John Cooper
Main Page: John Cooper (Conservative - Dumfries and Galloway)Department Debates - View all John Cooper's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 day, 14 hours ago)
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The Prime Minister
We will continue our discussions with our European allies. They have meetings this week, and further follow-on meetings are planned coming out of yesterday. As the hon. Gentleman will understand, between those meetings, we are in constant touch with each other about how we take forward the plans we are working on.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
“Scottish soldiers could be in Ukraine by end of the year”, was the headline in The Herald newspaper this morning, based on quotes from First Minister John Swinney in answer to questions from the BBC. Notwithstanding that the British armed forces have many fine and gallant young Scots serving with them, can the Prime Minister confirm that the decision on—indeed, the burden of— deploying British troops anywhere sits with him and with this House, and not with a divisive First Minister and the head of a devolved Administration.
The Prime Minister
Yes, and a good thing too, because the First Minister confirmed his view that we should weaken our defences by getting rid of the nuclear deterrent. What a good thing it is that the security, safety and defence of the whole United Kingdom rests with this Government here.