Overseas Territories: Humanitarian and Disaster Relief

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 9th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I first pay tribute to my noble friend for his work during his term as Minister for the Armed Forces in creating, and being instrumental in establishing, these new units in both the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which joined Bermuda in this respect. He is quite right: these provide operational capacity and capability within the territories. No other territory has yet expressed an interest in establishing defence forces, but I assure my noble friend that we stand ready to support them if indeed they wish to do so.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, as we speak, HMS “Medway” is on station in the West Indies, providing reassurance and support, safeguarding our north Atlantic Caribbean territories and getting to know the many islands and their civilian emergency services and support facilities, so as to assist in an emergency, whether it be a hurricane, volcanic eruption or instability caused by the drugs trade. Warships can move hundreds of miles a day, and offer communications, engineers, medics, food, fresh water and resilient, disciplined manpower. Bearing in mind that we have overseas territories across the south Atlantic, in the Indian and Pacific oceans, some with the largest marine protection zones in the world, does the Minister believe we have sufficient ships to safeguard them and their resources appropriately?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I can assure the noble Lord that we have sufficient resources, in respect of both the military operations and the support. I have myself seen the strength of having military assets within the territories during and in the aftermath of such hurricanes. We all remember RFA “Mounts Bay” playing a sterling role as first responder. I assure him that, together with our military assets and the other investments we have made, we stand ready to support our territories within the region.