Oral Answers to Questions

Rob Roberts Excerpts

Monday 15th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we get our strength through coalition and our alliances, and NATO is the most successful military alliance the world has seen. In addition, I led the way in ensuring that countries that were not covered by NATO at the time—Sweden and Finland—signed together a mutual defence pack about two years ago, when no one thought that they would now be joining NATO. We encourage nations to join NATO and to apply using the open-door policy; at the same time, we seek to help other nations to join using memorandums of understanding and other agreements, to try to bolster that enabling alliance.

[Mr Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

T2. Following the groundbreaking work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) on the experience of women in the military, Delyn constituents were pleased to hear the announcement of a women veterans strategy. Could the Secretary of State provide an update and a timeline on when that might be implemented?

[Mr Wallace]

I can. I will write to the hon. Gentleman, as the strategy will be the responsibility of the Office for Veterans’ Affairs. I will be happy to provide him with further details.