Oral Answers to Questions

Blair McDougall Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his position as parliamentary private secretary to the shadow Defence team—it is good to see him asking questions. The short answer is yes.

[Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)]

T6. As we meet today, EU Foreign Ministers are reportedly discussing that Chinese manufacturing is now providing drones to the Russian war machine, specifically drones made in Xinjiang. Does that not further the need for Europe to deepen its own defence industrial base, and specifically, should we be securing an administrative arrangement with the European Defence Agency to that end?

[John Healey]

It is certainly true that we need to rebuild relations with important European allies, and that we need to do more collaboratively on big programmes. That is at the heart of the UK-German defence agreement that we have already signed as a new Government. We have also said that we will set out to strike a UK-EU security agreement, and aspects of that may be relevant.