James Cartlidge MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, because what this all creates is massive uncertainty. Defence is a massive industry in this country. That uncertainty is damaging for our defence businesses and dual-use companies right across the nation, which employ thousands and thousands of people, so we need far more certainty, whoever is going to be Prime Minister. I was talking about welfare reform. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) reformed the system of tax credits through the introduction of universal credit. Before the pandemic, we saved billions of pounds from welfare, all in the face—as my colleagues will remember—of unending and total opposition to any reduction in welfare dependency from the Labour party. But Labour Members cannot go on like that, setting their face against welfare reform. It must be obvious that, in the national interest, we have to reform welfare. Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, knows that we need to cut welfare to fund defence. Lord Robertson, the former Defence Secretary, knows it too, saying that we cannot keep Britain safe with an “ever-expanding welfare Budget.” That is why the Leader of the Opposition wrote to the Prime Minister last week to offer our support, in the national interest, to cut welfare and fund defence. Last week, I repeated that offer to the Secretary of State during his statement on Monday. He did not answer, so I wrote to him last week with the same offer, and I hope he will accept. I hope he will now confirm that he wants to put politics to one side and work with us to make the difficult decisions, so that the defence investment plan can finally be funded and published.

• 1 Jun 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  No wonder the defence investment plan is so late: the Labour Government still have not worked out how to pay for it. The good news is that others have. Lord Robertson, a former Labour Defence Secretary, has said: “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget”, and Tony Blair himself warned last week: “By the end of this decade, we could be spending more on incapacity and disability benefits than on defence. No serious country can do that.” Is not the truth that whoever becomes the next Labour Prime Minister must do one thing above all else to boost defence, and that is to cut welfare and spend the savings on the British armed forces?

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Lady would be better focusing on the Type 45 destroyers. The former Labour Government were meant to order 12 Type 45s, but they slashed that order in half to just six. Worse than that, in an act of genius they inserted an engine that did not even work and we had to spend years trying to replace it through the power improvement project. On the issue of welfare and defence funding, we have been the first party to explicitly set out how we would reduce benefit expenditure to increase defence spending, with confirmation that we would restore the two-child benefit cap and use the savings for our military. We have also set out plans to move £2 billion a year of research and development funds from other Government Departments to fund drones and drone tech across the board. However, if we are to become the world leader in uncrewed warfare that I still believe we can be, not least after our extraordinary support for Ukraine, we do not just need our services to have the cash to test and train; we also need to invest billions into transforming our defence industrial base.

• 24 Mar 2026 · Defence · Hansard source

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  I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour, who ran rings around the Prime Minister yesterday so expertly. He is absolutely right. The Red Book details to the penny how much this Government will spend on their U-turn to abolish the two-child benefit cap by 2031. There is no line on what will be spent on defence in those years, so how on earth is the MOD meant to change? The key is that the Government are not going to go to 3% in this Parliament. I am going to conclude by setting out five steps, but before I do that, I will give way to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis).

• 10 Feb 2026 · Ministry of Defence: Palantir Contracts · Hansard source

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  Thank you for granting this urgent question, Mr Speaker. Before I turn to the detail, let me say that the Mandelson scandal is truly shocking. When debating these matters, it is incumbent on all of us to remember the victims of Epstein’s crimes. Following Peter Mandelson’s sacking as US ambassador, serious questions surrounding his influence on MOD contracts have emerged, to which we have had no meaningful answers. Specifically, the MOD signed a contract with the US firm Palantir in December 2025 worth £240 million. Critically, at a time when UK defence companies are struggling for orders from their own Government, this contract did not involve a competition with British firms, and was granted to a US company by direct award. Why was that? For the record, this is not about Palantir or any other US company. From my time as the Defence Procurement Minister, I recognise the huge mutual gain to us and to our closest ally that results from our strong defence relationship. It is true that many contracts in the MOD are rightly let on a single-source basis, but this is about transparency. Above all, the question is: to what extent did Peter Mandelson and his firm Global Counsel, in which he was a controlling shareholder at the time, benefit from privileged access not available to potential UK competitors—access that was used to deliver a defence contract of some £250 million to a client of Global Counsel without competition? Regarding the meeting between the Prime Minister, Peter Mandelson and Palantir in February 2025 in Washington DC, is it true that no minutes were taken? If they were not taken, why not? Crucially, at the time of the meeting, was the Prime Minister aware that Palantir was a client of Mandelson’s firm? The Minister must answer that. In the build-up to the US state visit, we understand that Peter Mandelson lobbied the UK Government for deliverables. Will the Minister commit to publishing what those deliverables were? Did they involve any clients of Global Counsel? Finally, let me mention the actions to take. Given the public interest in this matter, will Defence Ministers follow the lead of the Health Secretary and publish all their correspondence with Peter Mandelson? In addition, in the spirit of the Humble Address, will the Government publish, as part of the Mandelson files, all relevant material relating to this contract award?

• 29 Oct 2025 · UK-Türkiye Typhoon Export Deal · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for providing advance sight of his statement. I strongly welcome this very important news for UK fighter production. Combat air has historically been the largest component of UK defence exports, and few nations can hope to sustain such an advanced industrial base purely on domestic sales. I stressed throughout my time as the Minister for Defence Procurement the critical importance of exports, and this deal is very positive for the workforce in Warton—but also, as the Minister said, in Bristol, Edinburgh and elsewhere in the UK—for the wider small and medium-sized enterprises supply chain, for our NATO ally Turkey and for the Royal Air Force, which requires a domestic base of highly skilled workers to maintain our ability to deliver sovereign competitiveness in the air domain. At the very well-attended global combat air programme event in Mr Speaker’s state rooms, I said that defence exports were like a baton passed between Administrations, because the biggest deals take years to pull off and require teamwork within and across Administrations. As with the Norwegian frigates, there was a massive and concerted effort under the previous Government to engage constantly with Turkey in support of Typhoon exports. In my time as a Minister, Typhoon exports were a top priority in the MOD and I chaired a weekly cross-Government committee that was focused in particular on persuading our German allies to change their long-standing position of opposing Typhoon sales to Saudi Arabia and Turkey. That work irrefutably helped pave the way for this deal. I note that the Trinity House agreement with Germany, which I welcome, builds on the proposal to restore large-calibre barrel production to the UK, which I initiated from scratch. Does the Minister agree that Germany’s change of position on Typhoon exports underlines the strength of our bilateral relationship with the Germans and the welcome stiffening of their military disposition more broadly, given the common threat we face? Of course, we should also recognise the important role of other long-standing defence export partners in this announcement. I note that it has been reported that the deal involves Qatar and Oman giving Turkey up to 24 existing Typhoons. Can the Minister confirm whether either will be buying replacement Typhoons? I note that Qatar has the option on 12, which I understand is still outstanding. Can the Minister update us on progress on Typhoon exports to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? That brings me to the very relevant matter of GCAP, the programme that is developing the Typhoon’s successor. I have previously spoken of how GCAP is, like AUKUS, effectively two pillars: the Tempest platform is pillar 1, and pillar 2 includes critical elements such as loyal wingmen and electronic warfare, with significant potential benefit to the RAF’s immediate lethality. While appreciating the complications in inviting new nations to join pillar 1, and having given strong hints about the German position in relation to its SCAF partnership with France, has the Minister considered inviting Germany to be a pillar 2 partner of GCAP? Does the deal include any movement on complex weapons for integration into Typhoon, given our industrial strength in that area? The MOD has now retired some 30 RAF tranche 1 Typhoons. Does the Minister plan to order any further Typhoons for the RAF to replace those, and if so, when? E-Scan radar for the RAF’s Typhoons, which is led by Leonardo in Edinburgh, has been successfully developed, but no production orders have been placed. I have previously urged Ministers to accelerate procurement to boost the lethality of our existing Typhoon fleet. When will E-Scan radar be in service for the RAF? The Typhoon needs an associated electronics upgrade known as P4E—phase 4 enhancement—to fully exploit the capabilities of E-Scan radar, but I understand that no contract for that has been placed yet either. When is P4E intended to be on contract? Finally, it would be wrong of me not to welcome the Minister to his newly named position as the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry. Personally, I think it is a shame that there is no longer a Minister for Defence Procurement, but perhaps that should not be a surprise, given how little procurement is going on in the MOD. Is it not the reality that, for all the boasts about defence spending, Labour is prioritising penny-pinching in the MOD and forcing a deep freeze in procurement? Specifically, can he confirm or deny reports in The Telegraph that he is demanding that the armed forces make in-year cuts this year of £2.6 billion?