Ukraine Update
Debate between Ben Wallace and Richard Holden(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I echo the comments of the whole House, including those of my constituency neighbour, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). I praise my right hon. Friend for his leadership on the issues we have been facing in Ukraine and over the last few years.
Obviously, in addition to the supply of lethal and non-lethal weaponry and supplies, one of the big things the UK has been doing is helping to train Ukrainian forces. Can my right hon. Friend confirm how many Ukrainian troops have been trained so far by the UK’s training programmes and how many we plan to train in the coming year?
Mr Wallace
We have trained 7,000 so far. We are on target to complete 10,000, and then another 20,000-plus next year. It often depends on whether the Ukrainians are able to give us the training pipeline. Some of these people will be coming off the frontlines. It is always a challenge, but we are in the right position. We are well supported by the international community, and it is making a difference. We are now looking at what we can do with larger units, by helping Ukraine to train at company and battalion level. That would probably happen within Europe.
Integrated Review: Defence Command Paper
Debate between Ben Wallace and Richard Holden(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
The hon. Gentleman actually raises an important point. At the beginning of the Command Paper is a chapter about the global trends and the direction. Climate change poses a security threat because it could deliver instability, poverty and problems in other parts of the world that would drive migrant flows and increase friction over precious resource. That is absolutely true.
The hon. Gentleman is also right to point out that one of the ways we are going to tackle our security threats is working together across the whole of Government to deal with them. The direction of travel on climate change will hopefully be set at COP26. Defence will play its part in both trying to solve its own emissions and making sure that it provides stability in some of the poorest countries, such as Sudan, where we recently had people, to make sure that the security threat sometimes delivered by climate change does not boil over and threaten regional stability.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con) [V]
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s commitment to innovation, to the economy and to generating great high-skilled jobs right across the UK, such as those at Cook Defence Systems in Stanhope in County Durham, where we make the tracks for all Britain’s armoured vehicles. I would really like the Secretary of State to visit to see some of the innovative work being done there, as our tracked vehicles are maintained as part of the armed forces for the significant future.
Mr Wallace
I would be delighted to visit. We are investing in upgrading our Challengers and Ajax, and I would be keen to come to see how the engineering is done.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Ben Wallace and Richard Holden(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
My right hon. Friend has been in this House long enough to know that he should not believe everything he reads in the newspapers, especially around the time of an integrated review. We in the United Kingdom believe that, as the motto of Sandhurst says, we serve to lead. We lead by contributing and giving, which we have done over the history of NATO. We are the biggest contributor to NATO in Europe. We are the provider of NATO’s nuclear defence in Europe, and we will continue to be a main leader in NATO. That is how we believe we will see off the threats we face from the likes of Russia.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
Mr Wallace
Only today, the permanent secretary and other officials attended the Public Accounts Committee to answer some of those questions, no doubt in detail. The point to be made is that the MOD spends £41 billion overall, and we make sure, where we can, that that is spent not only on the men and women of our armed forces, but on industry and equipment capability, such as, in Glasgow, buying two warships—both the Type 31 up at Rosyth and, indeed, the Type 26—which I never seem to hear the SNP ever really welcome.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)