Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Heappey and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

May I gently encourage Members on both sides of the House to change their tone when describing the Government of Pakistan in relation to these matters? We would not have brought out thousands of people had it not been for the support of the Government of Pakistan, and we continue to enjoy their support and co-operation in our efforts to bring out many thousands more. As the hon. Lady well knows, because it has been well covered in the media, the Government of Pakistan have sought to accelerate the deportation of those whom they consider to be there illegally, but our excellent team in the high commission in Islamabad are working day and night with the Government of Pakistan to ensure that that does not happen to those who are in Pakistan under ARAP and ACRS. We are moving at our best pace to bring people back, with the full co-operation of the Government of Pakistan.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

11. What steps his Department is taking to provide military support to the Ukrainian armed forces.

War in Ukraine

Debate between James Heappey and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should not take for granted the cross-party and national consensus that has existed on support for Ukraine. All of us in the House continue to stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian armed forces, and I think we set the tone that the media and the nation follow, but it involves a significant amount of money at a time when everybody else around the Cabinet table will also be seeking resource for their Departments, so we must make that case, as he said. As far as I can tell, though, the case is a completely compelling one.

What the Ukrainians are doing is standing up to our main adversary—the nation that challenges security in the Euro-Atlantic most profoundly—and it is through our support for them that we are making a clear stand about how we want the Euro-Atlantic to be and, in so doing, reassuring all our NATO allies along NATO’s eastern frontier of our resolve to stand up to Russian aggression with them, under the terms of NATO’s treaties.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s clarity about how critical it is for the security of the world and the rules-based international order that there is a successful outcome for Ukraine in this conflict. Will he do everything he can to ensure that the critical longer-range missiles and air defence systems, which are having a very detrimental effect on the Russian armed forces, continue to get through? May I add my voice to that of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)? We take it as read that extra money will be announced in the autumn statement—at least as much as before, if not more—to help sustain Ukraine in this dreadful conflict.

[James Heappey]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend about the need to maintain our support for the Ukrainian armed forces. A number of step-change capabilities will come into Ukrainian hands over the next 12 months or so—most obviously combat air. While the UK is not an F-16 nation, it is part of the F-16 coalition and does basic pilot training before the aircraft go on to F-16 nations for conversion. I know that the Prime Minister agrees with all in the House who make the case for the need for us to continue to support Ukraine into the next financial year.

Ukraine

Debate between James Heappey and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 11th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

At the Vilnius summit earlier in the summer, the Prime Minister and others who are spending 2% of GDP were very clear in their expectation that others quickly move to do likewise. Moreover, they were clear that that cannot be just a short-term capital commitment, but a long-term, enduring commitment to spend 2% for good, as a minimum—a floor—because Euro-Atlantic security has not been so threatened for well over a generation.

One day, the war in Ukraine will cease, so we must make sure that Ukraine is in the best possible shape to help its economy recover, and quickly. To bring prosperity back to Ukraine, the Ukraine recovery conference committed a further £3 billion of guarantees to unlock World Bank lending; £240 million of bilateral assistance; and up to £250 million of new capital for the UK’s development finance institution, British International Investment, to advance Ukraine’s economic recovery. Critically, we are also spending some £62 million on a programme to help Ukraine rebuild a sustainable and resilient energy system and to keep the lights on.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am sure those in the Kremlin pay particular attention to the Commons when you are in the Chair, so I have no doubt that they are watching this afternoon, and they need to be clear that we recognise the need—

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[James Heappey]

I will give way one last time.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I am most grateful, because I think he is reaching the end of his remarks—

[James Heappey]

I am.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

But I was waiting for him to get on to the bigger strategic picture. It is quite clear that Mr Putin is playing this long in the hope that the patience of our allies—we can think of who they are—will wear thin, our attention will wane and by a process of attrition he will gain something out of this conflict. I congratulate the Government on refusing to accept that that should be the outcome, but what confidence does the Minister have that we will carry all our allies to ensure that we sustain the Ukrainians’ effort so that that they achieve total victory, not some sell-out of half their territory already occupied by the Russians?

[James Heappey]

Well, Hansard already has the final few paragraphs of my speech, so I will simply agree with my hon. Friend. He is absolutely correct. The tactical support that we provide to the Ukrainians to win, tonight and tomorrow, will continue for as long as is needed. Putin cannot wait this out, and to prove that, increasingly over the last few months the UK Government’s focus has been not just on that tactical support for tomorrow, but on giving Putin the certainty that the Ukrainian armed forces will be helped to continue to modernise and grow over the next decade so that they finish this war superior to the Russian armed forces. We will help Ukraine to recover more quickly and to grow faster than Russia, so that the economic cost and difference are clear for all to see. The UK has the strategic patience to make sure that this illegal war finishes in Ukraine’s favour, and that Putin or his successors are shown that Russia will never succeed by throwing its might around in its near abroad.

Global Military Operations

Debate between James Heappey and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 14th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I will defer to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Defence People, Veterans and Service Families for his insight on that in his summing up. What I would reflect is that the Submarine Service takes an incredible pride in its work. Whereas Army, Air Force and surface sailors have rows upon rows of medals, all that matters to these crews is the colour of their dolphins, and they take enormous pride in that. I risk not being welcome in Faslane in case they want a medal as well, so all I will say is that what my hon. Friend has said is noted, and I will leave it to my right hon. Friend to come back to him on that specific point at the very end.

The challenge extends beyond the Euro-Atlantic. In the Caribbean, we continue to have a permanent presence both in terms of Army training teams and a Royal Navy ship. The work of that ship extends from counter-narcotics all the way through to humanitarian relief during the hurricane season.

In the South Atlantic, we continue to have both a garrison and a guard ship on the Falklands, as well as regular service from the Royal Air Force. Indeed, that Royal Air Force presence services the wider overseas territory network. In Ascension, for example, the refurbishment of the runway has been completed. Last week, I think, we saw a C-17 that had been to or from the Falklands, landing in St Helena, which was the first visit from a military plane for some time.

In West Africa, the UK has a growing role in answering the security challenges of the Sahel. I stress that that is not through the participation in a UN peacekeeping force and certainly not through any direct action on our part. That, as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan and through the French experience in Mali, is not the way to be doing business. Instead, it is through supporting regional solutions such as the Accra initiative where we can develop the capacity of the Ghanaians, the Côte d’Ivoireans, the Togolese, the Beninois and the Nigerians, and work with the Burkinabès that we can get after the security challenges that exist in that region.

Similarly, in the Lake Chad Basin, we continue to support the Economic Community of African States multinational standby force to deal with the security challenges that exist both from Boko Haram and Islamic State, and that remains a major line of effort particularly through our partnerships with Nigeria and Cameroon.

In East Africa, the British Army has a permanent presence in Kenya, which is a training base that is very well subscribed year round, and from which we train in partnership with the Kenyans. We are grateful to the Kenyan Parliament for its recent ratification of the defence co-operation agreement between our two countries. However, in east Africa our principal concern is of course the ongoing instability and insecurity in Somalia and the challenge of al-Shabaab. We remain committed to that situation, not only as penholder at the UN, but through recognising that, as ATMIS, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia, comes to an end, a new east African solution to Somalia may well be the right answer, and the UK will have a strong role to play in supporting that regional solution.

Even further afield, we have a growing presence in the Indo-Pacific, with two Royal Navy ships, HMS Spey and HMS Tamar, permanently present in the region, one tending to operate on a loop around the south Pacific—tough work if you can get it—and one working further north in and around the Korean peninsula. They are proving incredibly successful at flying the white ensign in parts of the world where the Royal Navy had not been seen for some time.

There is a chronic challenge in that part of the world from growing Chinese influence; not all of it is malign, it is important to say, but if we want to maintain our friendships and partnerships in the south Pacific, we need to be there and be sharing the burden alongside the Australians and New Zealanders, and that is exactly what we are doing. Similarly, for our partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and further north in Korea and Japan, it is important that the UK is seen in that part of the world. An enormous amount of UK trade flows through the Indo-Pacific, and if we want and expect to trade freely with those countries, it is right that a country with the global reach of the UK contributes to their regional security.

Indeed, I will go further, because I think that, if we want the United States of America to remain engaged in Euro-Atlantic security, it is entirely right that the UK and other European countries with global reach contribute to Indo-Pacific security, so that we are burden sharing across both theatres and recognising that both the United States and European countries have an interest in both.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I believe the Minister is going to come back to the issue of the Balkans, and the United States is somewhat disengaged from what is developing there. Apparently—maybe he can confirm this—the USA has vetoed a reinforcement of the NATO headquarters in Kosovo. That is just encouraging the Russians to carry on fomenting instability. I would not be against the UK’s reinforcing EUFOR, or European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina, there. We are not against European co-operation in defence, and just because it is an EU force, we should not have some religious doctrine that prevents us from co-operating with it just as we would with a NATO force—albeit we might need to make very clear that it is a bilateral arrangement.

[James Heappey]

It is heartening to hear that from my hon. Friend, and I agree with him. The most obvious route through which we achieve Euro-Atlantic security is NATO, but where the EU has a successful mission running, we should be perfectly willing to work with and within that mission to achieve mutual foreign policy aims. Similarly, there are plenty of parts of the world where the EU is already the framework, where the UK has no wish to be a framework in its own right but does have an interest, and again, I can see opportunity for the UK to work with and within the EU mission—take, for example, Mozambique, although I offer that as a for instance rather than any promise.

Ukraine

Debate between James Heappey and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I hope my right hon. Friend will allow me, but I am not going to discuss nuclear doctrine at the Dispatch Box.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

In response to the intervention by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) about not being bullied, what discussions are the UK Government having with our American counterparts, who are saying they want a negotiation without specifying what the baseline of the negotiation is? Will we be making it clear that the baseline is that Russia has to get out of all occupied Ukraine as the basis for the negotiation?

[James Heappey]

I suspect my hon. Friend knows that we speak to our American and Ukrainian counterparts daily at every level, from the military operational level through to heads of Government. The UK and the US are entirely aligned in their view that this ends on President Zelensky’s terms; it is for him to define what the end state is. I have heard nothing from Washington to suggest that that is not also their view.