Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Ministry of Defence

Oral Answers to Questions

Alex Chalk Excerpts
Monday 29th February 2016

(8 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Fallon Portrait Michael Fallon
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

Russia’s failure to halt airstrikes on the civilian population seemed designed to push that population towards the Turkish border and to make it Europe’s problem. That is why it is enormously important now that the ceasefire holds and that Russia returns to a more constructive path of working with us to get this terrible civil war ended.

Alex Chalk Portrait Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)
- Hansard - -

T9. Given the rapid growth in the volume and sophistication of cyber-attacks, a number of which are thwarted by GCHQ in my constituency, what steps are being taken to ensure that our rising defence budget actually translates into enhanced sovereign capability in cyber?

Penny Mordaunt Portrait The Minister for the Armed Forces (Penny Mordaunt)
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I pay tribute to all my hon. Friend’s constituents who work to protect our country against cyber-attacks, which are indeed growing. We have increased spending in this area to £2.5 billion, and as 80% of cyber-attacks are preventable by some extremely simple, straightforward good practice, a lot of that investment will be going to protect British businesses and private individuals in that respect.