Situation in the Red Sea

Sammy Wilson Excerpts

Monday 5th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

My hon. Friend asks a good question that has not yet been asked. The answer is yes. We are looking carefully, and the locations chosen on this occasion were indeed from a combination of US and UK intelligence.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

The Government are right to have this strong response for what may seem to many to be a faraway war or incident, but which could impact so much on people’s lives here in the United Kingdom, through food shortages, supply chain disruption and inflation. Given the reports about shortages of Royal Navy personnel, the difficulty with munitions, the difficulties with some ships and now the increased demands on the Navy because of tensions with China and Russia—maybe even Argentina in future—will the Secretary of State assure us that we have the capability to play our part in keeping supply chains open? What discussions has he had with other allies to get them involved in the task of supporting us in this job?

[Grant Shapps]

The right hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of trade. Some 90% of our goods come to this country via the sea, so it really matters to the United Kingdom, but it matters to the whole world. He mentions personnel, munitions and so on, as have one or two other Members. In my time as Defence Secretary, I have not been unable to deploy exactly where I have needed to, for example at the request of NATO when we deployed to Kosovo—they have returned home now—or for this conflict in the middle east, where we have needed to carry out the actions that we are discussing. On each occasion, those have been available. I previously mentioned a £288 billion 10-year programme on equipment and the success in recruiting more personnel. I encourage other countries to match our defence budget, which is comfortably above 2% of GDP and heading up to 2.5%—the sooner they do that, the better.