Speeches by Pollard.

“There are a number of nations across Europe and Asia with complex energy dependencies on Russia. This Government and our partner nations have been very clear that there needs to be a fast and smooth transition away from using Russian oil and gas, and it is something we continue to work on with our allies. We encourage …”

“I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s welcome of the good-value platforms that we are exporting to Türkiye; it is really important that we have a strong relationship with Türkiye. He will know that the arms exports regime is run by the Department for Business and Trade. I have to say that the risk of diversion from so…”

“I am happy to write to the right hon. Gentleman about the precise details of that deal. I politely say to him that the future is crewed, uncrewed and autonomous. That is what the strategic defence review set out, and that is why the platforms that we are looking at, such as GCAP, will start as a crewed platform but hav…”

“I suspect that I will need to meet my hon. Friend to get to the bottom of that question, but I am very happy to do so. As a nation, we certainly welcome the investment of overseas firms in the UK. The UK is a good place to invest in defence and to start a defence company. We need to make sure that all our contracts, bi…”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for championing his workforce. One of the things that makes this House stand in contrast with some other places around the world is that we can, on a cross-party basis, support our defence industry and the people who are working hard to keep our nation safe, including those who work at GE Aer…”

“I was nearly going to say that I warmly welcome all the hon. Gentleman’s remarks, but I am afraid that the good news had to be tempered with a little bit of partisan attack. First, let me welcome his welcome for this deal. It shows that when there is good cross-party work, we can achieve things well. I am very proud th…”

“I thank my hon. Friend, who I will have to refer to as the Member for valve valley from now on. He raises an important issue about the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises to access defence. Over the last decade, the amount of direct MOD spend with SMEs has fallen from 5% to 4%. We have set an ambition to spen…”

“I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time. In a world that is growing more dangerous, this Labour Government will always put Britain’s security first, and if there is one thing that Members should take away from today’s debate, it is the absolute necessity of this Bill to secure the military base on Diego…”

“It is a joint base.”

“I am not aware of that, but I would need to check the wider conversations.”

“I am happy coming back to you on that, but just to reinforce the point, the ability of the RAF aircraft or contracted aircraft to operate is entirely reliant on the permissions given by nations in the area. If the tasking of those aircraft were to go beyond hostage rescue, that would potentially change the calculations…”

“I entirely understand the argument that you are making, and it is one that I am struck with as well. You will appreciate that I will not be able to go into the confidential conversations that we have as part of that international organisation. We maintain a regular dialogue with all the eight partner nations—seven plus…”

“I will take that away.”

“Chair, I can answer your question about withdrawing from the F-35 programme. It is possible for any nation to withdraw from the F-35 programme, but when a nation withdraws from the F-35 programme, they are unable to use any of their F-35s again. That means that our carriers would no longer be used, our F-35Bs in the RA…”

“The F-35 system is a global system. It does not operate different systems for different nations—it is a single global system, in which circumstances, any changes to how the F-35 procurement system on a global basis works requires consensus, and we do not believe that we can achieve consensus.”

“I am happy to come back to the Committee, but it would be the same as the evidence presented in the Secretary of State’s letter—”

“It would not be appropriate for me to reveal confidential conversations between the partner nations. The gisting of the element that was redacted was correct. It remains our assessment that we would be unable to achieve consensus on alterations to the way that the global F-35 programme works.”

“That goes for every F-35 on the planet, which also then has a subsequent risk for peace and security. For instance, it was an F-35 from the Netherlands that shot down one of the Russian drones over Poland, so that is an immediate use of F-35s around the world in supporting our national security requirements and those o…”

“What I would say in response to that is that we continue to have conversations with the partner nations—the original eight—in relation to this. Our assessment remains that there is not the possibility of consensus there. So I understand where you are coming from, but it is not our assessment that that is possible. It i…”

“It is worth understanding how the Joint Strike Fighter—originally the F-35—programme works on a global basis. Of the eight original partner nations, of which the UK is one and the US another, agreements on how the F-35 global support system operates have to be taken by consensus, which means that all nations in that or…”