Keith Vaz
Main Page: Keith Vaz (Labour - Leicester East)Department Debates - View all Keith Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I can tell you my view on that, Mr Speaker. It is prudent to have a balanced defence budget and to be able properly to equip the troops that we have and seek to use to defend this nation’s security. I am afraid that given the state of the defence budget that we inherited from Labour, we have taken the only responsible set of actions that we could take in order to secure Britain’s defence for the future.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I support and welcome the steps taken by the Government, which I am sure are welcomed by countries near Mali? The Secretary of State mentioned ungoverned space. One country with a lot of ungoverned space is Yemen, where yesterday eight people were killed in a suicide bomb attack by affiliates of al-Qaeda. If the Government of Yemen request the same support that those other countries near Mali have requested, will our Government be prepared to give them that support?
Mr Hammond
We have good relationships with the Government of Yemen and we provide advice and support to them. The President of Yemen was in London a few months ago, and we had very constructive discussions. The action proposed by the AFISMA countries is mandated by a UN Security Council resolution, and the action that we are taking is to support these countries in the discharge of that mandate.