Luke Akehurst
Main Page: Luke Akehurst (Labour - North Durham)Department Debates - View all Luke Akehurst's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 week, 1 day ago)
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Maria Eagle
No matter which side of the Chamber he is sitting on, the right hon. Gentleman has a long history of supporting deterrence—whether nuclear or short of that threshold—and he makes the same point again. The US Secretary of Defence made it clear in his remarks to the contact group that deterrence is important around the world, so I think there is agreement there.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement of the new £150 million package of military firepower for Ukraine., including drones, tanks and air defence systems. How will that boost Ukrainian resilience and the UK defence sector?
Maria Eagle
It does both. There is only one way in which we can provide the Ukrainians with increasing amounts of munitions and drones, which are developing and changing rapidly, and that is by boosting the strength of our defence industries. That has the additional importance of enabling us to boost our capacity to deter any potential aggression, so in that sense we can do both, and we are doing so.