Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

I shall point out our commitment to the submarine programme and to the aircraft carrier programme, and explain how we intend to ensure that across the range of capabilities the United Kingdom is a sound and secure NATO partner. The purpose of the meeting in Norway is to ensure that we deepen our bilateral relationship with Norway, that we create a NATO entity that Finland and Sweden feel a little more comfortable with, that we give further security to article 5 in the Baltic states by being a nuclear power as part of that grouping, and that as a NATO grouping we are better able to deal with regional disputes with Russia.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Secretary of State acknowledges that civilian redundancies might impact on personnel in Corsham in my constituency. Given their deep expertise in defence communications technology, will he consider opportunities for their redeployment as part of the Government’s programme for cyber-security?

[Dr Fox]

We are indeed looking at all opportunities to improve our arrangements for cyber-security. We have for the first time created a cross-departmental cyber-budget, for example. We will be looking inside the Ministry of Defence to see how we can better prepare ourselves not for the threats of the future but for the threats that we already face, given the level of cyber-attacks already occurring in this country and in those of our allies.