Speech to the Australian British Defence Catalyst

Until a few weeks ago it was my pleasure to be the MP for Barrow & Furness. It really is the most remarkable place, with heavy industry and some of the most advanced manufacturing sites on the planet rubbing alongside farms and the most beautiful countryside. It also has a unique role to play in the UK’s future and the world’s defence, as you will have heard over the last few days.

To understand the future, I want to first frame it with the past.

Barrow is a community shaped by two things: geography and geology. This is as true now as it was when Barrow exploded into existence in the 1840s.

When iron ore was discovered, the small community which was little more than a few dozen sheep farms expanded at incredible speed. In just over 25 years the population grew from 150 to 40,000. Barrow was called the Chicago of England and people travelled far and wide to be a part of this very local boom. Those Victorian captains of industry who invested in local railways, mines, steel production and much more, did very well for themselves indeed (and are immortalised in streets, statues and plaques all about town), but they were also infused with an appropriate sense of guilt about their wealth and so bequeathed swimming baths, libraries, schools, grand boulevards, and so much more.

The extraction of iron ore turned into iron production, then steel production, and then manufacturing. At one point Barrow was the world’s largest producer of steel and was responsible for expanding railways across the UK, the Commonwealth and the Americas too. And then it moved into shipbuilding, and then boats... and the rest is history.

But I also mentioned geography, and I wanted to touch on that too. For those who haven’t been to Barrow perhaps won’t appreciate just how remote it is. A poll a few years ago suggested that Barrow & Furness was the second hardest constituency to get to from Westminster - topped only by the one directly above it. It is a long journey by train, and even longer by car. The road in and out - the A590 - is known locally as the ‘longest cul-de-sac in England.’ And as many locals will tell you sardonically - ‘you don’t come to Barrow by accident.’

I mention this not just to provide colour, but to give an insight into a place where the geography very much shapes the outlook of the people who live and work there. They are a tight-knit community, fiercely defensive of their own, suspicious of ‘off-comers.’ But it is also a melting pot of workers from across the UK.

I’ve touched on our history and geography, but I want to cover one more piece of recent history before I move on to discuss Team Barrow and the investment now flowing into the community.

And that history is in many ways the elephant in the room. In the early 90s, Barrow’s shipyard was effectively shuttered. Almost overnight it went from 13,000 workers to 3,000. The impact of that decision is profoundly felt even now. Whether it is in the gaps in the workforce, the loss of skills in the community, or the deprivation that flowed from mass unemployment. Even now, in a community that by any measure should be thriving: with low unemployment, high wages, significant central investment flowing to it, generations of work ahead, it is a community profoundly affected by those who have, and those who do not.

Perhaps the most telling example of this is to look at two wards - council districts - in Barrow, separated by a single street. If you are female and live in Hawcoat, one of the most prosperous wards, you will live on average 13 years longer than if you spend your life in Ormsgill, one of the poorest wards in the country. 

But those challenges are not measured solely in life expectancy - they are seen in opportunities not taken, in poor health outcomes, in social isolation, involvement in crime, financial exclusion and so much more.

Thanks to the Dreadnought and SSN-AUKUS programmes, there are now decades of work in Barrow’s shipyard. The overriding mission remains the same: to build the boats of the future that will keep us and our allies safe for generations to come.

However, for Barrow to achieve that, the environment has to change. We have the second fastest declining population in the UK. We have pockets of some of the worst deprivation in the UK. We are hard to get to. The wealth coming not just from the shipyard, but increasing numbers of renewable energy projects is not seen in the infrastructure of the town. When people spend money, they do it online or out of town. 

This was my contention to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the First Sea Lord, and anyone else who would listen. Unless you change the environment, you will not get the outcome you want. And when that outcome is proudly badged as a ‘National Endeavour’, achieving it is not a nice to have, it is essential.

And so slowly I did the rounds of Whitehall, making the case with partners in industry, with local government, think tanks and others. And finally, Team Barrow was announced.

This endeavour was and is unique - a partnership between industry (BAE), local Government, central government, the local MP, and Chaired by the most senior civil servant in the country - the Cabinet Secretary. For three months we worked together to determine what needed to be done to change the fundamentals for Barrow and improve the area in order to deliver SSN-AUKUS well.

And then in March the then Prime Minister visited Barrow with the Chancellor to announce the first stage of the commitment to Barrow’s future prosperity - £220million over the next decade. Not a penny of that funding is to be spent on steel, or on the endeavour - instead it was to be delivered to improve the community in which the shipyard sits, and begin to turn around the fundamentals of that same community.

That funding sits alongside a further £150million of funding which has already been secured for the town - turning around the high street, building a university campus, improving infrastructure, and so much more.

These projects, levelling up funding allied with the growth of the shipyard and subsequent boost to the local economy, all underpinned with the Team Barrow commitment should mark the restoration of Barrow to - in the former Levelling Up Secretary’s words - ‘the next Northern Powerhouse.’

But I would caution very strongly against a view that now that money has been secured, the job is done. I have seen such attitudes all too often in Government. The goal was never the investment - the goal was creating the framework to allow Barrow to thrive and, in turn, the environment for AUKUS to be delivered well and to time.

We have identified some of the local things that need to flow from the mix of funding and influence that Team Barrow offers - 1,000 new homes every year for the next decade, improved infrastructure, an environment that will attract people to the area, improved public infrastructure and so much more. In short, a return to the Victorian public realm and facilities improvements that occurred when Barrow first sprang into existence some hundred and fifty years ago. Some of this is underway, but not enough, and not at great enough speed given the scale of the task.

I’m winding up, and I thought I would do so with a few suggestions on what needs to be delivered, and what needs to come next which perhaps we can explore in the Q&A afterwards? I would suggest four things.

The first thing is certainty. The new Government must re-affirm its commitment to Team Barrow and the ideal that has driven it. That means being clear on its commitment to the Indo-Pacific tilt, to our partnerships in the region, but also of exceptionalism within the submarine enterprise. If this truly is a national endeavour - and it is - then we need to recognise that it won’t simply be delivered by closing our eyes and hoping for the best - we have to pump prime the environment to enable delivery.

The second is recognising the challenge and opportunity that AUKUS brings. This is a generational project and we need to treat it as such. Team Barrow focuses on the key site for submarine manufacture in the UK, but what about the rest of the UK? We need clear signals sent from the centre about the skills needed over the next 40 years, the policies put in place to grow them, about what is necessary to excite and inform our supply chain base, and clearer direction across the piece on Pillar 1 and 2 - I would argue for a Minister for AUKUS, someone who can command cross-party support to drive this forward.

And the third is unique to Barrow. And that is to go back to my point that while £220million is a huge sum of money, it will not answer the problems that the solution we are seeking to achieve will cause. What do I mean by that? The single A-road going in and out of Barrow will be a car park if we build 1,000 new homes a year, and continue to ship freight in and out on it, if we do not fund upgrades. An increase in population will mean new demands on healthcare services and local schools. Local SMEs and supply chain businesses cannot be treated as easy prey for the bigger enterprise. We need a vivid and vibrant ecosystem of public and private sector enterprises in Furness or we will fail in our mission. We will have morally failed if the rich continue to get richer, and the poorest do not benefit in any way. When the Cabinet Secretary first came to Barrow he talked about his vision of a girl attending a primary school in one of our poorest wards not just aspiring to work in the shipyard, but ending up running it. That is the promise of Team Barrow. But £220million will not get us there. Government need to realise that the funding is a vehicle to smooth the journey to where we need to get to, but without substantial further investment, delivery of AUKUS will be tricky. 

And then my final point - Team Barrow is unique, but it shouldn’t be. There are demands across the whole enterprise - from Devonport to Rosyth to Derby and they need to be met for this programme to succeed. I would suggest that Team Barrow should be the start of positive interventions to deliver on AUKUS and our national security programmes, not the end.