There is neither an economic nor a moral justification for Britain’s defence sector recruiting thousands of workers from overseas while a million young people are out of work at home, Wes Streeting told the Labour Party conference.
The Defence Secretary put it directly to an industry that has spent the past year expanding faster than it can train people. “Because there is neither an economic nor a moral justification for Britain’s defence sector hiring thousands of workers from abroad, when we have one million young people out of work here at home,” he said.
He had opened that section of the speech with a promise about the department’s role in wider industrial policy: “The Ministry of Defence I lead will be at the heart of our Prime Minister’s mission to reindustrialise Britain, giving our young people skills, just like we’ve given Jack, to earn a good wage, in a good job, in their part of the country.”
Streeting went on to attach a figure to the submarine dock work confirmed overnight for British yards, telling delegates: “But solving that problem needs more than words. It demands bold action. And that is why today, the Chancellor and I are taking one of the biggest defence procurement decisions in a generation. The contract to build the docks for our nuclear subs. Our ultimate deterrent. Six billion pounds worth of work. Today, we commit to that contract staying in this country. Supporting thousands of British jobs, for years to come. That is what growth in every post code means in practice. Backing Britain by buying British.”
The Treasury had also announced that Programme Euston, three new floating docks for the submarine service at HM Naval Base Clyde, would be competed under a UK-only tender on national security and sovereign capability grounds, though no value was attached to the programme in that announcement.
Pressure over where the industry finds its workforce has been building for some time. Graeme Downie, the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, told the ADS Skills Conference this month that the country’s real deterrent is the people who build, maintain and operate its equipment, and the Scottish Affairs Committee reported that Scotland risks missing out on rising defence spending unless persistent skills shortages are addressed. Yards working on frigates and submarines have brought in welders and fabricators from overseas while domestic training catches up with order books that now run for decades, and GMB has spent months arguing that contracts placed in Britain should come with the apprenticeships to match.
The speech restated the government’s spending commitments, including what Streeting called a cast iron guarantee to honour the promise made to NATO allies of 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence by 2035. He listed half a billion pounds for the UK Commando Force and its drone equipment as it helps defend NATO’s High North, more than a billion pounds to upgrade British-made Typhoons, more than eight billion pounds towards a sixth-generation fighter built with international partners, and £1.3 billion for autonomous ships and underwater vessels for the Royal Navy.
Responding to critics of those increases, the Defence Secretary reached back to a predecessor, quoting Denis Healey’s 1969 warning: “Once we cut defence expenditure to the extent where our security is imperilled, we have no houses, we have no hospitals, we have no schools. We have a heap of cinders.” He added that another Mr Healey, John, had been right to demand more as Defence Secretary earlier this year, and called the present Chancellor a champion for defence.
Turning to critics of the increases inside and outside his own party, he said: “Our critics on the right need to understand that you don’t make your country stronger by making our people poorer,” before telling critics on the left: “You are not defending our public services by attacking investment in our national defences.”
