Richard Foord
Main Page: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)Department Debates - View all Richard Foord's debates with the Cabinet Office
UK-EU Summit
Richard Foord Excerpts(1 day, 19 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
That is why it is so important that we are putting the money—more than £300 million—into working with those communities to take advantage of the deal that we struck yesterday.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
We heard from Ministers over the weekend that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. The Prime Minister said in his statement that the deal paves the way for access to the €150 billion defence industrial programme, SAFE—Security Action for Europe. If everything has been agreed, why does the security and defence partnership not include access to the SAFE industrial programme now?
The Prime Minister
That is because the programme itself is being developed at speed. It was only announced the other week. It was announced in response to, and as part of, the work we are doing with the coalition of the willing. Knocking out the first gateway was important. We will now work with the EU to ensure that we can access that fund as quickly as possible. It is not a long-existing fund that has been in place for years; it is developing at the moment in response to the situation in Ukraine. I think the hon. Member knows that.