Part of Defence – in the House of Commons on 2nd November 2020.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I agree with everything he said; that is what we have been doing. We will invest, where we can, in UK equipment. We also sometimes have to balance the urgent operational need of our service personnel: if there is something they need now or in the very short term and we simply do not have the capability to deliver it, we will sometimes have to look where we can to get them the best equipment. There is always a fine balance between making sure our forces have the very best at the very moment and long-term investment. I am determined that we invest both in the people who use our equipment in the MOD and in our industry as far as possible across the board.