Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Smith Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

We do not comment on operational matters of that sort.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

T4. Qatar hosts Hamas’s most senior leaders in Doha, and should have been applying far more pressure on the terror group to release the Israeli hostages and to surrender. Does my right hon. Friend agree that Qatar’s malign activities bolster our adversaries and therefore weaken our own defence?

[James Heappey]

I am not entirely sure that I do agree. I will leave the Foreign Office to talk about the diplomatic angles that it is pursuing, but in my experience, Qatar has been an incredibly helpful partner across a whole load of things over the past few years. We enjoy the opportunity to strengthen that partnership, both through the sale of UK-built defence capabilities and through increasingly operating together in areas of mutual concern. It is a relationship on which the UK can build further, and has great potential.