Derek Twigg
Main Page: Derek Twigg (Labour - Halton)Department Debates - View all Derek Twigg's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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James Heappey
The previous Defence Secretary never needed any help from me in making his case to Prime Ministers. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the UK has won a position in leading the global donor community, because we have resourced that commitment and have been willing to go through capability thresholds before anybody else, but our position as a leader internationally depends on our continued willingness to be so. The previous Secretary of State, the current Secretary of State and indeed the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are all on the same page about the importance of maintaining that UK position.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
I completely agree with the comments made and concerns raised by the shadow Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). Part of the reason we want the Secretary of State in the Chamber is that we really need to up the game, in convincing the British people why it is essential that we continue our massive ongoing support for Ukraine, and of the importance of defeating Russia. It is clear that Ukraine needs more resources—equipment, ammunition, armaments and so on—so we need to step up further. Will the Minister go back to the Secretary of State and his Cabinet colleagues and say that we really do need to put more resources into supporting Ukraine?
James Heappey
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should not take for granted the cross-party and national consensus that has existed on support for Ukraine. All of us in the House continue to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian armed forces, and I think we set the tone that the media and the nation follow, but it involves a significant amount of money at a time when everybody else around the Cabinet table will also be seeking resource for their Departments, so we must make that case, as he said. As far as I can tell, though, the case is a completely compelling one.
What the Ukrainians are doing is standing up to our main adversary—the nation that challenges security in the Euro-Atlantic most profoundly—and it is through our support for them that we are making a clear stand about how we want the Euro-Atlantic to be and, in so doing, reassuring all our NATO allies along NATO’s eastern frontier of our resolve to stand up to Russian aggression with them, under the terms of NATO’s treaties.