Madeleine Moon
Main Page: Madeleine Moon (Labour - Bridgend)Department Debates - View all Madeleine Moon's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
I agree with my predecessor but one as Secretary of State. We are supplying defensive equipment. It might not be lethal, but it does help the Ukrainian armed forces better defend themselves. As I said in my initial statement, in addition to the secondment of 75 trainers we are considering a further request from the Ukrainian Government for additional equipment and support. That is non-lethal, but we reserve the right ultimately to keep it under review.
The Secretary of State said that the 75 trainers would “mostly” be in Ukraine. Where else will they be operating from? If any Ukrainians are coming to the UK for training, can we have an absolute assurance for the citizens of the UK that we will not face another incident such as those in Bassingbourn, where we were training Libyans and members of the Cambridge community were assaulted? Can we have an assurance about how many are coming to the UK and where else they will be trained?
It is slightly unfortunate that the hon. Lady has compared the general purpose force we were attempting to train—a very raw force of recruits from Libya—with the Ukrainian armed forces. She asked me a straightforward and quite reasonable question about where else the training might be. There will be, and has already been, some training in the UK, but there can also be training in countries alongside Ukraine. We are looking at where the training can best be provided, but it is likely that most of it will be provided in Ukraine, in the Kiev area or elsewhere in the west of Ukraine, areas that are very familiar to the British military as we have been on exercise there in the past.