Ukraine

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The Government have taken the position, as has NATO, that this is about deterrence and diplomacy, and deterrence does involve upholding the shoring up of NATO members with resilience and containment measures to make sure that Russia is contained should it make the foolish mistake of an invasion of Ukraine. That is done by our forces, and it is why we have made even more available, including 1,000 members of the Army currently on stand-by in the UK to send elsewhere. My right hon. Friend is right that the heart of this is about defending Ukraine’s right to choose—not what it does with that right, but, fundamentally, that if a democratic nation has chosen something, we should respect that. We are on the cusp of an invasion of a democratic country in Europe, and that should worry us all.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State for supplying an advance copy of the statement. We should be clear: if Russia invades Ukraine, massive sanctions will rightly be placed on Russia, and if that happens, we can expect a salvo of cyber-attacks on the United Kingdom. I seek two reassurances from the Secretary of State: that we have the best possible defences against cyber-attacks; and that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, and that if necessary we could use cyber-warfare to give as good as we get back to Russia.

[Mr Wallace]

The Defence Command Paper published last year set out plans to establish, and grow to a significant size, the National Cyber Force, the UK’s offensive cyber-capability that will complement our defensive capability. That is a joint GCHQ and Defence agency that will be based in north-west England. It has already been established and is starting to grow. I cannot comment on the operations that it will undertake, but I am a soldier and I was always taught that the best part of defence is offence.