Lord Beamish
Main Page: Lord Beamish (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Beamish's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Dr Fox
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. For a moment, I thought we were going to hear how “cordiale” in his private life the entente can actually be.
One of the big changes in French politics has been the emergence of President Sarkozy and the willingness of the French Government to put themselves at the heart of NATO.
Dr Fox
But it is surely in the interests of the United Kingdom to welcome a trend that we have been calling for for a very long time. When we can draw the French into greater co-operation with NATO, where they are clearly in a much more transatlantic orbit, and are able to supplement and augment what the United Kingdom can do without interfering in our sovereign capability, we should welcome it. It is not a question, as my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Sir Peter Tapsell) suggests, of the joint ownership of fleets; it is about our willingness to operate them together when it is in our mutual interest to do so.