Ukraine

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

First, there is a basket of sanctions that are prepared both by the United Kingdom and the United States. Indeed, the EU is addressing and formulating a package and, obviously, Sweden and Finland would be part of that. I cannot speak for Sweden and Finland about whether they would join NATO. One of the fundamentals of NATO is the open door policy. We have been clear on that, but, as I have said, I am even more clear that defending a country to choose is actually more important often than what it chooses. We enhance and work our relationship with Finland and Sweden through the joint expeditionary force, which is 11 nations—Scandinavian and Nordic, and Britain—working together and exercising together in the defence world. That is brilliant: it binds together the EU, NATO and other members to make sure that we can deter by being as professional as possible with our armed forces.

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

In the recent negotiations, NATO rightly rejected the wholly unreasonable demands of Russia for the reasons that the Secretary of State has so clearly set out to the House, but it did indicate that it would be willing to talk about other matters. Does the Government support, for example, putting arms control and limits to military exercises on the table in any further discussions?

[Mr Wallace]

Certainly when it comes to arms control, we have always felt that arms controls are good things. I am old enough to remember the 1980s and the work people went into to get those, and it has been sad that Russia has breached a number of those treaties and the United States pulled out of the open skies treaty not so long ago. I think we should try to work towards getting back to a place where we can have more confidence in each other, first and foremost.

On exercising, first, NATO should exercise in order to keep itself at the best it can be for defence. I also think it is the right of a sovereign country to choose to exercise in its land. If Lithuania or Estonia wish to exercise militarily, either bilaterally or multilaterally, that is a choice for that country, and we are always happy to work together. I am not sure I want to give Russia a veto over where we exercise, but I am very supportive of making sure that we are as open as possible, so that people do not miscalculate when we do exercise and they recognise that it is an exercise rather than an operation.