CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the terms in which he, broadly speaking, has addressed the UK’s recent diplomatic activity. I have just a couple of points to come back on. He talks about the UK breaking international treaties. I do not know what he is talking about there, but if he was talking about what we are doing in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol, that is not what is happening. We believe that our prior obligation, which I would have thought he supported, is to the balance of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. That is what we are supporting. He talks about the UK’s ability to win people over. It was striking in the conversations I had with leaders from around the world how few of them, if any, raised the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol, and how much people want to see common sense and no new barriers to trade. What the UK is doing is trying to reduce pointless barriers to trade and one would have thought that he supported that.

On the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s points about the UK’s contribution to NATO and to the new force model, and whether that is sustainable, I suggest that Opposition Members should talk to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about what the UK is producing and committing—it is colossal. We are the second biggest contributor to NATO and the second biggest contributor of overall support for the Ukrainians, providing £2.3 billion in military assistance alone. We are also ensuring that our armed forces are provided for for the future, with £24 billion in this spending review—the biggest uplift in defence spending since the cold war. Defence spending is now running at 2.3% of our national GDP, which is above the 2% target. That is felt around the room in NATO; people know what the UK is contributing and are extremely grateful.

As for what the UK also contributes to NATO, under the new force model, we will contribute virtually all our naval forces. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman also knows, we are the only country to contribute our strategic independent nuclear deterrent to NATO. I still find it a sad reflection of the Labour party that, at this critical time, when Vladimir Putin is sadly using the language of nuclear blackmail, we are in a situation in which the principal Opposition party in this country still has eight Members on its Front Bench who voted to discard our independent nuclear deterrent, including the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). Apart from that, I welcome the terms in which the Leader of the Opposition has responded.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. I ask him: was there general agreement at all three summits that our fragile rules-based order is under threat, and that strategically we have entered a profound era of geopolitical change? I commend his efforts in Ukraine—it is a shame that other NATO countries have not lent as we have—but I encourage him to go further and secure a UN General Assembly resolution to create a humanitarian safe haven around the critical port of Odesa, so that vital grain exports can reach not only Europe, but Africa, to prevent famine there.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend particularly for his point about grain exports. As he knows, the work is being led by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The UK is doing a huge amount to support but, as I have told the House before, we may have to prepare for a solution that does not depend on Russian consent, because that may not be forthcoming.

Sue Gray Report

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That evening was extensively investigated, to the best of my knowledge, and I do not believe I can improve on what Sue Gray has had to say.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

This is a damning report about the absence of leadership, focus and discipline in No. 10, the one place where we expect to find those attributes in abundance. I have made my position very clear to the Prime Minister: he does not have my support. A question I humbly put to my colleagues is: are you willing, day in day out, to defend this behaviour publicly? Can we continue to govern without distraction, given the erosion of the trust of the British people? And can we win a general election on this trajectory?

The question I place to the Prime Minister now—[Interruption.] I am being heckled by my own people. If we cannot work out what we are going to do, the broad church of the Conservative party will lose the next general election. My question to the Prime Minister is very clear: on the question of leadership, can he think of any other Prime Minister who would have allowed such a culture of indiscipline to take place on their watch? And if they did, would they not have resigned?

[The Prime Minister]

To answer the question that my right hon. Friend put to all of us on these Benches, I think the answer is overwhelmingly and emphatically yes, we are going to go on and win the next general election and we are going to get on with the job.

Ukraine

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I understand the right hon. Lady’s concern but believe she is in error in what she says, because we can certainly target members of the Duma, Abramovich is already facing sanctions and in the announcements I have made today Gennady Timchenko, to whom she just referred, is specifically targeted; he is on the list, as are Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg. These are people who are very close to the Putin regime, but, as I said to the House, they are just part of the first barrage.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s efforts today, but Russia’s actions move us into a new and more dangerous phase of the crisis and require us to adopt a more robust, long-term approach to defending European security outside NATO’s borders. Sanctions alone will not be enough. Indeed, untargeted sanctions may play into Putin’s plan to pivot Russia ever closer to China. So would the Prime Minister agree that NATO must not be benched? It was created to uphold European security, and we must now consider how we utilise our formidable hard-power deterrence in responding to Ukraine’s calls for further help, not excluding the formation of a potential no-fly zone.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to place the emphasis he does on NATO, which has proved its value in the last 70 years. It is the pre-eminent, most successful alliance in history. It is a defensive alliance and we are now reinforcing it all across the eastern perimeter. What NATO is not doing—no NATO country is currently considering this—is sending combat troops to Ukraine, and he will understand the reasons for that, but that does not preclude support by NATO countries for Ukraine, including military support.

Ukraine

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I am glad that he supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. He is right to ask about the assurances that this country has given to Ukraine. I have repeatedly told Volodymyr Zelensky, as I told his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, many times, that we stand four-square behind the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine and we always will. We have a hard-hitting package of sanctions ready to go. It would be fair to say that we want to see our European friends ready to deploy that package as soon as there were any incursion at all by Russia into Ukraine.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asks what we are doing to track down Russian money in this country and in the City. As he knows, we are bringing forward measures for a register of beneficial interests. I do not think that any country in the world has taken tougher action against the Putin regime. It is this Government who brought in Magnitsky sanctions against all those involved in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. It is this Government who got the world together—got 28 countries together—to protest against the poisoning in Salisbury. The world responded to that British lead by collectively expelling 153 diplomats around the world.

I am grateful for the general tenor of the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s comments and his support for NATO—belated though it may be from the Opposition Benches. I am grateful for it now. What I can tell him is that that same leadership in assembling a response to Russian aggression is being shown by the UK now, and it is absolutely vital that the west is united now, because our unity now will be much more effective in deterring any Russian aggression. That is what this Government will be pursuing in the days ahead.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

As the Prime Minister articulates, the west is now regrouping, but the penny is also dropping: the threat of sanctions will not deter the Russian aggression, and a total or even partial invasion will have severe economic and security consequences felt right across Europe and beyond. Ukraine’s grain exports to Africa will be affected, global gas prices will be impacted and skyrocket, and where might an emboldened Russia turn to next? I ask the Government to liaise with the United States and consider a simpler and more effective option to deter this invasion by belatedly answering Ukraine’s call for help. It is not too late to mobilise a sizeable NATO presence in Ukraine, utilising the superior hard power that the alliance possesses to make Putin think twice about invading another European democracy.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much and I know that, emotionally, many people will share his view. He knows a great deal about Ukraine and the issues that that country faces. Of course, instinctively, many people would yearn to send active physical support in the form of NATO troops to Ukraine. I have to tell him that I do not believe that to be a likely prospect in the near term. Ukraine is not a member of NATO, but what we can do—and what we are doing—is send troops to support Ukraine. I have mentioned the training operations that we are conducting under Operation Orbital, as we have for the past six or seven years, training 21,000 Ukrainian troops. Of course we are now sending defensive weaponry, which I think is entirely appropriate. We have sent 2,000 anti-tank weapons to the Ukrainians and we join the Americans in that effort; as my right hon. Friend knows, the Americans have sent about $650 million-worth of military assistance to Ukraine. That is the vital thing to do to stiffen Ukrainian resistance, but the real deterrent right now is that package of economic sanctions. That is what will bite; that is what will hurt Putin; and that, I hope, is what will deter him.

AUKUS

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 16th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for welcoming the statement and AUKUS. I will answer some of the detailed points that he made.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman began by asking whether AUKUS was in any sense adversarial to China and how we will manage the relationship with China. It is important for the House to understand that it is not intended to be adversarial towards any other power; it merely reflects how the close relationship that we have with the United States and Australia, the shared values that we have and the sheer level of trust between us enables us to go to the extraordinary extent of sharing nuclear technology in the way in which we propose. Obviously, we also have a shared interest in promoting democracy, human rights, freedom of navigation and freedom of trade around the world, which are values and perspectives that I hope the whole House will support.

On the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s point about NATO, the House should be in no doubt that the Government’s commitment to NATO is absolutely unshakeable and indeed has been strengthened by the massive commitments that we have made. With the biggest uplift in defence spending since the cold war—£24 billion—2.2% of our GDP now goes on defence spending. He rightly raises the question of our military relationship with France, which, again, is rock-solid. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the French, whether in the Sahel, where we are running a joint operation against terrorists in Mali, or in Estonia, where we have the largest NATO operation.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked reasonably about the jobs that this great project will unquestionably produce. What I can say is that there will be an 18-month scoping exercise to establish where the work should go between the three partners, but clearly there are deep pools of expertise throughout the United Kingdom, whether in Derby, Plymouth, Scotland or Barrow. I have no doubt whatever that it will bring hundreds of high-skilled, high-wage jobs of the kind that we want to see, and increasingly are seeing, in our country.

Finally, it is a pleasure to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s change of heart about NATO—I had to say this, Mr Speaker, pain me though it does—after he only recently campaigned to install a Prime Minister who wanted us to withdraw from NATO.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

We must work with but stand up to China. This is about a more co-ordinated, long-term strategy in challenging China’s increasing, hostile dominance in the South China sea. But as the Prime Minister says, it is also a reminder of how we must work with alliances and rekindle an appetite to robustly defend international standards, so we cannot gloss over how bruised NATO now feels after the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I hope the Prime Minister would agree that there is an opportunity for Britain to help shape western thinking and reinvigorate international resolve in what we stand for and are willing to defend. Would he agree today that this initiative is in response to the increasing, constant competition that we now face? I hope he now recognises that our peacetime defence budget is no longer adequate, and we will soon need to increase it to 3% of GDP if we are to contain the threats that now we face.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much. The increase that we have seen in our defence spending is unparalleled in modern times. It is the biggest uplift since the cold war—£24 billion. I think everybody can see the value of that and the importance of that, and, by the way, it is enabling us to take part in this historic partnership in the way that we are. On his point about our relationship with China, I just want to be clear with the House. Yes, it is true that this a huge increase in the levels of trust between the US, the UK and Australia—it is a fantastic defence technology partnership that we are building—but from the perspective of our friends and partners around the world, it is not actually revolutionary. We already have been co-operating over, for instance, the Collins class submarines in Australia.

Afghanistan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not put many questions to me. He made the general assertion that the Government had not been focusing on Afghanistan but, as far as I can remember, he did not even bother to turn up to the first of my three statements on Afghanistan in the House this year—I do not know where he was—such was his instinct and such was his understanding of the importance of the issue.

Actually, the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s figures are quite wrong. Before April we helped 1,400 people to safety from Afghanistan and, under the ARAP scheme, between then and 14 August we helped a further 2,000. As he knows very well, between 14 and 28 August this country performed an absolutely astonishing feat, and of course we will do everything we can to help those who wish to have safe passage out of Afghanistan. That is why we will continue, with our international friends and partners, to apply whatever pressure we can on the Taliban, economic and diplomatic, to ensure they comply, as they have said they will.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman should, in all candour, acknowledge the immensity of the achievement of this country’s armed forces in, for months, planning and preparing for Operation Pitting and then, contrary to what he just said, extracting almost double the number they originally prepared to extract. It was a quite astonishing military and logistical feat.

One thing I welcome is the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s congratulations to the armed forces for what they did.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Veterans and families, and indeed the wider public, are asking what it was all for. Afghanistan is back in the hands of a dictatorship, terrorism is once again allowed to thrive, the people of Afghanistan now face humanitarian disaster and, more worryingly, the limits of UK and western influence have been exposed. With America now adopting a more isolationist foreign policy, we have passed the high water mark of western liberalism that began after the second world war. This is a dangerous geopolitical turning point.

Does the Prime Minister agree there is now a void of leadership in the west and NATO? If Britain wants to fill that void, as we should, it will require a complete overhaul of Whitehall to upgrade our strategic thinking, our foreign policy output and our ability to lead.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend deserves to be listened to with great respect on Afghanistan. From his service, he understands these issues deeply, but I must tell him that people listening to this debate across the country could be forgiven for not recognising that this country ceased military operations in Afghanistan in 2014. What we are doing now is making sure that we work with our friends and partners around the world to prevent Afghanistan from relapsing into a breeding ground for terror, to make sure that we use all the levers that we can to ensure that the rights of women and girls are respected, and to make sure that everybody who wants safe passage out of Afghanistan is allowed it. That is what we are going to do, and we will continue to show leadership in the G7, the P5, NATO and all the other forums in which this country leads the west.

Afghanistan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Wednesday 18th August 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that we are ceding back the country to the very insurgency that we went in to defeat in the first place, and that the reputation of the west for support for democracies around the world has suffered? There are so many lessons to be learned from what happened over the last 20 years. Will he now agree to a formal independent inquiry into conduct in Afghanistan?

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in the House just a few weeks ago, there was an extensive defence review about the Afghan mission after the combat mission ended in 2014, and I believe that most of the key questions have already been extensively gone into. It is important that we in this House should today be able to scrutinise events as they unfold.

As I was saying, we succeeded in that core mission, and the training camps in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan were destroyed. Al-Qaeda plots against this country were foiled because our serving men and women were there, and no successful terrorist attacks against the west have been mounted from Afghan soil for two decades.

Afghanistan

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Again, I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the spirit and the content of his remarks. On the substance of his questions to me, our assessment is that the threat from Afghanistan to this country has very substantially diminished as a result of the actions by the UK and our friends over the last 20 years, although clearly a threat remains, and the extent of that threat will now depend on exactly what happens. To come to his points about the Taliban, their intentions and the progress that they are making, I think it is true that the Taliban are making rapid progress in rural areas, but that does not mean that they are guaranteed a victory in the whole of Afghanistan or across the urban areas of Afghanistan, where, as he points out, there is lively resistance to what they have to offer and their view of the way things should be. That is why this Government, through all our agencies—diplomatic, political, development and otherwise—will continue to work for a negotiated settlement, particularly with regional actors such as Pakistan. I believe that is the best way forward for Afghanistan. There must be a settlement and it will have to—I think we must be realistic about this—include the Taliban.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con) [V]]

Decisions do not come any bigger for a Prime Minister than to send our armed forces to war, but when an overseas operation lasts two decades, costs hundreds of British lives, billions of pounds to the taxpayer and ends in retreat, it would be a dereliction of duty not to ask what went so wrong. We now abandon the country to the fate of the very insurgent organisation we went in to defeat in the first place. I say to the Prime Minister that, if we do not learn the lessons of failing to appreciate Afghan history, the folly of imposing western solutions, the delays in training Afghan security forces and denying the Taliban a place at the table back in December 2001, we are likely to repeat similar mistakes. I ask the Prime Minister: please conduct a formal inquiry.

[The Prime Minister]

I must caution my right hon. Friend that I do not think that is the right way forward at this stage. He calls this a retreat. This was never intended, at any stage, to be an open-ended commitment or engagement by UK armed services in Afghanistan. There was no intention for us to remain there forever. As the House knows, Operation Herrick concluded in 2014. At that stage, the Army conducted a thorough internal review of the lessons that needed to be learned. Those were incorporated into the integrated review of our security and defence strategy that was published earlier this year. Given the length of such inquiries—I think the Chilcot inquiry went on for seven years and cost many millions of pounds—I do not think that this is necessary at this stage. I think that the Government should rather focus our efforts on ensuring that we do everything we can to secure the prosperity, the peace and the stability of the people of Afghanistan and that is what we will do.

G7 and NATO Summits

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on what was achieved at the G7 summit in Cornwall? The west had become a little risk-averse of late, and if the summit achieved anything, it was a recognition that the world is on a worrying trajectory, with new threats, new technology, new power bases posing complex, long-term challenges to our security, our trade, our freedoms and indeed our standards. The rise of China economically, technologically and militarily means that this will be their century, and the need for a new Atlantic charter underlines how frail our global order has become.

Would the Prime Minister agree that the actions that we, the west, choose to take over the next few years in addressing the long international to-do list will determine how the next few decades play out?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes indeed. I thank my right hon. Friend. These are crucial times, and it was great to see the summit accomplishing so much, so fast.

Integrated Review

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Tuesday 16th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This Government continue to invest massively in projects that will bring benefit to the whole of the UK, including Scotland. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there will be further investments in Lossiemouth, and that there is no threat to the Black Watch, which he and his colleagues sometimes like to raise in order to alarm people.

We will continue to invest massively in overseas development aid, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly mentioned. We are very proud of what we are doing—and by the way, it delivers 500 jobs in East Kilbride. We will continue to invest in shipbuilding, which drives jobs across the whole of the UK, and particularly in Scotland. It is fantastic to see ships being built by apprentices in Govan, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has. The only thing that endangers those investments and our working together as one UK—working with all the fantastic people in the armed services in Scotland—is the reckless referendum that his party insists on calling at the most inapposite time possible for this country.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I very much welcome the comprehensive ambitions set out in this important integrated review paper. There is a 1930s feel to the scale of challenges that we face today, with rising authoritarian powers, weak global institutions, and an absence of western leadership and collective resolve. I was hoping for a Fulton, Missouri moment when we finally call out China for the geo-strategic threat that it is, and a commitment to our aid budget. I do hope that the Prime Minister will summon that Atlantic charter spirit of working together with our closest ally, the United States, to strengthen the rules-based order, such as advancing the G7 to the G10, which could form the backbone for revising the trade and security standards that our ever-dangerous world so desperately needs.

Integrated Review

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the commitment to significantly upgrade our defence posture, for which the Prime Minister knows I, the Defence Committee and others in this House have been calling for some time. I also welcome his honesty in recognising that the UK, and indeed the west, has become too risk-averse in standing up to some of the threats we face. I recall my frustration as a Foreign Office and Defence Minister in wanting Britain to play a more assertive and proactive role on the international stage, not only with our hard and soft power but with our thought leadership. However, there was ever less appetite to do so, so I very much welcome this statement today.

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that, as we take on the presidency of the G7, we will work closely with the new US Administration in boosting western resolve to confront a growing number of hostile competitors, including China, who have for too long been allowed to pursue their own destabilising and competing agendas?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend; he is completely right. This package will encourage and bolster our friends and alliances around the world and enable the UK to project global influence into the future. That is why it is a multi-year package. I do not think that anybody around the world will doubt, after this announcement, our commitment to NATO, to the transatlantic alliance and to the security of our friends and allies around the world.

Covid-19 Update

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Monday 12th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I believe the hon. Lady has mentioned the issue of Hull University’s testing facilities before—perhaps it was another hon. Member—but I will certainly find out what the obstacle is to Hull’s testing facilities. There is no reason in principle why that university should not be testing in the way that the other universities she mentioned are doing.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I repeat Bournemouth University’s offer to establish a testing lab on its campus to help the local community. I welcome today’s statement, but the Prime Minister is well aware of the importance of the hospitality industry to Bournemouth’s economy. I would be very grateful if he reviewed the 10 pm curfew as urgently as possible.

[The Prime Minister]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s point and I have every sympathy with Bournemouth’s hospitality industry, which I have enjoyed many times in the past, as I am sure we all have. Alas, we have to make restrictions in the overall volume of transmission that is taking place in our society. That is an obvious place to make a difference, and that is what we are doing.

Global Britain

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Parliament will of course have the ability to scrutinise the new Department, and I imagine that Parliament will wish to set up a new Committee to do so. The timing of the change, as I said, is September, when we expect to have it all complete. I think, frankly, the hon. Lady is being, and I think many Opposition Members have been, far too negative about this. This is an opportunity for us to get value from the huge investments that we make in overseas spending; to make sure that that spending continues to tackle poverty and deprivation around the world; and to put the tackling of poverty and deprivation at the very heart—think of that: at the very heart—of UK foreign policy. That is something that I think Opposition Members should rejoice at.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I have long called for Britain to have a stronger, more authoritarian voice on the international stage as a force for good, but I have also called for a grand strategy, linking not only what the Foreign Office does and DFID does, but also Trade and Defence, to create a grand strategy and international outlook. I have also called for better strategic oversight of DFID’s spending, moving away from the archaic ODA laws, which are now out of date.

I am concerned about the timing of this, because there is an enduring emergency that must be the Government’s priority, and the Prime Minister himself mentioned the defence, security and foreign policy review, which was designed to understand what our Whitehall architecture should be, in understanding what our vision, our outlook, our place in the world should be and aspire to be. Surely, that should come first.

Can the Prime Minister also confirm that, with GDP is expected to fall, and the 2% of GDP target for defence now going to be obsolete, there will be no real-terms cuts in the defence budget?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He and I have discussed these matters many times and I think he is basically right that we do need to have an integrated strategy; we do need to have an integrated approach, and that is why this Government inaugurated the biggest, most fundamental integrated review of our foreign, security and defence policy since the cold war.

We are having this discussion now because we need to get going. Yes, it is absolutely right that we face a crisis now, but we also face a post-covid world, when the UK will need to be able to speak with one, powerful voice on the international stage, in which our idealistic ambitions for development are wholly integrated with our views on foreign policy. The UK will speak therefore all the more powerfully for that. This is the position adopted by the vast majority of countries in the OECD, as I say—I think all but one of 29 pursue this approach. It is the right reform at the right time; I believe the House should support it.

European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

2nd reading: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The process for consent is of course set out in detail in the unilateral declaration made between us and the Republic of Ireland. The hon. Lady will understand that it is, as I have indicated to the House, a process by which there are a small minority of economic arrangements in which Northern Ireland remains in alignment, such as sanitary and phytosanitary and manufactured goods, for four years, unless and until by a majority vote of the Stormont Assembly Northern Ireland elects to remain in alignment. Otherwise, for the vast majority of the Northern Ireland economy, Northern Ireland exits with the rest of the UK whole and entire, able to do free trade deals from the outset and participate in all the other benefits of Brexit. I hope that that point commends itself to the hon. Lady.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I congratulate the Prime Minister on getting us to this critical point in the long Brexit journey. Clause 36 relates to parliamentary sovereignty, and I invite him to confirm that the UK will retain its own sovereign military capability as outlined in paragraphs 92 and 99 of the political declaration and not be committed to any EU mission, military initiative or procurement project unless we do so voluntarily.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend alludes to an important change that we have been able to secure in the course of the negotiations, and he is right that full independence will be retained in the vital sphere of defence and security. I am grateful to him for drawing attention to it.

The House will be free not only from the common agricultural policy but from the common fisheries policy, and free to legislate for the highest standards. That is a crucial point for the House to grasp.

Brexit Negotiations

Debate between Boris Johnson and Tobias Ellwood

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There will be frictionless trade at the frontier—there will be no borders and no customs checks at the frontier. Of course, there may be de minimis customs checks, but not at the frontier and with no physical incarnation or physical infrastructure. The right hon. Gentleman raises an important point, because as the UK comes out of the EU and we go towards a zero-tariff, zero-quota free trade deal, it will be incumbent on us to use the experience that we are currently going through as we develop our relations with the EU as a whole and as we develop the frictionless systems by which UK-EU trade will continue to operate.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It has been a long and frustrating journey—and sadly one that Labour Front Benchers wish to prolong. I commend the Prime Minister on his efforts to break the Brexit impasse and to seek a compromise with which not only Parliament but the nation can live and work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the more voices here in Parliament, especially from the Opposition Benches, express their approval in the national interest, the more powerful the message sent to those in Brussels will be as they meet for that critical meeting next week?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. He has campaigned passionately on this subject and his own voice is important in this matter. I know how influential he can be in reaching out across the House and hope very much to work with him to do that.