Ukraine Update

Debate between Hywel Williams and Ben Wallace

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

Georgia is a very important partner for us around the Black sea. It obviously knows itself what it is like to be on the wrong end of a Russian invasion, and it is very important that we help Georgia’s resilience to that. It is also important that we recognise what Russia, having consolidated, then tries to do in countries such as Georgia, which is divide, corrupt and continue to manipulate. That is why it is very important that Britain’s relationship with Georgia is a long and enduring relationship to help it with its own resilience.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Delivering the defensive equipment that has been so vital to Ukraine’s success in resisting the Russian invasion has been really instrumental, and I think the Government deserve all credit for their work in that respect. But could the Secretary of State state what the UK’s current overarching aims in this conflict are, and confirm that support for Ukraine will continue long term irrespective of who occupies No. 10?

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful and thank the hon. Member for his comments. Our objective is to push, or help Ukraine push back Russia from both its actions since February, and if Ukraine takes the choice to continue to try to push Russia out of its illegally occupied territories, then of course the west and the international community will stand by it in doing that. I think, in its simplest form, Britain wants to help Ukraine be free to choose. What it chooses is slightly secondary to the fact that it has the freedom to choose in the first place as a sovereign state. That is what we are all trying to work for, and the only country that does not want to do that is Russia.

Ukraine

Debate between Hywel Williams and Ben Wallace

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The President of the United States made it very clear that he will stop Nord Stream 2. I listened to that press conference, like everyone else. As for the raft of sanctions that the Government have brought forward, they are intelligently targeted, and build on existing sanctions following Crimea. However, we will of course continue to keep those measures under review.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Today Mr Putin is holding an unscheduled meeting with the Russian security council, which he says will decide on the recognition of the two breakaway republics. What would be the implication of such an eventuality for the Minsk protocols?

[Mr Wallace]

As I said to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), we urge both parties to have regard to the Minsk agreement. Only a few weeks ago, the Russians were saying that that should be under the agreement, but I think that some of those measures go exactly against it. Perhaps that is a clue to the real intention.

Covid-19 Response: Defence Support

Debate between Hywel Williams and Ben Wallace

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am tempted to say that a good sergeant major will be able to fix a lot of that. It goes to the point that I made earlier: volunteers need managing and we need to work out their needs. Because they are volunteers we may be unable to lean on them as much to do the same number of hours. Also, we need to ensure that we match troops to task, as we call it, ensuring that the skillset is in the right place. The hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) asked the same sort of question. What we are doing at the moment with the NHS is discussing exactly how we can increase and augment that, because our skillset is often just that. The sergeant major will ensure that people are in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. I never said no to my sergeant major.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC) [V]]

I welcome the support of the military in the vaccine roll-out. I have a particular concern about delivery in rural areas. Can the Secretary of State reassure me that there is military capacity available, perhaps in the reserves, to operate in extreme conditions—for example in heavy snow in rural and, indeed, mountainous areas?

[Mr Wallace]

Yes. First, we have 100 personnel supporting the Welsh ambulance service and 92 personnel supporting the Welsh Government on the Welsh vaccination roll-out. Of course, one of the benefits of both the vaccine quick reaction forces and, indeed, the military personnel is that most of us did our training up in the hills of Brecon and Sennybridge and areas such as that, and are used to adverse weather. It is also why we are equipped to deal with it. That is one of the strengths and, I hope, one of the opportunities that the Welsh Government will take advantage of, if needed, to go down to rural communities, down the small tracks and to the hill farmers, to ensure that they get the vaccinations and the support that they need.

Far-right Violence and Online Extremism

Debate between Hywel Williams and Ben Wallace

Monday 18th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman is right; we need to show leadership. If we see racism or antisemitism in our ranks, we should deal with it. If we see Islamophobia in our ranks, we should deal with it; if I find it in my party association, those people should not be in the Tory party. I totally agree with everything he said. We have to be cautious about what we say and what we inspire, given our privileged places as political leaders in society. That goes for my friends, my colleagues and my opponents on the Opposition Benches.

We should also recognise that the next step in intolerance is linking violence to politics. The hon. Gentleman sits in a party whose shadow Chancellor talked about lynching my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Ms McVey) when she was in the Department for Work and Pensions, and whose shadow Chancellor regularly supported Irish nationalism that had a violent streak rather than a peaceful one. Let us see what his actions are when it comes to condemning Labour’s Front Bench.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I associate my party with the condemnation across the House of the appalling attack in New Zealand. That shows, if evidence were needed, that such attacks can happen in the most peaceable and unlikely of communities. Security is a reserved matter, though the Welsh Government have responsibility for economic, social and cultural matters to do with the faith community. Is the Minister confident that there is sufficiently deep co-operation between the Home Office and the Welsh Government to ensure that such attacks do not occur in rural and city communities in Wales?