Business of the House

Martyn Day Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am always a bit nervous about these military analogies, though the distinguished Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee will know a great deal more about this than I do, because some cavalry charges are more successful than others. It depends whether we are talking about Omdurman or—[Interruption.] Balaclava, indeed. Thank you for that helpful prompt, Mr Speaker. None the less, my right hon. Friend makes a very important point. The delivery of a safe and effective vaccine is the best way to protect the most vulnerable and save thousands of lives, and great strides are being made in protecting the population. There remains a long and difficult road ahead and there will be a considerable time lag until we can expect these vaccinations to help ease pressure on the NHS, bearing in mind that it takes a fortnight from vaccination for the vaccine to begin to take its effect. If we succeed, we will be protecting huge numbers of people from the virus. Eventually, that will allow us to remove many of the restrictions that we have endured for so long. It is wonderful that the Prime Minister is in Scotland today visiting Valneva, so we are rolling out more vaccines potentially and this has had great support from Her Majesty’s Government.

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP) [V]]

The Ministry of Defence recently disclosed to me that Saudi armed forces were trained with £2.4 million of taxpayers’ money from the secretive integrated activity fund. Can we therefore have a debate in Government time on British security support to Gulf countries with abysmal human rights records, such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, that continue to wage a disastrous war in Yemen while imprisoning hundreds of peaceful political prisoners, such as Hasan Mushaima, who should be immediately freed?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government have very strict rules, both on arms sales and on our relationships with countries around the world in terms of military development. These matters are regularly debated in the House. We work with our allies to help them in their military, and it is right and proper that we should do so, but we also maintain the highest standards of human rights.