Elliot Colburn
Main Page: Elliot Colburn (Conservative - Carshalton and Wallington)Department Debates - View all Elliot Colburn's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 year, 9 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
Maybe the hon. Gentleman cannot hear: I did not say “13”; I said there had been “30” years of hollowing out, which includes his last Government, a Government I served under as a soldier. His Government spent a lot of money going to war in the middle east, which hollowed us out too, because we were not properly refunded. If he wants to come to this House and start a debate about Defence, I would appreciate it if he did so with a bit of candour about his own Government’s role in it. We have done that—I have had the courage to do that—so maybe he might.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I thank Carshalton and Wallington residents who have opened their homes to Ukrainians. Can my right hon. Friend give me some assurance that the kit we are sending to Ukraine will indeed come with the specialist support and training needed to operate it?
Mr Wallace
In the UK, we have thousands of British armed forces, joined by Canadians, Norwegians, Dutch, Swedish, Lithuanians, Australians and New Zealanders—endless numbers of people—helping the Ukrainians with that training. We ensure that not only do they train there, but when they go to somewhere such as Germany they get combined arms training. It is important that training accompanies equipment and, where we have had feedback, we have corrected the training as well.