity that will bring enormous economic and strategic benefits to the United Kingdom. To start with the military capability argument, if there is one key lesson from Ukraine, it is that in the absence of air superiority we face the prospect of terrible attritional warfare with huge casualties, reminiscent of the worst battles of world war two.

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  I am very grateful to the Minister. Can she confirm that there will be no delay to the Ministry of Defence’s currently planned spending on GCAP this year?

• 24 Jul 2024 · International Immunities and Privileges · Hansard source

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  Of course—it is a pleasure.

• 18 Jul 2024 · Foreign Affairs and Defence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone)—although I must say that I have never confused him with Jeremy Thorpe—and to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I respond to the Gracious Speech debate. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have made speeches today, but I pay particular tribute to all those who made maiden speeches. The time limit means that I cannot go through those contributions in as much detail as I would like, but I will briefly congratulate all those hon. Members. The hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) spoke passionately about diversity, and adds to it with her strong Irish heritage. The hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) is surely the first ever MP to have worked as a sewer baiter. My twins had their 10th birthday during the election campaign, so I know how the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) feels. It is painful, but it gets better—don’t worry. I wish him and his family well. The hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) made a point of order earlier about energy infrastructure. Pylons have also been proposed in Suffolk, and I agree with her that there are other options; we are saying to the Government that we want to see them. I am grateful for her very passionate maiden speech. The hon. Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) will, I am sure it is fair to say, be a doughty champion for his constituents. It is brilliant to have, in the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas), a former member of the Royal Air Force in Parliament, especially in the current context. I was passionate about the global combat air programme when I was Minister for Defence Procurement—it shows the importance of our maintaining combat air competitiveness. I hope that he will contribute to the debate next Wednesday. I was grateful to hear the cut and thrust of Scottish colleagues, including the hon. Members for Midlothian (Kirsty McNeill) and for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West (Martin McCluskey), and, of course, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), who certainly punched above his weight in his maiden speech. Arguably, we did not hear enough about rural matters in the King’s Speech, but the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) certainly made up for that. She will clearly be a passionate advocate for farming and the environment in her constituency. I am grateful for all those maiden speeches, and I hope that we will hear much more from those colleagues in future. Turning to defence matters, may I welcome the new foreign affairs and defence ministerial teams to their positions? As the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), said, we will work with them where it is in the national interest—especially on supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes—as they did when they were in opposition. We welcome the cross-party spirit in which the Secretary of State for Defence set out his plans for a strategic defence review. We look forward to working with Lord Robertson, for whom I have the greatest respect, in a constructive and collaborative manner. May I thank the Secretary of State for paying tribute to the two previous Secretaries of State, Ben Wallace and Grant Shapps, both of whom I had the privilege to work with as Minister for Defence Procurement? They can both be rightly proud of the enormous contribution that they made in supporting Ukraine, but they had something else in common: they were not afraid to make the unambiguous case for higher defence spending, and most importantly, they were successful. It helped that they had a Prime Minister who, as Chancellor, oversaw the largest spending review increase for defence since the cold war, and ensured that we went into the general election with a credible and fully funded plan to increase our defence budget to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. Although I welcome the fact that the Labour Government have said that they are committed to 2.5%, we have nothing but uncertainty over their timetable. Indeed, this morning I was interviewed by Kay Burley of Sky News. She put it to me that the Government’s timetable is to reach 2.5% by the end of the Parliament—so 2028 or 2029. I said that that was not what I understood the public position to be, but she told me that she had been informed privately by the Government that that was the timetable, so I would be grateful if they confirmed now, in Parliament, what exactly the position is on this matter of great sensitivity. Let me explain why the timetable for 2.5% really matters. When the previous Prime Minister announced that we would commit to 2.5%, he stated that his top priority was to replenish our munitions. That 2.5% figure enabled us to commit £10 billion of extra funding over 10 years to fund munitions, and it is a fact—I know this—that without a clear pathway to 2.5%, the Ministry of Defence would have had to make substantial cuts or deferments to programmes in order to afford that necessary replenishment of our munitions. That is why it is so significant, and why we need to know exactly what the position is. Is Kay Burley correct that the Government have told Sky News that they have a timetable for reaching 2.5% by 2028 or 2029? If not—if there is no timetable for 2.5%—how is the MOD going to fund its munitions strategy? Will those orders for shells and missiles for the Army, Navy and Air Force actually be placed this year? If not, what will be the impact on our world-leading defence sector, and above all, what will be the impact on our warfighting capability as a nation? Without a clear pathway to 2.5%, what will be the immediate impact on the Department’s finances? Will the MOD continue to invest in cutting-edge capability such as directed energy weapons and hypersonics? That 2.5% would also have stabilised our two biggest defence programmes in light of the inflationary funding pressures that followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. This is all open and in the public domain—the Public Accounts Committee was talking about it in the lead-up to the general election. I am talking about the nuclear deterrent and the global combat air programme, our absolutely essential sixth-generation fighter programme. I am delighted that we now have consensus between the Government and ourselves on both the nuclear deterrent and GCAP, but can the Government confirm that delaying 2.5% will have no impact on the funding elements of either of those two major programmes? Can the Secretary of State or the Minister responding also confirm that the Secretary of State’s strategic defence review will conclude entirely before the next spending review commences, so that that review is threat-based, rather than forced on to the financial back foot by Treasury considerations? Of course, if the Government’s public position is that there is no timetable to 2.5%, they will inevitably point to the old chestnut of the public finances being worse than feared, justifying the inevitable cuts or deferments of programmes that follow. I have the greatest respect for the Secretary of State, but we did hear some of that in his opening remarks. I am afraid that that excuse will not wash, though. Inflation is at 2% and on target; the economy is growing at a healthy rate and ahead of our competitors; wages are rising; unemployment is almost half what it was in 2010, when we took power; and the deficit is forecast to fall to just over 1% of GDP by the end of the current forecast period. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members chunter. They talk about missions; when we came to power, our mission was to save this country from bankruptcy, because once again, the socialists had run out of other people’s money. The forecast deficit in 2010 was heading well north of 10%, so we did the right thing: we had to take difficult decisions, and we restored our public finances. Because of that, when the pandemic struck and the energy support had to be put in place, we could afford that enormous support. We are proud of that—proud of furlough, of saving those jobs and those businesses in every constituency. We did it because of those difficult decisions after the mess Labour left us in 2010. [ Interruption. ] Labour Members talk about the previous Prime Minister but one, but our strong economic legacy cannot be used to pray in aid a cover for cuts and deferments. [ Interruption. ] They quibble when we talk about a strong economic legacy. How else can we describe low unemployment, inflation at 2%, a low and falling deficit—half what it was when we took over from them—or the highest growth in the G7? That is a fantastic inheritance. Far from being an excuse for the cuts that the Government will have to come to, those are the features of the very improvement in economic conditions that made our pre-election commitment to 2.5% financially credible and deliverable. We strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s staunch support for NATO, as evidenced in Washington, and we want him to succeed on his pledges to strengthen Britain’s defence. That is in our national interest, but it is actions that matter and by which the Government will be judged, and deferring and delaying 2.5% offers nothing but uncertainty to our armed forces at the worst possible time. If the Government have a private timetable to reach 2.5%, they need to share it; if there is not one, I urge the Secretary of State to persuade the Prime Minister and his Treasury colleagues to think again, because in this more dangerous world, higher defence spending is a matter of the utmost urgency for Britain.