Select Committee on Defence

Debate between Julian Lewis and Julian Brazier

Thursday 7th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Dr Lewis]

I welcome the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) to his new responsibilities. May I say a personal message of appreciation for his past service in the Territorial Army, which included a spell of active service in Afghanistan? I hold the members of the armed forces, particularly those who have seen active service in dangerous parts of the world, in the highest respect. I am sure that we will all listen with very great attention to his contributions.

In relation to the implications of Brexit, I do not think that I am giving up any trade secrets when I say that that has been discussed as one of the major strands of the forthcoming work of the Committee. It is certainly the case that there should be no need for anyone to feel that security arrangements have been undermined in any way if only because of the almost complete overlap between the membership of the EU and the membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. I am quite certain that the structures of NATO will be perfectly capable of carrying forward the security relationships without any form of distortion by any other organisation that might have been tempted to duplicate them. NATO will indeed be one of the principal forums for ensuring that the communications that are so important between the United Kingdom and our friends and allies on the continent will be able to proceed absolutely uninterruptedly as a result of the change that will take place.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Julian Brazier)]

May I also welcome the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) to his new role, and say that we served in the same reserve infantry unit, although, unlike me, he saw active service during his time there?

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his Committee on a heavyweight report. Clearly, we will be responding to it, and we will look carefully at each of the recommendations. It is above my pay grade to give a date for the Trident debate, but we will be looking carefully at it. May I congratulate the Committee on the very careful balance that it has struck between stressing the real and growing dangers from the Soviet Union—sorry, that was a Freudian slip; I meant from Russia—and stressing the political situation that exists now as compared with the old Soviet Union? I am talking about the lack of ideology now, and the fact that that may provide us with some constructive opportunities, particularly as we share a horrid threat from Daesh.

[Dr Lewis]

I am very grateful to the Minister for his encouraging remarks. He is spot on when he says that we must take a balanced view with regard to Russia. If we look back over the history of Anglo-Russian relations throughout the 20th century, we will see that they are terrible switchback rides of periods of great hostility and then close alliance and then great hostility once again. It is a pity—I will put it no more strongly than that—that we cannot order our affairs to see that, in reality, there are prospects for co-operation between developed powers that vastly outweigh any sectional advantage that might be sought by one of them trying to steal a march on the other. I understand the reasons why Russia feels affronted by its treatment after the end of the cold war, but that is no excuse for ripping up the international rule book and trampling on the rights of its neighbours.