Oral Answers to Questions

David Mundell Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The shadow Secretary of State is right that the one person responsible for escalation in this conflict is President Putin, and the one side that has been escalating in recent months is Russia. In recognising that he has escalated his illegal war against Ukraine by intensifying the use of glide bombs, destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and deploying thousands of North Korean troops into combat positions in Kursk, I am discussing this very serious development with the US Defence Secretary and will be discussing it with the Ukrainian Defence Secretary this evening.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

Did the Prime Minister raise Ukraine during his meeting with President Xi given China’s undoubted influence over Russia and North Korea?

[John Healey]

I regard the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Xi as an important step forward. He is the first Prime Minister of the UK to meet the leader of China in nearly six years. After 14 years of damaging Conservative inconsistency on China, this Government will bring a long-term approach to managing our relations with China. We will co-operate where we can, compete where we should, and challenge where we must.

Ukraine

David Mundell Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The principle behind this funding is that we put it in the hands of the Ukrainians. The Ukrainians are in the best position—and must be in the position—to decide how best to use it. We have said that they can use it entirely on military support if they choose to do so; the support that they choose to procure with it will be a matter for them, in discussion with us.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

Is the Defence Secretary able to share with us any conversations that the Foreign Secretary had while in China about China’s engagement in this situation, and particularly its willingness to bring to bear the influence that it undoubtedly has on both Russia and North Korea?

[John Healey]

Happily, I can indeed. The Foreign Secretary was in China on 18 and 19 October. He met his counterpart, the Foreign Minister, and talked about the areas on which our countries may disagree, including on Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. He also raised the UK’s concerns over China’s supply of equipment to Russia and to Russia’s military industrial complex.

Foreign Affairs and Defence

David Mundell Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

What a pleasure to have heard three such effective maiden speeches! I commend the hon. Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) for surviving not only the election, but the birth of twins. I wish his family well. I wish the hon. Member for Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme (Lee Pitcher) a happy birthday. I do not think that making a speech in the House of Commons on future birthdays will have the same allure, somehow.

I regarded Virendra Sharma as a great friend in the House of Commons. I never quite saw him as a mafia don, but I did see him as a very effective operator. All new MPs, and indeed returning MPs, could learn a lot from Virendra about how to get things done in Parliament.

I commend the new teams at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. I am particularly pleased to see the noble Lord Collins of Highbury becoming an Under-Secretary in the Department. I have worked closely with him on development-related issues over the past five years, particularly as his co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on nutrition for development. Lord Collins championed those issues in opposition; I am confident that he will now do so within the FCDO, along with the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), whom I congratulate on her appointment.

I want to concentrate on international development, although I note that there was no specific mention of it—nor any ambition to return to spending 0.7% on it—in the King’s Speech. I commend my long-standing right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for his efforts in the previous Government. Not only did he bring his usual vigour and drive to his time as Minister for International Development, but he stabilised what all the evidence presented to the Select Committee on International Development showed had been a chaotically managed merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the thinking behind the merger, we cannot pretend that it was well executed, or that the randomness of some of the decisions and the scale of the funding cuts were not seriously damaging to frontline programmes and the UK’s reputation as a reliable development partner.

Thank to my right hon. Friend, that is behind us. I listen to his warning about the need for a plan B, although the last thing those delivering aid on the frontline need is the distraction and disruption of further organisational change in the FCDO. However, I am sure that they want to know this Government’s criteria and anticipated timescale for returning to 0.7%. In opposition, Labour Members rightly highlighted the cuts to the aid budget, and the impact on that budget of spending on refugees in the UK, but in government they need to put their money where their mouth is, so I look forward to hearing some detail on that spending in the Minister’s winding-up speech.

If we are to make meaningful progress on achieving the sustainable development goals by 2030, the Government should embrace the White Paper published by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield. It was well received across the development community in the UK and internationally. Although it is understandable that a new Government might want to put their own bells and whistles on it, I hope the core objectives of ending extreme poverty and tackling climate change will remain, along with the framework for doing so.

[Mr Mitchell]

I assure my right hon. Friend that there are bells and whistles from across the House in the international development White Paper.

[David Mundell]

Indeed, and I see the White Paper as an important part of building a new consensus on development, and of re-engaging the wider public with that agenda. A cross-party approach is the best way to build public support for development and confidence that funding is being spent effectively, which is a legitimate concern of our constituents.

All of us in this place who care about development should set ourselves the objective of increasing public engagement in the UK, as should those who work in the sector. In recent years, too many non-governmental organisations have gone down an overtly corporate route and lost touch with their members and supporters, who are often the most powerful advocates for aid in their communities.

Having listened to Mr Deputy Speaker’s guidance, I think I do not have time to go into detail on what I think the specific priorities should be, but having co-chaired the all-party parliamentary groups on HIV/AIDS and nutrition for development, I am absolutely clear that those must be at the heart of the Government’s approach to international development.

The Economist has highlighted this week that spending on nutrition delivers the best outcomes for the money spent. As the Government move forward on delivering the sustainable development goals, which we seem far from achieving by 2030, I hope that nutrition will be at the heart of the agenda, and that the Government will take the opportunity of the forthcoming Nutrition for Growth conference in Paris to restate their commitment not just to nutrition, but to international development.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Mundell Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

Of course, we do not comment on our magnificent continuous at-sea deterrence. What I can say is that it is a matter of public record that we are committed to a magnificent new generation of Type 26 anti-submarine warfare frigates, which will achieve the competitive edge that keeps us all safe.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

Does the Minister recognise that the seismic array situated at Eskdalemuir in my constituency plays an important part in our defences not just in the North sea but elsewhere? Does he agree it is essential that its capability is not in any way diminished by excessive wind farm development in the immediate vicinity of the facility?

[Leo Docherty]

I agree with my right hon. Friend; he is absolutely right in his analysis. The broader point is that this is another example of why, undoubtedly, England and Scotland, through the Union, are safer and better together.

Defence Personnel Data Breach

David Mundell Excerpts

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I share my right hon. Friend’s concern about the safety and wellbeing of those soldiers. Thankfully, the answer is that very few addresses have been leaked—a very tiny number. On sanctions and what will happen, we must not jump the order of events. We have to be confident we are able to run through the audit trail of exactly what has happened. However, I again make it clear from the Dispatch Box that if negligence has been involved, then we will take the strongest possible action as a result. He and the whole House understand that that is our concern this afternoon.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

May I seek my right hon. Friend’s reassurance that there is cross-Government working to identify the vulnerabilities in the system? We have heard this afternoon that a subcontractor’s involvement was identified as a vulnerable point. Recently, my constituents had their medical records hacked because, as a small, rural authority, it was identified as more vulnerable. Are we, across Government and across the United Kingdom, seeking out those vulnerabilities to make our data safer from malign actors and indeed from plain criminals?

[Grant Shapps]

I reassure my right hon. Friend that the reason I immediately asked the Cabinet Office to be involved is that, although I can do checks on that contractor and others across the MOD and MOD-related contracts, I cannot do so across the rest of Government. That is exactly the job that the Cabinet Office will now undertake. When data is stolen—or rather exposed and potentially stolen—it causes a great deal of concern and we want to ensure that that cannot happen. I reiterate that the data was not being held by the MOD systems and did not affect the MOD systems, but as Secretary of State I recognise that our responsibility extends to whoever is holding the data for our personnel, and I apologise to those involved again. This should never have happened and we will make sure it is put right.

Defence Spending

David Mundell Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

I warmly welcome the hon. Lady’s comments, and I hope very much that those on her Front Bench, who have not attached themselves to the timeline that she urges, have listened closely to what she has said. As for the delivery of items to the frontline, we will be very fast; we will deliver in a matter of days or weeks quite a lot of the items outlined in the very extensive package announced yesterday, although they come in a number of different forms and some, by their physical nature, will take longer to deliver than others.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I welcome the announcement, and indeed the decision that has finally been made in the United States. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that investment will go into not just technology, but the logistic, the warehousing and the background facilities here in the UK—such as those at MOD Longtown, a very important employer for my constituency—to ensure that our frontline forces are supplied with the best kit that they could possibly have?

[Grant Shapps]

My right hon. Friend can certainly have that reassurance. We know that such support is extraordinarily important to the running of truly lethal and effective armed forces.

Ukraine

David Mundell Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

None of us should underestimate the political weight on the shoulders of the President of Ukraine. It is easy for us in the safety of London, behind an alliance of 30 in NATO, to forget that he will have to make a decision at some stage this year to send men and women of their armed forces across minefields towards machine-gun posts to take back their sovereign territory. There is no easy way to predict when they will do that, and the President has to balance that with an economy deliberately destroyed by Russia. I wish them well in that. We will continue to support them to the end—that is what I believe and what we stand for. We will keep supporting them. If he delays because he is waiting for the equipment, I would understand that fully. We will do everything we can to make sure that everything gifted is in the right place at the right time, so that when he makes that decision, those men and women have the best chance of survival.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and announcement. He has set out a list of atrocities that surely shames Putin and Russia. I have seen for myself in Ukraine how evilly and deviously landmines and other booby-traps are contrived to cause maximum casualties and maximum danger to civilians. Can he confirm that the UK Government will continue to support the day-to-day work of the HALO Trust and the Mines Advisory Group in the removal of these mines, because they are the imminent threat on a day-to-day basis to so many civilians?

[Mr Wallace]

The HALO Trust is an amazing organisation, first founded under the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, I think. That is where its pedigree comes from. Recently, I met some people who had been working for the HALO Trust in Ukraine. The conflict is ongoing now, but long after it is over, I know those organisations will be there, and the Government will do everything we can to support them, whether through the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office and other Departments.

Ukraine Update

David Mundell Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alex Chalk]

May I underscore that point and add that, as part of the support to the Ukrainians in respect of Challenger 2 tanks, we provide them with ammunition, spares and the technical support that I mentioned a few moments ago? We also want to support them to provide a lot of the spares themselves in the fullness of time—whether by using 3D printing or whatever it is—so that they can become self-sufficient. That is a very important part of sustaining this effort. As far as financial support is concerned, it was £2.3 billion last year and a similar sum this year. That is an important part of the support that we can provide, and it goes together with humanitarian support.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

The Ukrainian diaspora and the Ukrainian families who have come to my constituency will welcome this announcement and the UK’s leadership on the issue. I particularly welcome what my hon. and learned Friend had to say about the maintenance of the vehicles and kit supplied, because that has been a problem in other theatres. Can he reassure me that, along with the focus on very high-level equipment—tanks, and indeed the question about fighter jets—we will not lose sight of the basic kit required in the day-to-day conflict?

[Alex Chalk]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question and for the support his constituents have given the Ukrainian people. We sit here and talk about tanks and missiles, but some of the most important support we have given is through the people of this country who have welcomed into their homes Ukrainians fleeing persecution and aggression. On his specific point, we will continue to provide military support, particularly supplies for the tanks, and—I cannot remember what his second point was—

[David Mundell]

Basic kit.

[Alex Chalk]

Yes—that is essential. One thing we do not talk about as much, although perhaps we should, is winter kit. Much of the equipment we are providing is what helps with basic war fighting, to ensure that Ukrainian troops do not suffer from cold. We also provide night-vision goggles, medicines and other equipment to allow them to take the fight to the enemy.

Ukraine

David Mundell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I think his attitude to no-fly zones and NATO membership is based in reality. What we are seeing is the NATO alliance and other allies around the world determined to give the support that we can give to Ukraine. There is no suggestion of backing down on that support, and we have support from outside the NATO allies. It is an international coalition that is helping to train Ukrainian troops, helping to contribute towards the international funds and, indeed, supplying lethal and non-lethal aid, and that alliance is growing stronger.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

During the recess, I had the opportunity to travel to Lviv and Kyiv to see the work of the HALO Trust, which is a charity based in my constituency that focuses on de-mining and attempting to bring areas back to a degree of normality. I was struck by two things in Ukraine. One was the gratitude of the people for the support that this country has given during the conflict, but the other was their efforts to bring about a degree of normality. Does the Minister agree that yesterday’s events were a deliberate attempt by Russia to disrupt the normality that civilians are trying to achieve in these cities and across Ukraine? Does he acknowledge that they are indeed war crimes because they are focused on civilians? Does he also agree with me that, given the resolve that the people of Ukraine have shown to date, they will not succeed?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and, yes, I agree with what he has said. Indeed, last Tuesday I visited Ukrainians being trained by our forces in north Yorkshire, and I managed to speak to some who were on day one of their training. What struck me was their determination, no matter their age, to make sure that their country, their sovereign land, their families and their lives will be returned to normal, and they will fight back against this enemy, so I completely agree with what my right hon. Friend said.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Mundell Excerpts

Monday 21st October 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Johnny Mercer)]

The veterans gateway received an initial period of funding, and it is supported by a consortium of charities. It has been a success in helping veterans access help in this country, and a long-term plan is being devised for it at the moment. I would be more than happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that in due course.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

T2. Will the relevant Minister meet me as a matter of urgency to discuss the interminable delay in agreeing a lease for the Eastriggs site of MOD Longtown? This delay is causing a threat to important investment and job creation in my constituency.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

I welcome the opportunity to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss the Eastriggs site in his constituency. I am aware of the aspiration of Rail Sidings Ltd to develop its railway rolling stock storage business at MOD Eastriggs. Defence Medical Services continues to manage the site and may support initiatives to commercially exploit the rail infrastructure, provided that any increase in use does not conflict with the primary demands of defence.