James Cartlidge MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 6 Jan 2025 · Defence Spending: 2.5% of GDP · Hansard source

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  The Secretary of State says that publication has not been pushed back, but I remind the House that at the previous Defence questions on 18 November last year, the Secretary of State was asked specifically about SDR timing and said: “The reviewers will report in the spring.” —[Official Report, 18 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 4.] However, in a written answer to me on 17 December—just before the House rose—a Defence Minister said: “The Reviewers will make their final report to the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Defence Secretary in the first half of 2025. The Secretary of State for Defence will subsequently report the Strategic Defence Review to Parliament.” If the first part is in the first six months of the year, even I can see that the second part, which is subsequent to that, will happen in the second half of the year. That is not the spring, is it?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Defence Spending: 2.5% of GDP · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Minister for Veterans and People, the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), on receiving a distinguished service order—we are all proud of him. The Government have tied the announcement of their timetable for 2.5% to the publication of the strategic defence review, so we need it to be published as soon as possible. Will the Secretary of State clarify why he has pushed back the SDR’s publication in Parliament from the spring to the summer?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  My apologies. I am, like you are Mr Speaker, very passionate on this subject. We see this as a terrible deal. That is why we would have never signed it. The incoming US President opposes the deal, the Mauritians are seeking to renegotiate it, and by any measure it is terrible value for money for the over-taxed British public. Does the Secretary of State really think that it is in our national interest to spend hundreds of millions of pounds leasing back a military base that we currently own, instead of spending every penny of that money on our armed forces in the UK?

• 6 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Correct, because it is a terrible deal.

• 6 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  At every turn, Ministers have refused point blank to tell us how much their Chagos deal will cost British taxpayers. Now we know why: the Mauritians want £800 million a year. Whatever the figure is, will the Secretary of State tell us what percentage of the cost of leasing back a base that we currently own will come from the Ministry of Defence budget?