United Kingdom Military Installations

Priti Patel Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

The work we are doing with the United States includes the operational security of our missions, especially joint missions that we undertake bilaterally with the United States and as part of NATO and further afield. On our base security at home, the work our security forces and armed forces do with the United States visiting forces and intelligence agencies is very close, very deep and ongoing, which means that we have a close partnership to meet the threats we are facing. We do know that the threats are increasing, so we are increasing our work accordingly. We continue to work with our US friends, and we will make sure that we do so with our European and NATO allies as well.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

The Minister has spoken about the severity of the threats we face, and that affects our entire national security. The prospect of military espionage is severe and the type of tactics we have seen are very serious, and a major arrest has been made this week. Does the Minister think that he and his Department have all the resources, skills and experience they need to tackle what is an ever-changing and evolving threat to our national security and, in particular, to our military bases?

[Luke Pollard]

The right hon. Member is right that the threats we face are increasing, and they are increasingly complex as well. This is not just about human espionage by people, but about how espionage involving criminal gangs and cyber-attacks can be paired together. We in the Ministry of Defence work very closely with the intelligence agencies—both ours and those of our allies—and we continue to invest further in that. She will have heard me talk about the £470 million for base security, and there are additional budgets, both in the defence budget and the wider Home Office security budget, for our work with the intelligence services.