Ukraine: Military Equipment

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

The Minister says the training started in 2014, which is the year after the House took, in my view, the wrong decision in the Syria vote; it led to Russia giving help to Assad, the taking of Crimea, the infiltration of eastern Ukraine and various other problems.

As Ukraine’s security is, in effect, our security and that of our NATO allies, will he confirm that we will do all we can to try to make sure that Ukraine is safe and that Russia, at some stage, returns to being a peaceful nation devoted to the prosperity of its own people, rather than doing down other people?

[James Cartlidge]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and he is absolutely right to say that their security is our security. We need to support Ukraine, because it is morally the right thing to do to support a free country that has been illegally invaded. We should also be clear that it is in our strategic interests and those of all of our democratic allies to do so, because we do not want to see an emboldened Russia, not least because of the impact that could have on other potential adversaries.

Continuous At-Sea Deterrent

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am not as qualified as many to speak in this debate, but I remind those who wish to look into the subject further that they should read the 1934 book “Peace with Honour” by Alan Alexander Milne. He had served continuously in the first world war and in the book he wrote the reasons why war should become unacceptable—he argued for pacifism. In 1940, after he had re-enlisted, he wrote a book called “War with Honour”, in which he explained what had gone wrong.

In the middle of the 1934 book, A. A. Milne imagined a situation in which Germany attacks the United Kingdom in 1940. He asked what would happen if Russia said that it would join on our side but set various conditions. We have to understand that people have been thinking about such issues rather more deeply than, from some of the remarks we heard, the Scottish National party—but I want to leave them to one side.

I will move on to the other great person who could deal with the constitutional, policy and moral principles of nuclear deterrence: Sir Michael Quinlan. He was permanent secretary at the Department of Employment when I served there as a junior Minister. He then moved back to the Ministry of Defence, which was his real home.

While working for the Government and before he got moved to the Treasury in 1980 or ’81, he wrote some words that were not known to be his at the time:

“Our task now is to devise a system for living in peace and freedom while ensuring that nuclear weapons are never used, either to destroy or to blackmail.”

No one has yet made a serious case that our abolition of the continuous at-sea deterrent would do much to reduce the possibility of blackmail or the risk of destruction.

[Mrs Moon]

May I remind the House of the Budapest memorandum? Ukraine gave up its nuclear capability of 1,700 warheads and a large number of other capabilities; in return, Russia, the US and the UK agreed to secure its stability and safety.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The hon. Lady, the leader of the NATO parliamentary delegation, makes the point better than I could, and I am grateful to her for doing so.

I occasionally speculate what would have happened had not Mr Putin but his FSB predecessor become President of Russia. Had Nikolay Kovalyov become President, things might not be so rough now—nor for Ukraine—but that is not the issue.

We have to prepare for whatever happens in any major country around the world. We have to remember that one of the reasons why we had our independent deterrent was to give a second place of decision making, so that people did not rely only on the Americans being prepared to respond, but thought we might if we had to. I hope that we never do have to.

I recommend that real students of policy operating in this field get the collected correspondence of Sir Michael Quinlan and go through the essays in the book edited by Francis Bridger in 1983 for the chapter that Michael contributed. It followed on from the work of the Catholic bishops’ conference in the United States, and all that has guidance for us now. It does not say what we have to do in the future, but it gives us the reasons for where we have been in the past 50 years.

I join with others in paying tribute to the submariners and to the people in the dockyards and the like who have kept the deterrent going. One of the proudest times in my life was when I held a dinner in 2003—two years before the 200th anniversary of Nelson’s death at Trafalgar—at which I sat down with two Marine generals and 38 admirals. Those admirals were there to represent the people of all ranks who had served and all the civilian contractors who had helped. We thank them.

Veterans Strategy

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 15th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point clearly. We want every local authority to recognise what its duties are to help our brave veterans. The more we can do that via the veterans board, the better it will be. In these discussions we are illustrating the variety of support that veterans receive, whether it be from charities, local authorities or, indeed, Government Departments—

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Ellwood]

I was about to finish my sentence, but of course I will give way.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I apologise. I thought there was a full stop. I am embarrassed.

If local authority veterans champions, who in my constituency include Terence Chapman of Arun District Council and Tom Wye of Worthing Borough Council, and others were encouraged to make known the kinds of things they are doing—obviously preserving confidentiality in individual cases—more people would know what is available and to whom they can refer if there is a problem. The key task is to make sure there is not a problem so that the veterans champions do not have to be brought in because the covenant is built into what local authorities are doing.

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right. It should be the mindset, the modus operandi, of any local authority. It should be very clear who the armed forces champion is—it should be on the local authority website so that people know who to go to.

Many types of support are available for veterans. A veteran may be in a very dark place when they seek support, and the last thing we need is a confusing picture as to where that support can be found. Charities have been mentioned, as have local authorities and national government. Each plays a role, and we have established the veterans gateway to provide a single portal where any individual can make a phone call or go online to seek the necessary help to guide them to where they need to go.

Again, this is in its infancy. We have 400 service-facing charities, not all of which are signed up to the gateway. We want them all to sign up. The big ones have signed up, but they are also running their own call centres. Either way, we need this to work. We need this to be the vehicle, the single portal, for any veteran who requires help. When I refer to help, it is not necessarily physical support—it might be help in looking for more employment or in setting up their own initiative—but this is where they need to go.