Defence Industry and Shipbuilding

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lord Beamish

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

I will not, because I am conscious that there is quite a queue of Members wishing to speak. While this is an Opposition day debate, there are many Members with significant constituency interests who would like to speak.

In terms of the investment, it is welcome to see the new carriers coming into the fleet and the new Dreadnought-class submarines already under construction, which will hopefully be refitted in Devonport in the years to come, when they have entered the main service of the fleet. It is good to hear about other investment projects. We are seeing our Royal Navy become more competent and capable, with even more of a global reach. It is welcome to see that we are back in the South China seas, looking seriously at the British national interest out in the Pacific region.

While I have some sympathy with one or two parts of the motion, which I will come to, we have to think coherently about what we are saying. If we keep saying that these contracts—contracts that are not internationally recognised as something that should be national only—should be UK-only, we start to go down the path of the nonsense arguments that have been used in the steel industry in the United States. Donald Trump has used a nonsense argument about national security to put tariffs on Canadian and European steel. Let us be quite candid: Canada and the UK are some of the strongest allies of the United States. We share the most sensitive intelligence with one another, so it is an absolute nonsense to suggest that there is a national security angle to who sells steel from this country to the United States. That is where I part company with some of the Labour party’s arguments.

The part of the motion on procurement criteria is perfectly reasonable, and I will come to that, but if we keep saying that certain contracts must be UK-only, we begin a trend of protectionism. We cannot on the one hand rightly say that Donald Trump is talking absolute nonsense about steel, but on the other adopt a policy like that ourselves, potentially against foreign—

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Foster]

I will, but very briefly.

[Mr Jones]

Could the hon. Gentleman give me an example of a single country in the world, including the United States, that would have procured these naval ships from overseas yards?

[Kevin Foster]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Sadly for him, if he had waited until I got to a later part of my speech, he would have heard me talk about the Republic of Ireland, which is building naval ships at the Appledore shipyard in North Devon. He asked me to name one country in the world, and he has got one: the Republic of Ireland. I do not think I will take another intervention if knowledge is so limited that even our closest neighbour is not known about.

Coeliac Disease and Prescriptions

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lord Beamish

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point, especially in terms of families with children. There is also a question of availability in some rural areas. Larger supermarkets stock some of these products at the prices he mentioned and higher, but in other areas the products are not available.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

I will make a bit more progress.

We have a situation where, in places such as east Essex, the needs of patients are being discounted despite a complete lack of any type of research. I am concerned that more CCGs across the country will begin to use inadequate justifications as a precedent and follow a similar path. That leads me back to my earlier point about the big problem of under-diagnosis. I am afraid we will see a bigger problem if gluten-free prescriptions are not made available to those on low incomes.

Yemen

Debate between Kevin Foster and Lord Beamish

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), given that we regularly see each other at a range of debates in this House.

It is welcome that we are here again discussing Yemen. Having attended the recent Adjournment debate secured by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), I share many of the comments he expressed earlier about the scale of the crisis gripping Yemen and the disaster that the conflict has proved to be for the Yemeni people. I think it was earlier this year when the UN highlighted that both sides were preventing the access of food aid. I know he shares my disappointment that the ceasefire has not held. Again, I share his hopes that the forthcoming UN discussions will bring what everyone here wants to see: a return to a system based on a constitutional structure for settling differences, not one based on armed conflict.

That said, we have to look at the choices and the alternatives, and at why the UN voted to support an intervention. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for East Lothian (George Kerevan) talk about a small rebel group. It is perhaps worth quoting the House of Commons Library on this “small rebel group”:

“The Houthis have managed to gather dozens of tanks and plenty of heavy weaponry from these defectors and deserters.”

It also states:

“Yemen’s government and armed forces have long been weak and fragmented, and have had too many forces lined up against them to put up a strong resistance to the Houthis.”

This is not a small band of people who are incapable militarily; these Houthi rebels are former soldiers who are able to pose a direct threat of overthrowing the main Government. That is why the intervention is there. We then have to be clear about the alternative. If we did not have coalition involvement, the Houthis would overrun the whole country. We would have a failed state in Yemen, equivalent to the failed state we have had in Somalia for so long.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

It is not only a large group. It is well armed with arms from Iran. There is also evidence that there are Iranian revolutionary guards acting on the ground in Yemen.

[Kevin Foster]

Let us be blunt. It is not a small rebel group that fires effectively a ballistic missile at a neighbouring country or attacks a US warship in international waters. That does not fit my definition of a small group of lightly armed individuals. This is a serious and coherent threat to the recognised Government of Yemen, any constitutional process, and, ultimately, to the security of one of the key trade routes of the whole world through what we once saw as the Straits of Aden, with shipping heading up towards the Suez canal. Ultimately, if we allow a failed state in Yemen we will all pay the price for it in the cost of shipping, and disruption to energy supplies.

The alternative to the Saudi coalition—let us assume it is not the Saudis and their allies who intervene—is western intervention to enforce a UN motion. The same people very busily attacking this coalition are the same people who regularly oppose any western intervention in the middle east. For a UN resolution to have any meaning it needs to be implemented and it is questionable who it would want to take the action.