John Healey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that question. We will always work across parties in the national interest and in the interests of defence— I hope he is wrong that doing so may ruin my career. Nevertheless, I am grateful to him for noticing the £400 million investment in its Telford factory that Rheinmetall is announcing today. That is a direct response to the UK-German defence agreement that I signed in October, and it is confirmation that this is a Government who are delivering for defence.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right about the fact that capabilities are now changing in weeks, not months or even years. He is also right about finance. That is why I went to the London stock exchange last week and closed the markets—I think it was the first time a Defence Secretary has ever done that. I wanted to signal that this Government want a new partnership with not just industry and innovators, but investors, and that means changing the way in which defence does its work.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend knows better than most the challenge for small firms entering into the supply chain in defence, and she does more than most to champion their case. We want defence to do business differently, and making it easier for small firms and newer entrants to start doing their business with defence a big part of that. That is why we have announced a new SME support centre—a new front door for small firms that can then become part of the defence supply chain, unlocking new jobs and putting more money in the pockets of workers.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  The House will note that this afternoon we are without the Minister for Veterans and People, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns). He is halfway up Everest with a group of soldiers, raising funds for armed forces charities and raising the profile of veterans, and I am sure that the whole House wishes him well. Most of us also think, “Rather him than me.” This Government have confirmed the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, which will boost national security and make defence the engine for growth in every part of the United Kingdom. For too long, small businesses have felt left out of defence, but no more. We are setting new targets to ensure that smaller firms benefit from that increase in defence spending. We are setting up a new support centre to guide small businesses on access to defence and, for the first time, we are making British-based businesses a priority for British taxpayers’ defence investment.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes an important point. The access of SMEs to defence is very often through primes and subcontracting, rather than directly with the Ministry of Defence itself. It is the certainty of long-term relationships and long-term contracts for the primes that allow them to pass those benefits on to smaller firms. That is why it is significant that when my hon. Friend joined me at the Derby Rolls-Royce factory when I announced the eight-year £9 billion Unity contract for Rolls-Royce, 240 small firms were part of that submarine supply chain.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  As a former procurement Minister, the shadow Secretary of State will know that the replacement of our jet trainer is long overdue. He will have heard me say earlier that, for the first time, this is a Government who will look to direct British taxpayers’ defence investment to British-based firms, British-based jobs, British-based technology and British-based innovation.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend, as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker), for the work that they are doing on innovative finance, which will help SMEs in future. I look forward to the publication of their Royal United Services Institute report shortly. I can confirm that SME involvement in the defence supply chain will be boosted by new spending targets that I will set in June to produce exactly the sort of result that my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) is looking for.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  There may be a competition for the title of the biggest Armed Forces Day event in the country—I refer the hon. Gentleman to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn). I am not sure whether his question was about SMEs or Armed Forces Day events, but I welcome the support that his small firms are giving to Armed Forces Day. From the centre, we are making sure that we can support local Armed Forces Day events where councils and local charities are willing to organise them. We are doing so right around the country, and I know the whole House will back those events, locally and nationally.

• 19 May 2025 · Defence Procurement: SMEs · Hansard source

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  If the hon. Lady alerts her local small firms to the commitment I have made that next month we will set a target for direct defence investment in SMEs, she will then get confirmation of our commitment to boosting this important area of our economy. She will also recognise that every 1% more of defence spending we put into SMEs is worth £250 million more for those small firms.

• 19 May 2025 · Support for Veterans: Operation Banner · Hansard source

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  This Government are dealing with the woeful shortcomings of the last Government’s Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. As we do so, we will give priority to strengthening the protections that preserve dignity and respect for our veterans who served in Northern Ireland.

• 19 May 2025 · Support for Veterans: Operation Banner · Hansard source

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  The Government recognise the important service and sacrifice of those forces veterans who served in Northern Ireland. More were killed during the troubles there than in Afghanistan. I am acutely aware of the anguish caused to those veterans and their families by historical investigations. While the Ministry of Defence continues to provide welfare support and legal support to those affected, I am determined that we will do more.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for raising his point of order. I was not aware that he was going to raise it, and I have to say that it is news to me; most regimental associations that I know cannot be pressured by anyone from outside. However, I am grateful to him for raising the issue in the House. Anything that interferes with the parliamentary process is of concern to all Members of the House, and I will certainly look into it and get back to him.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I would be delighted to, and if the hon. Gentleman would give me Mr Deach’s address, I would like to write to him as well.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Any arrangements that we make will be in the best national interests of this country and the interests of our industry. They will be fair, and they will ensure that our UK industry can participate fully in any programmes and make the biggest possible contribution alongside the European Union, within the context of NATO, to making European security stronger.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are developing the veterans’ strategy in close consultation with veterans and the organisations that represent them. They are at the heart of the process; I can give my hon. Friend that reassurance. I am glad that she is looking forward to the strategy’s publication.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have committed to set new SME spending targets and establish a new SME support centre. In the last week, we have launched a new tech scaler, and we will strengthen the SME voice on the new defence industrial joint council.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I congratulate Lee Chapman on the event that he organised in the right hon. Lady’s constituency. I will indeed look into the matter, and if she has additional data and information for me to go on, I would be grateful if she could let me have it.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We will indeed. We will set out in our defence industrial strategy the detail that the hon. Lady wants. She mentions Babcock, which has welcomed today’s UK-EU agreement as a step forward, describing it as strengthening the critical defence partnership between the EU and the UK in uncertain times. I am sure that she will welcome that as well.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Last year, we pledged to the British public that if we were elected we would seek a new security pact with the European Union. Today we have made good on that promise. The UK-EU security and defence partnership is an ambitious agreement. It will strengthen NATO, and it will grow the economy. In a further demonstration that defence is a powerful engine for growth, I can confirm that Rheinmetall will be opening its new gun barrel factory in Telford, bringing 400 new jobs to the area and boosting investment in the UK economy by nearly half a billion pounds. This is what resetting Britain’s relationship with Europe and stepping up on European security looks like, and this is what delivering for defence looks like, to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The previous Government, with our support, set up the Haddon-Cave inquiry, whose job it is to get to the bottom of any allegations and investigate them fully. That is the job it is doing, and it has our full support—and, I hope, the continued support of the House —in doing it. The hon. Lady mentioned the “Panorama” programme. Anybody who is willing to talk to the media about the information they have and what they allege must be willing to do the same to the Haddon-Cave inquiry.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  No. It shows that when we were elected last summer we inherited a situation of increasing questions and jeopardy over the continuing sovereignty—our operational sovereignty—of the Diego Garcia base. That is why we have been taking action since then.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The shadow Defence Secretary, the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), shouts, “Total rubbish,” but his 12-page drone strategy was half-full of pictures and totally unfunded. The strategic defence review will look at how our technologies are changing the nature of warfare, and will ensure that we can make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I reject any accusation of a veil of secrecy. I will look into the allegations that the hon. Gentleman makes, and I will write to him, or can meet him, if that is helpful.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that the Government and the Ministry of Defence are seeking judicial review of the coroner’s work on the Clonoe inquiry. If there are other factors to be taken into account and lessons to be learned, the Government will do that.

• 19 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is simply too early to say that about any of the nations, including all 27 EU nations. What I can say is that today’s agreement is the necessary key that opens the door to that potential for our Government and our defence industry.