Ukraine and Russia

David Smith Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

As my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry—whom the hon. Gentleman praised—has just remarked, it is difficult and it is complicated, but I take up the challenge. We want to do everything we can in this space. The hon. Gentleman is right to keep pressing us on this, and to keep it in our line of sight. We will continue to do as much as we can, as fast as we can.

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend to his place, and thank him for characterising this conflict as one between freedom and tyranny. I was very privileged to go to Kyiv in July in my role as UK special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, and while I was there, I heard from our Ukrainian partners how the Putin regime is weaponising the Russian Orthodox Church, particularly in the occupied territories; no one there has freedom of religion or belief, unless they are in the Russian Orthodox Church. That includes other Christians and the Tatars in Crimea. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a key dividing line in this conflict is freedom of religion or belief and wider human rights—the line between a free, open Ukrainian democracy, and an increasingly authoritarian Russia?

[Wes Streeting]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and wholeheartedly agree with him. I would just make the point that the weaponisation of Christianity is not something we see only in Russia; we see it here in Britain, too. If people are going to wear the cross, they should at least bother to read the Gospels before preaching a message contrary to them.

Defence

David Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dave Doogan]

I will make some progress.

A key problem for the current Government is that when they took over in 2024, they set great store by their strategic defence review. They said that they were going to fix defence from the ground up, and that it would all be in the strategic defence review, but when the strategic defence review was published it contained more questions than answers, principal among which was the defence investment plan. That was going to come in the summer. Then it was the autumn and then it was the winter and now it is the spring, and we do not even know whether we will get it in the following summer. It is critical for businesses to plan on this basis. I know that the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman) takes a dim view of business and its role in defence, and takes a dim view of defence manufacturers. I respect his position, but I deeply disagree with him. We cannot honour our service personnel in uniform and then besmirch the manufacturers that equip them to do the job of defending us that we require them to do.

Similarly, the Government must come clean on the defence investment plan. It is simply not tenable. The Minister was clear with us in saying that Defence was very clear about what we required from the defence investment plan. That, alarmingly, tells us what the problem with the defence investment plan is, and it is the Treasury. Some of us have the privilege of speaking on defence and on the economy, and the fact that the current Chancellor of the Exchequer is the arbiter of how our nation, or rather this state, will be defended in the future is deeply concerning given her competence in generic fiscal matters, let alone issues to do with defence.

[David Smith]

There are many things in the hon. Gentleman’s speech that I agree with, but as someone who grew up on the Clyde, does he welcomes the naval shipbuilding on the Clyde and the sales to Norway. Those who live in Scotland—I grew up 15 miles as the crow flies from Faslane—are also protected by the nuclear deterrent.

[Dave Doogan]

We will disagree on that last point, but I am very happy to agree with the hon. Gentleman on the benefit of complex warship manufacturing in Scotland. It would be nice if it was occasionally framed as something other than a benevolent gesture from Westminster towards Scotland, as opposed to what it actually is: the United Kingdom benefiting from the skills and engineering expertise that have been present in Scotland for an awful long time. [Interruption.] I would not go that far.

That leads me to an intervention that was made on the hon. Member for Alloa and Grangemouth by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), who declared that an independent Scotland would be completely defenceless and penniless. Classic Unionism! It totally ignores the fact that, at current rates, hard-working taxpayers in Scotland contribute £5 billion every single year to the defence of the United Kingdom. That has been airbrushed from reality.