G7 Summit

Debate between David Lammy and Kemi Badenoch

Monday 22nd June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for advance sight of his statement. He is right when he says that everyone in this House owes a debt to the Prime Minister, but it is most certainly not a debt of gratitude; it is the other type of debt that we owe.

The right hon. Gentleman has come to the House to update us on a meeting that he did not attend. He stood in for the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s questions during the G7; now he is standing in again to tell us what happened at the G7. Where is the Prime Minister? He says he needs to stay in post for three months, but then does not come to Parliament to do his job. He wants to go on a farewell tour, while the new right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is asking for a summer holiday to work out what he thinks. In the meantime, no one is in charge, and Britain is not being governed.

The Prime Minister gave assurances at the G7 about military support to Ukraine. He gave those assurances after the Defence Secretary resigned because he was being forced to make decisions that would increase the risk to our armed forces. The Prime Minister gave assurances about sanctions on Russian oil and gas while, in this House, the Government were lifting those sanctions. The Prime Minister is saying one thing abroad but doing the opposite at home. Those are just some of the many reasons that he had to resign this morning, but apparently, for some mysterious reason, he must stick around until September. Given that he has resigned, why is he hanging around? The Deputy Prime Minister had to change his statement so that we all knew that the EU reset summit had been postponed. The summit is not happening any more, so what is the Prime Minister hanging around for? Why are we sending a non-Prime Minister to the most important NATO summit in a generation? It is because this psychodrama is about the Labour party, not the country.

Labour is still trying to tell us that everything is fine. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister was saying: “Everything is fine.” He has given us a statement about a G7 summit that he did not go to. The few Labour MPs who bothered to turn up to the Chamber were nodding along, pretending to be listening intently, but in a few minutes, they will all scurry back to their offices and focus on their real priority: lobbying for a job in the next Government. I take the opportunity to congratulate the right hon. Member for Makerfield on his election, but I point out that my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Douglas Lumsden) is here; the right hon. Gentleman is not, because he is more interested in his leadership bid than Britain’s national security.

Two weeks ago, the Defence Secretary and the Armed Forces Minister quit the Government because Labour’s failure to fund defence is putting our national security at risk. That issue will not disappear from the right hon. Member for Makerfield’s in-tray just because he won a by-election. If he becomes Prime Minister, he will be briefed by the heads of our military about Britain’s reducing ability to defend herself, let alone Ukraine, which the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned. In order to fund defence, we need more money, not more speeches at summits. The right hon. Member for Makerfield will find that Britain is not able to borrow any more money, and that it has all been spent on welfare. He will realise that this Government are providing export finance to rebuild Ukraine’s energy system, while crippling our own, and are reducing sanctions on Russian oil, while sanctioning oil from Aberdeen.

Only one thing matters at the G7 and NATO summits, and that is our collective national security. [Interruption.] A Minister is chuntering. Can he say anything about why the Defence Secretary resigned? If Ministers are all living in la-la land, I am going to wake them up. They need to stop pretending that everything is fine, because it is not. Let me remind the Deputy Prime Minister that the Prime Minister is resigning because he failed on national security. He appointed a known security risk as our ambassador to Washington. He is destroying our energy security, which is national security, and he is refusing to fund the defence investment plan needed to keep our country safe.

The G7 summit reminds us that we are living in serious times, yet the Government are paralysed and our country is in limbo. It is time for Labour to start putting country before party, and to put Britain’s national interest first.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

This is the first occasion that I have been opposite the Leader of the Opposition. We are actually friends, behind all of this. I thank her for her generosity and for her constructive suggestions on this occasion; it is always good to know that I can count on her support.

I remind the House that this is the same Leader of the Opposition who suggested that we should empty-chair the G20 and not bother turning up to the NATO summit. She wanted to jump into war with Iran without thinking through the consequences. I am proud to serve a Prime Minister whose hard work has made this country stronger and much fairer than the Britain we inherited from the Conservatives.

The Leader of the Opposition knows that the Prime Minister has rebuilt Britain’s international alliances. She cannot deny the five major trade deals struck under our watch—something that she failed to do. She knows that we have led the coalition of the willing in backing Ukraine, have renewed our partnership with Europe, and are delivering the biggest boost to defence spending since the cold war. I am proud of all that. She asks about defence. The work continues to finalise the defence investment plan. We are already investing £270 billion in defence over this Parliament, and the defence investment plan will deliver another unprecedented increase in defence spending. When it is published shortly, we will set out how every Department is contributing to defence.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about oil and gas; they will be part of our energy mix for many years to come. We are delivering enough clean energy products to power 23 million homes, led by Great British Energy—headquartered, of course, in Aberdeen. The PM secured £9 billion-worth of Japanese investment in offshore wind last weekend; of course, the Leader of the Opposition would rip all that up. She talks about Russian oil, but the Conservatives are wrong there: all sanctions on Russian oil remain in place, and we are imposing new sanctions that were resisted under the Conservatives.

I look forward to another opportunity to sit across from the Leader of the Opposition in the months ahead.