Speeches by Pollard.

“It is worth saying that Scotland is not the only devolved Administration that we work in, and I want to see a similar approach tailored to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but broadly we need to have regular contact between the men and women in uniform and the devolved administrations for MOD officials and across …”

“We broadly agree with you that we want to see two in Scotland: one in the east, one in the west. Where we have announced them in England, so if you take Blackpool and The Fylde College as an example, which is one of the DTECs that we have announced in England, although the hub is in Blackpool they are working with coll…”

“The answer is kind of yes and no on that one. Yes, there might be an efficiency in placing larger orders but one of the things that we deliberately try to do is sometimes separate large orders into smaller parcels so you can enable more SMEs to compete for them. I guess the answer is: on a case-by-case basis. The argum…”

“I am hoping that now the elections are out of the way in Scotland we can have those conversations in person soon. I know that the officials already correspond regular around both the Scottish growth deal and the other aspects of the Industrial Strategy that apply to Scotland. We have good, official level conversations;…”

“Thank you, Chair. It is good to see you all today and the interest that you are taking in defence in Scotland. The threat that we are facing is real and it is growing. The strategic defence review that Lord Robertson helped co-author with the other SDR leads sets that out very clearly. We responded to that by adopting …”

“Let me start with a really simple one: that a career in defence is a good career. I think there has been a culture within the MOD for too long where we have not told our story. I don’t want defence companies giving away the secret squirrel aspects of what they work on. I want them talking about how a career in defence …”

“Yes, a variety of those types of autonomous, uncrewed vessels. There are more locations around the UK, including in Scotland, that could be building smaller craft for a hybrid Navy. One of the things about a hybrid Navy in a period of greater threat is about how attritable some of those platforms are. You can presume t…”

“I entirely agree. In Armed Forces Week, as we are now, there are activities right across Scotland in support of our service personnel. I think because the threat is growing and it is real, and we are talking more about it, it is not just something that happens further afield. It is not just something that is happening …”

“Yes, and so that is part of our £250 million UK-wide commitment to those five growth deals. They were allocated by my predecessor before I took this particular role on in the last reshuffle. We will continue to spend that, and we have seen the first tranche announcements of that, for example, the £5 million that has go…”

“It is worth saying that within the defence industry, because of the nature of it, quite a lot of those roles are for UK citizens only. Where we have brought in the enhanced English language requirements in immigration, that is to encourage greater interoperability with society. Also, importantly, it is to reflect the f…”

“Defence policy is a reserved matter, so the core defence policy is run out of the Ministry of Defence in London. Where it comes to the enabling policies—industry, skills, everything including planning, for instance—we do maintain a good official level conversation. I would like to see more political level conversations…”

“I recognise that the Scottish Government have taken a different approach than the United Kingdom Government have, in terms of their language and their policy positions around a number of different issues. I think at a high level there is common agreement, especially when we see what has happened in Gaza. I want to see …”

“If I take the example that was on show in Parliament yesterday, the Kraken K3 Scout. It is made by Kraken, admittedly in Fareham on the south coast. We have bought a number of those platforms as part of Project Beehive of 47 Commando Royal Marines, and we are also looking at that type of platform and its utility of an …”

“The £50 million of MOD funding for the Scottish defence growth deal is still being spent in Scotland.”

“I, along with the former Defence Secretary, and the Chancellor have been pretty clear that we want to see more shipbuilding in UK yards. When it comes to the Serco tugs contract, it began under the previous Government, was well progressed by the time we got there. It included the decision-making on who to procure tugs …”

“So £50 million for Plymouth rather than for Portsmouth.”

“No, the DIP is important to set it out, but we have not waited for the DIP to make announcements. We have been able to discuss some of those in Parliament and I have been in quite a lot of discussions with interested parliamentarians about individual military capabilities. We wanted a sequence of strategies when we cam…”

“There is a risk that if we do not have skills investment across the entire supply chain what you will see is primes being able to support their skills base, a hollowing out of adjacent industries and a hollowing out of supply chain. Ultimately that is not good for economic growth, it is not good for our economy, and it…”

“I agree that a clear demand signal is a necessary part of where industry gains advantage and can make investment decisions against. It is one of the reasons why we set out the approach of having the strategic defence review that looks at the threat and the changes that demands, the defence industrial strategy that says…”

“Yes, I do. Our airspace management system in the UK was broadly designed for disaggregating and protecting the multiple uses of our airspace at any one time. We have a number of drone companies that wish to test in the United Kingdom, for whom it is not just cleared airspace that is necessary to do so but also looking …”