World Cup 2018: FCO Preparations

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Tom Tugendhat

Thursday 14th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee for his statement, and I extend my best wishes to the UK embassy team in Russia, who undoubtedly have a huge job ahead of them over the next few weeks. Having seen what they did in Ukraine for the one-off football match, I am sure that they will be putting lots into it. Is the hon. Gentleman aware of what extra resources the embassy and consular teams in Russia were given by the FCO, and can he adumbrate that if so?

The hon. Gentleman talked about the FCO not putting advice on the website for LGBT travellers until it was asked to do so. Why was it not forthcoming in doing that in the first instance, given the obvious dangers that such people may well face? Will he facilitate through his offices and resources any post-World cup briefings with the Foreign Office and perhaps the Russian embassy, our embassy teams out in Russia and organisations such as FIFA and UEFA?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his extremely well-made points. We have looked at the resourcing, and there was an increase in resourcing for the embassy in Russia. We welcome the efforts of the Foreign Secretary in doing that, but he was—one must be fair to him—restricted by the expulsions that followed the attempted murder of two people in Salisbury, which has hindered the FCO’s ability to support so many fans. However, that should not be an excuse, and it is not.

We look forward to hearing what the Foreign Office tells us afterwards and to hosting various groups—UK, Russian and international—that have been involved in this, to hear how the World cup went and how such events can be improved. As with all Select Committee proceedings, the hon. Gentleman will be enormously welcome to attend that. As he knows, his hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) is a strong advocate for those interests on the Committee.

Armed Forces (Flexible Working) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Stewart Malcolm McDonald and Tom Tugendhat

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 30th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins), who, as usual, spoke eloquently on a subject that is clearly very close to his heart.

I am very glad to be speaking on this Bill, because it is important to remember not just what goes into forming the armed forces but what exactly they are for and why flexibility matters. I intend to speak briefly, if I may, about a few of the operational commitments that we are currently engaged in. If we look at NATO’s work in Estonia, where a British battlegroup is currently in Tapa on the border with Russia, or the work we are doing in supporting the Ukrainian Government just a little further south, we can see that we are hiring not just soldiers but diplomats—people who can engage not just in a traditional battle of military might but a battle of ideas and messages. We are not merely taking young men and giving them a weapon—we are giving them ideas with which to combat the enemy.

That requires very special people. It requires people who can train themselves not only to a state of physical fitness so that they are able to carry the body armour, the Bergens, the weapons, or whatever it happens to be, but to a level of mental fitness such that even in exhausted situations after weeks of arduous training—or indeed, should the worst happen, operations—they are able to think hard and out-think the enemy. In areas like Ukraine, they can think through the complexities that are required when talking to a young man in a language that they do not speak and two weeks later have him ready for the frontline and Russian-backed militias.

We are asking an awful lot of these people, not only in that respect but in terms of endurance. With continuous at-sea nuclear deterrence, we are asking people to stay at sea in a state of preparedness for six months at a time, day in, day out, as we have done for the best part of 40 years. It is not just hard to be on operations—it is really hard to maintain a level of readiness when you think you probably will not need it, but you just might. That requires a level of command and discipline that is very difficult to imagine in other walks of life. Yet we expect it daily—in fact, we are expecting it right now—of the sailors who are at sea. We also expect it of the sailors who are conducting other operations in submarines, whether they are approaching enemy coasts or preparing our intelligence services to be informed of the next terrorist action—listening, perhaps, off the coast of a foreign shore.

Those may not sound like traditional military skills, because so many of us grew up with things like—I am going to date myself now—“The Guns of Navarone” and other such fabulous movies from the 1960s and ’70s—

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

Fake news!

[Tom Tugendhat]

Thank you. We are still going to watch “Star Wars” at some point.

We are looking to train people in skills that are very much of the 21st century. Indeed, we have seen those skills being put to use around the world when we look at places like Mali and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the level of engagement that is required not only with foreign armies in places like the Sahel, where several European armies are working together in a multilingual, multinational brigade, but with local forces, some of whom, frankly, barely qualify for the term “militia”, let alone “army”.

As we ask those people to do such extraordinary things, we are also trying to prepare them for the threats of which we are increasingly becoming aware in the cyber- domain. Attacks in the cyber-domain are not limited to election time in the United States, nor to espionage against us in the UK or attacks on our NATO allies, as was the case in Estonia. They happen all the time and everywhere. The cost of cyber-attack has reduced to such an extent that a relatively well-resourced sub-Saharan state could fairly easily hire a Russian hacker to damage our soldiers and our infrastructure in a peacekeeping mission.