James Gray
Main Page: James Gray (Conservative - North Wiltshire)Department Debates - View all James Gray's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberIn the past few months I have had meetings with my counterparts in Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Italy and Romania, and I have received inward visits from my counterparts from Croatia, the Netherlands and Poland. The Lancaster House framework is the most important of all our relationships with other members of the European Union, and I assure my right hon. Friend that when I meet the French Minister, Madame Parly, next month, we will discuss how we take work under that agreement further forward.
Britain had close working defence relationships with all European countries for decades before the EU was even invented, and for centuries before that with many of them. Does the Secretary of State agree that although we will of course maintain close defence relationships with France, Germany and other European countries, Brexit gives us an opportunity to redevelop some of our defence relationships across the world—with the old Commonwealth and the United States of America, and of course with NATO being at the centre of it all?
Brexit, of course, gives us the opportunity to look again at our global role. We currently contribute to more than a dozen common security and defence policy missions and operations organised by the European Union, and it is important that from outside the European Union we continue, where we can, to consider how we can further contribute to European security, as well as to the global role about which my hon. Friend and I agree.