Luke Pollard
MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“As the Member of Parliament for Devonport, where we not only base-port but refit Type 23s, I know that many of those ships that have given decades of service are no longer able to provide the capabilities we need.”
“It is unlike the SNP to be so positive about defence, isn’t it? The Type 83 and Type 32 were PowerPoints—there was no budget attached to them. That is why in the defence investment plan we set out a plan for a common combat vessel and a hybrid Navy to fulfil the opportunities that the retirement of the Type 45 presents for us.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman is talking about a salary of up to £1 billion, he is cosplaying as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), isn’t he? Seriously, we are the third-largest cash spender in NATO. At the spending review next year, we will be setting out an increase in defence spending.”
“My hon. Friend really is the Member of Parliament for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, as she is determined to champion it so frequently. She will have seen in the defence investment plan our commitment to the new generation of fleet solid support ships, and she will have seen the work that this Government have undertaken since 2024 to address…”
“I say seriously to the House that my hon. Friend has been an incredible advocate for Rosyth. I have met him on a large number of occasions, and he has been absolutely determined to talk not just about the potential of Rosyth, but about the professionalism of the men and women who work there and the opportunity for young people to have a c…”
“We inherited a situation where the north-east was the region with the lowest Ministry of Defence spend in the country and we have made it a mission to increase defence spending in the north-east. We have an incredible talent pool in the north-east, with brilliant defence companies both large and small doing brilliant work.”
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“We announced a £182 million defence skills package and 1,200 contracts have been signed. In capabilities, we have new artillery, new missiles, new drones and new ships that are being built in Scotland. We have done new deals with Cambridge Aerospace for interceptor missiles and with Norway for new commando insertion craft. We will create new munition factories and 23 new medium helicopters are being built in Yeovil. Proteus, the first autonomous UK helicopter, has made its first flight, and we will have new defence warehouses, homes and facilities. There will be more exports, a bigger defence industrial base and more alliances. There will be investment in the coalition of the willing and a new Ukraine Defence Contact Group, chaired by the Defence Secretary.”
“We are improving readiness in defence with the Armed Forces Bill and we are working on new measures, but all he has to offer to this debate is complaints—no apology for the underfunding, the cuts or the armed forces housing with black mould that our people are forced to live in. It is not good enough. This Labour Government are investing in our people, providing the largest pay rise in 20 years and refurbishing or rebuilding nine in 10 defence houses. We are establishing an Armed Forces Commissioner and investing in our infrastructure. Billions of pounds will be spent on new housing and new docks. In our industrial relations, we will deliver five defence growth deals. We will deliver five defence technical excellence colleges in England, hopefully two in Scotland and one in Wales.”
“The Northern Ireland Troubles Bill will repeal a law that was found to be unlawful and replace it with a new Bill that has new protections for veterans, which we are working closely with veterans and veterans groups to deliver. I hear the Opposition squealing about the defence readiness Bill—a Bill they never thought of, a Bill that they never implemented and a Bill that they only complain about. The shadow Defence Secretary will know that we are continuing to work on the defence readiness Bill and it will be introduced later in this Parliament, assuming that the usual processes allow. We are consulting with people, but he will know that it is a sequential Bill.”
“No, I need to make progress. Madam Deputy Speaker is clear that I have to finish in a moment, but I thank the right hon. Member for his interest. We know that in a more dangerous world, we need to spend more on defence. Turning to the legislation, I have heard the nonsense about there not being any defence measures in the King’s Speech from the usual armchair generals on social media, so let us look at what is in there. The Armed Forces Bill will further strengthen and improve service life, strengthen our armed forces and strengthen our strategic reserve. A new regulatory Bill, with measures to expand drone testing and use, is good news for our forces and good news for defence tech firms in Swindon, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth and across the United Kingdom.”
“Indeed, it was a recommendation of the SDR that we have that debate.”
“We are increasing defence spending, with £5 billion extra in our budget this year.”
“We have published the defence industrial strategy with nearly £800 million to make defence an engine for growth in every corner of the United Kingdom and we have unveiled the groundbreaking Atlantic Bastion programme to make Britain more secure from Russian undersea threats in the north Atlantic. We have also reversed the Tory privatisation that failed our armed forces, with our forces living in appalling accommodation—that is 40,000 forces families—with a £9 billion programme that can upgrade nine in 10 defence houses. This is a Labour Government delivering for Britain and delivering for defence.”
“We have established the defence cyber and electromagnetic command; launched the Military Intelligence Services and the defence counter-intelligence unit; announced that the UK will purchase 12 new F-35A jets; and launched UK Defence Innovation to streamline our innovation, with a £400 million ringfenced budget. This Labour Government have done more. We have reasserted Britain’s place in the world with a rebooted Lancaster House treaty with France, signed the Lunna House treaty with Norway and published the defence diplomacy strategy. We have brought back defence exports into the Ministry of Defence, with 2025 being the highest year of defence exports in 40 years, including landmark deals with Norway and Türkiye.”
“We are in a new era of threat and demands on defence are rising. The strategic defence review sets out a vision to make Britain safer, secure at home and strong abroad. The Government have accepted all 62 of the review’s recommendations, and its implementation is being delivered through a whole of UK Government effort. The defence investment plan will deliver on the vision of the strategic defence review and put right a programme that we inherited from the Conservatives that was over-committed, underfunded and unsuited to the threats we face. It is a 10-year plan and we must get it right. We are not waiting on the DIP to deliver.”
“We are doing something that was never done under the Tories: we are doing a line-by-line review of defence budgets, publishing not just an equipment plan but a plan covering housing, personnel and infrastructure all in one. This is a Labour Government who are delivering for defence.”
“Member and his colleagues were in government. In their first five years of government, they cut defence spending by £12 billion and did long-term damage to our military. They cut the number of our warships by 25% and mine-hunting ships by half. They delayed the renewal of our nuclear deterrent. In their 14 years, they never once hit the 2.5% of GDP spending that we left them with when we were last in power. They cut troop numbers to the lowest level since Napoleon, and drove down military morale with low pay and appalling military housing. We are working flat out to deliver the DIP, and we will publish it when it is ready.”
“Deary me, I see the armchair general is out in full force today. Let me personally place on record again my thanks to Richard Barrons, George Robertson and Fiona Hill for the superb work they did in authoring the strategic defence review. They know more than many the mess that the right hon. Member’s Government left our defence in, with hollowed-out and underfunded defences—not my words, but those of a Tory Defence Secretary from this Dispatch Box, admitting the failures they made with our armed forces. In our first year, Labour has boosted defence spending by over £5 billion. We are now spending more on defence this year than the previous Conservative Government spent in any year. We will hit 2.6% in 2027, 3% in the next Parliament, and 3.5% in 2035. That level of spending was not seen in any of the 14 years that the right hon.”
“We are announcing defence contracts—not a day goes by without me signing off on a new one. Indeed, this morning I was in Andover announcing the £879 million contract for maintenance of our Apache and Chinook helicopters with Boeing. It is a 1,200-job contract that supports our efforts to make defence an engine for growth and give our fighting forces the very best equipment they can have.”
“My hon. Friend does a superb job on the Defence Committee, and he is right to be asking questions of defence. It is precisely because I share many of his views that we commissioned the strategic defence review in the first place. We adopted all 62 recommendations, including the recommendation to move our nation’s military to warfighting readiness, ending the hollowing-out and underfunding that we inherited from the Conservative party. That is why there is £5 billion extra in our defence budget this year already. The shadow Minister’s Government cut defence when they had their first budget, and we increased defence funding—that is the difference between our two parties. We are not waiting for the defence investment plan. I entirely understand the seriousness with which the Defence Committee Chair raises these issues.”
“Member is the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance)—and across the supply chain. We are improving on a deal that we inherited from the Conservatives. Under that deal, there was insufficient UK content in helicopter exports, there was no security guarantee that autonomy would be based in Yeovil, and Yeovil was not a centre for helicopter exports. This is Labour delivering—and making the Lib Dem hon. Member for Yeovil quite happy in the process.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his questions. I was robust with the Conservatives about the record they left, but it is also worth noting that when the Liberal Democrats were last in power, they cut defence spending, despite the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014. I understand his seriousness and where he is coming from, but I hope he has some humility about his record. The hon. Member is absolutely right, though, that we need to increase defence spending, and that is exactly what we are doing. We will hit 2.5% of GDP on core defence spending in April 2027; 3% in the next Parliament; and 3.5%—the NATO standard—in 2035, but we are not waiting for the DIP to get contracts announced. Only a month ago, I announced a £1 billion helicopter deal with Leonardo in Yeovil, which will support jobs there—I recognise that sitting behind the hon.”
“My hon. Friend is right that we need to increase defence spending, and that is exactly what the Government are doing. We have £5 billion extra in our budget this year, which we are using to address the hollowing out and underfunding of our armed forces that we inherited. We have used part of that to give our armed forces the biggest pay rise in 20 years. That is helping to address the below-inflation “pay rises”, if we can call them that, introduced by the Conservatives when they were in government. I recognise the case that my hon. Friend makes about the importance of defence spending. I encourage colleagues to still make that case, because we need to increase defence spending—we are increasing it. I would welcome a national conversation about the threats we face, and how we match those threats with increased capability.”
“There is a marked change in the approach that this Government are taking to the Ministry of Defence: we want to do more with the Defence Committee, bring it into decision making even more, and give it an understanding of situations, including by providing more secret briefings; they previously might not have been available in the number that we are now providing. I want to continue doing that, so I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has to say. I recognise the case for increased defence spending; I am glad he said what he did about it, especially as the Conservatives hollowed out and underfunded our forces for 14 years. I entirely understand that he is having a change of heart about his party’s record in government, and wants to increase that spending. We will continue to increase defence spending, as we have set out.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his advocacy for the Methil yard. He and I meet often to discuss that, and it is good to see the investment that Navantia is putting into it. In Scotland, we are building the Type 26 frigates in Glasgow and the Type 31 frigates in Rosyth, where I was pleased to be only a few weeks ago for the steel cut on HMS Bulldog and the roll-out of HMS Active. As a result of work that we have commissioned—the first fleet solid support ship is being built by Navantia, and I was present to see the steel cut in Appledore in North Devon at the end of last year—there is a bright future ahead for shipbuilding in Scotland. I am happy to continue my conversations with my hon. Friend about Methil.”
“The right hon. Gentleman is right; we have agreed the NATO target of 3.5% on core defence and 1.5% on national security by 2035. We have agreed that—an important part of it. He will also know what the Defence Secretary revealed last week about covert Russian activities. It is precisely because we can see more threats from Russia and other adversaries, and not just against our undersea cables, that we are increasing defence spending and trying to renew our armed forces. We are dealing with the hollowing out. As a patriotic Back Bencher, he shares many of my views about the last Government’s effect on our armed forces, and their hollowing out under the Conservatives. I am very happy to continue my conversation with him about how we can make the case for further defence investment.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his service to the country. The fact that he has served gives renewed credibility to what he has said. I certainly find it curious that many of the people who delighted in cutting our armed forces over the last 14 years now say, without a hint of humility, that they want to increase defence spending. I would have much more respect for the Conservatives’ argument if they apologised—first, for their cuts to our armed forces, and secondly, for their leader, who described our brave pilots in the middle east as “just hanging around”. I think our forces deserve better than the Conservatives, and they have it with this Labour Government.”
“As a Devon neighbour, I know the hon. Gentleman’s passion for our armed forces, and it is good to see him wearing his Royal College of Defence Studies tie—an institution of which I am also proud to be a graduate. He knows that we are working flat out to deliver the defence investment plan, and we will publish it when it is ready. I would much prefer to get it right than to publish a document that is not right, and that is what we will do.”
“We are also putting effort into valuing our people by legislating for a new armed forces commissioner, so our forces and their families can raise concerns outside the chain of command with someone independent. This is a Government who are delivering for those who serve in uniform.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his service to our country. It is interesting that he mentioned recruitment, because the shadow Minister, who sat on the Government Benches during the last Parliament, was scathing about his own Government’s record on recruitment, scathing about their performance, and scathing about their lack of action against the contractor they brought in. I am pleased to report that under a Labour Government, inflow is up and outflow is down. We have replaced the contractor, and not only are we delivering the biggest pay rise for our armed forces in 20 years—a second above-inflation pay rise—but we have ended the privatisation of military homes, and the military homes scandal that we inherited. Nine in 10 military homes are being refitted in the next decade.”
“The defence investment plan will set out the kit and capabilities that we need and will buy for the next 10 years, but also the upgrades that we are making to the kit that we have, to give our fighting forces the edge. Importantly, it also talks about how we value our people; for far too long, that has not been spoken about enough in defence. That is something else that we are addressing.”
“I really like the right hon. Gentleman—he is a very jovial chap—and he raises some good points. The defence investment plan is needed. It is being worked on by our Department. We will deliver it when it is ready, but we are not waiting for the defence investment plan to make announcements. I have spoken about the £879 million contract I announced this morning in Andover for our Apache and Chinook fleets. I also point to the announcement we made on Friday about a multimillion-pound deal with the veteran-led start-up Cambridge Aerospace to provide new missiles to intercept drones, not just for our forces but for our allies in the middle east. The right hon. Gentleman says that we should look to the future; we are doing exactly that.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her work, and not just on the armed forces housing issues that she raises; she is also a thorough champion for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Many of its ships are in her Truro and Falmouth constituency. She is right to talk about the £9 billion commitment that we have made to deliver an improvement in armed forces housing. I see that Opposition Front Benchers are chattering. They had an option to deal with that when in power. They could have dealt with the black mould— [Interruption.]”
“They could have dealt with the black mould in our armed forces kids’ bedrooms. They could have dealt with the broken boilers and the leaky roofs. We have dealt with it as a Labour Government, and I am proud of that record. I am also proud that we have refitted the 1,000 worst homes, delivering those improvements so that our military families could be in a decent home by Christmas 2025. We are now starting work on the next tranche of the worst homes so that our people can live in a decent home if they serve. That is the minimum we should offer those brave men and women who serve our forces.”
“Gentleman and his new all-party group to have that conversation, which is an important one about how we address the underfunding and hollowing out of our forces that we inherited. I will also be able to help him understand the progress that we are now making under this Labour Government to restock and to rearm: a lot of work done, but a lot of work still to do.”
“I follow the hon. Gentleman on Twitter, so I will be very keen to see the end of the political blame game of his tweets. I look forward to seeing what he tweets next. It might be the embodiment of that spirit that we have just heard here. The hon. Gentleman is right to talk about the munitions and stockpiles that we inherited, which were far too low for the threat that we are facing. That is the reason why we have already made announcements about increasing the amount of munitions that we are buying for our armed forces. He is also right to talk about the threat. The Defence Secretary has spoken from this Dispatch Box about the increasing threat that Russia, in particular, poses to the United Kingdom and our allies, and we will continue to do that. I am very happy to meet the hon.”
“I entirely agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said. I know he has been assiduous in asking detailed parliamentary questions about the refurbishment and refit of the Longbridge mess, and I am very happy to meet him to hear directly about his and his constituents’ concerns.”
“That interchangeability is at the heart of the new defence agreement that we have signed with Norway, and part of an agreement about how we can work more closely with our joint expeditionary force allies in northern Europe, which I hope can be expanded to other nations as we look to sell the Type 31 frigates to more of our partners.”
“I can indeed. The right hon. Gentleman will know, as a Defence Minister in the last Government, the state of the forces that he passed over to this Government. When it comes to frigates—I could bore the House on this; it is one of my favourite subjects—he will also know that the incredible deal we have signed with Norway sustains Type 26 production on the Clyde for many years to come and involves not only the eight British Royal Navy Type 26s but five Norwegian ones. We are currently working with Norway on build slots. That will create a combined force—a truly interoperable, interchangeable force. Indeed, the only difference between a Royal Navy Type 26 and a Norwegian Type 26 will be the language on the signs.”
“April 2027 is when we will hit that, and we will set out how we will be spending that in the defence investment plan that will be published shortly.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he asked his questions. I notice that the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), was agreeing with every word that he said in relation to the cuts and the lack of increase in defence spending. I recommend to my hon. Friend and all colleagues in the House the report produced by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) when he was in charge of the Defence Committee, called “Shifting the Goalposts”. It sets out the amount of GDP spend on defence going back a number of Governments. It shows that the last Labour Government left defence spending at 2.5% of GDP in 2010, a figure sadly never matched in the following 14 years. We are getting back to 2.5% of GDP.”
“I am still waiting for a reply on that, and while this goes on, we are moving further and further away from more young Scots being able to access the courses that they could be doing from September onwards if the Scottish Government would agree to this.”
“I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at our record, which includes a Type 26 deal that sustains shipbuilding on the Clyde and investment in a welding school in Scotland that we had to step in and fund because the SNP Government chose not to. It is good that the SNP Government have now finally realised that the defence of the realm is important, but I would ask him to pass on to the SNP Government that I am still waiting for a proper reply to our offer to match-fund a second defence technical excellence college in Scotland. We want to have two in Scotland. We have provided the funding for one, and I hope his Government will match-fund the second.”
“That is precisely why this Government are delivering an upgrade to nine in 10 service family accommodation units in the next 10 years.”
“I thank my hon. Friend and the armed forces personnel he spoke to and about in his question. We have a British Army that is currently globally deployed. I am incredibly proud, as I imagine the whole House is, of our forces that are deployed in Estonia as part of our forward land force and in Cyprus and across the middle east in support of our allies, and those that are training and have been in support of our High North allies on various exercises. I do not ask our forces to comment on party political matters because they are there to serve the Government of the day, but I do know that having them and their families living in homes without damp, mould, leaky roofs or broken boilers greatly improves their mood.”
“It is a Liz Truss klaxon moment, isn’t it? The hon. Member’s memory is so brief that he has forgotten about what Liz Truss and the Conservatives did to our economy only a few years ago. I agree that we need to increase defence spending. Let me say to him clearly: not a single person in uniform today—not an admiral, general or anyone of any rank who has served in the UK armed forces—has had a decade ahead of increasing defence spending. It is such a sizeable change when it comes to our armed forces spending. [ Interruption. ] I notice more chuntering from the Opposition Front Bench. Opposition Members are grumpy that it is a Labour Government who are increasing defence spending when their Government cut it, but I will continue happily working cross-party in support of our armed forces.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for not only his question, but the work he does. He is a quiet and determined champion for Sandhurst and people who train in his constituency. There is a real opportunity with the increasing defence investment that we are making to renew the facilities not just in Sandhurst, but in military accommodation and bases across the United Kingdom and further afield. It is not just infrastructure that we are increasing. I am especially proud to be part of a Government, and a ministerial team with the Defence Secretary, that are increasing support for childcare for those who serve, because it is our people, not just our equipment, that we should focus on, and that is what the defence investment plan will do.”
“Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman would like to give some of the money that his former Reform leader in Wales got from Russia to the defence budget, we would have a wee bit more than we have today.”
“By increasing defence spending, we do not want only to bolster those large defence companies; there is a huge opportunity to grow smaller defence SMEs as well, and addressing the skills challenges they have is a key part of that.”
“I thank the hon. Member for her question and for calling out and celebrating the work of Thales in her constituency. I have visited a number of Thales sites recently and have been impressed not just by the management, but in particular by the apprentices, who feel that there is a bright future ahead of them. She will know that we have announced that Yeovil will be one of five new defence technical excellence colleges, which is not too far from her constituency. That is a £10 million investment in each DTEC, designed to increase the number of places available for young people to take defence and defence-adjacent courses supporting not just defence primes, but, importantly, the wider ecosystem of small and medium-sized enterprises.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and for being honest about the consequences of his time in service. It is so important that when any veteran who has served in our forces needs to access help, they know that it is available. It is platforming those experiences and being honest about them that enables more people to come forward, so I thank him for that. The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to increase defence spending. I want to increase defence spending, we have already increased defence spending, and we will be spending 2.5% of GDP by April 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament. However, I entirely appreciate how he made his remarks, and the Minister for Veterans and I are happy to talk to him about his experiences to see if we can learn from them and help others in a similar situation.”
“Let me be very clear that we do not accept in any way Russian interference or any interference in our democracy or our way of life, but across Government we are having a national conversation that enables people to be better equipped to identify and challenge it, as well as putting more pressure on social media companies to remove it and not have it on their platforms in the first place.”
“The right hon. Member is absolutely right that we need to go beyond conventional defence. That is why we have conventional and nuclear deterrence as part of our armed forces posture. She will also have heard in my opening remarks about the investment we are making in cyber. This is not just a Ministry of Defence effort; increasingly, if we are to deliver the national security we need, we need a whole-of-Government approach. That means the MOD working with the Home Office, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Cabinet Office and the devolved Governments to be able to tackle the deliberate misinformation that we see our adversaries trying to pump into our newsfeeds.”
“There is more to be done here, including the national conversation about the threats that we face and how all of us can, in our own way, take actions—just updating the operating system on our phones makes us and the country safer. There is lots more that we can do, especially in this House, to further support that, and I am happy to have a conversation with him about how we do that.”
“I thank the hon. Member for the way that he posed his question. There was much in it that I agree with him on. He is certainly right that we are not at war but nor are we at peace. We can look at a number of domains where we see UK forces and infrastructure being attacked, the cyber domain being the most obvious. The Defence Secretary revealed only last week the threats to our undersea infrastructure from covert Russian activity, and we must be able to call it out and say to Putin, “We see what you are doing. You will not have deniability.” In fact, the military call it “denying deniability”, which is a typical military phrase, but I think we all know what that means.”
“That is why we are trying to kick-start that conversation. A debate about defence spending certainly contributes to that.”