Ukraine

James Sunderland Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

It would be good if the hon. Lady actually quoted me correctly. I did not say “the Conservatives”; I said that successive Governments, including her own party’s, have hollowed out the armed forces for the past 30 years, and that is why we need to rectify it. It is why we got £24 billion recently, and an extra £5 billion at the last Budget, not only to refurbish but to modernise our armed forces. Get the quote right next time.

[James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)]

Storm Shadow is a potent weapon, so I cautiously welcome the announcement today on the basis of what the Secretary of State has reported to the House. I am also reassured by the undertaking that Storm Shadow will be used only to prosecute targets inside Ukraine, because NATO’s aim has to be to eject Russia from Ukraine, not to wage war against Russia. My point is this: in the same way that Challenger 2 pre-empted the deployment of Abrams and Leopard 2, can we assume in this case that the deployment of Storm Shadow might pre-empt other medium and long-range weapons being deployed from other NATO nations? Also, can he give an answer specifically on what it will take for F-16s to be deployed?

[Mr Wallace]

There are other nations with similar but not exactly the same types of weapons system, and I have seen already that our next bidding round for the international fund will include deep-strike and long-range fires that we will procure through this international fund, which includes Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and so on. There is more to come from both the market and from gifting, depending on what that is. What I would say is that the assessment is that the Storm Shadow we are so far planning to gift—for operational reasons, I will not say the exact number—is currently enough to satisfy Ukrainian demand for that capability. We will keep that under review to ensure we can make the difference.