Helen Maguire
Main Page: Helen Maguire (Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)Department Debates - View all Helen Maguire's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
We face a once-in-a-generation set of threats, including an imperialist Putin and a completely unreliable President Trump, who we cannot depend on to support our defence. Our nuclear deterrent remains the best and ultimate guarantor of the UK’s security. We must ensure that it meets the scale of those challenges, so it is right that the Government should look at ways to guarantee its effectiveness. Delivering the Dreadnought class on time is crucial to that, and I welcome the update that the Secretary of State provided before the recess on those timescales. Looking ahead, it is important that the House understands the purpose of any future addition to our nuclear deterrent, so will the Minister outline what discussions his Department has had on how further additions to the deterrent would positively bolster the UK’s security?
Luke Pollard
The United States remains the UK’s most important security partner: no two nations on earth are as integrated in their defence, intelligence and communications systems as the United States and the United Kingdom. That is a position that this Government intend to continue, because it is in our national interest to ensure we remain strongly connected with our partners in the United States. I am open to conversations about how we bolster our deterrence. Indeed, I believe the Defence Secretary may have more to add on that matter in his statement on the strategic defence review.