The UK Government has reaffirmed its commitment to using defence investment as a tool for economic development across the nations and regions of the UK, including the west of Scotland.
During Defence Questions in the House of Commons, Douglas McAllister, MP for West Dunbartonshire, asked whether the forthcoming Defence Industrial Strategy would help spread prosperity and generate high-quality jobs in Scotland.
“Increasing our investment in defence not only bolsters our national security, but is an opportunity to support vital, skilled defence sector jobs and boost economic growth,” said McAllister. “Will the forthcoming defence industrial strategy spread prosperity across the regions and nations of the UK, and will the Minister use defence procurement and investment to generate wealth and create high-quality jobs in the west of Scotland and make defence an engine for growth across Scotland?”
Responding, Maria Eagle, Minister of State for Defence Procurement, emphasised ongoing and future investment in Scottish defence infrastructure.
“We are delivering for defence across all the nations and regions,” she said. “The Clyde infrastructure programme—a £1.8 billion programme—will create skilled jobs in the west of Scotland over the next 40 years, while delivering our triple lock commitment on keeping the continuous at-sea deterrent.”
Eagle also pointed to recent developments aimed at tapping into the skilled workforce in Glasgow and surrounding areas.
“I recently opened the Rolls-Royce submarines office in Glasgow, which aims to access skilled talent pools in his area to support Dreadnought and AUKUS-class boats,” she added. “As he said, this all goes to show that defence is an engine for growth.”
I wonder what will be earliest we will see Dreadnought.
Crazy to think the original plan before Dave got his hands on it was to have her in service in 2026.
I’m sure we are all glad about the couple of quid he saved gutting the military in the mid 2010’s though. Just a pitty he and Bojo decided to add a further £1800 billion in extra debt for failed COVID schemes, unfunded tax cuts and asylum seekers in hotels.
I believe debt repayment alone is now one the biggest hits, at around 4.4% of GDP at £110billion.
Imagine if we didn’t have that debt repayment. I believe the last time we had a year where spend matched revenue, so no deficit, was in the year 2000. So despite so called austerity we never closed the deficit in a whole generation. At some point this will all become unsustainable, can’t tell you how much it angers me when I look at nations like Norway.
italy and turkey have giantly grown their navy’s since then 1990*s
BOJO did not decide COVID schemes. Scientists recommended lockdowns and the government had to act to avoid widespread bankruptcies.
If he had ignored scientific advice he would have been crucified politically and possibly been prosecuted if deaths had continued to rise.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Yeah i have a massive hate boner for Boris. Starmer though accusing him of killing people for not locking down sooner and for longer in PMQ was insane.
The guy i blame though is Professor Chris Whitty. There was a well thought out plan on how to deal with a pandemic before COVID. A plan he did a 2 hour seminar on in 2017 explaining iirc, which has since been deleted of youtube. This absolute specimen though was the one who tore up that plan up to follow China lead. Long term that S.O.B. will probably have killed way more than if COVID had just ran rampant.
He is everything that is wrong with this country. A first class fuckwit that used the old boys network to get promoted way above his ability. Yet this absolute bastard is still the Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government.
it’ll be before we see glasgow.in service