Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

That is something I can talk about a little bit, because of my last role as Health Secretary. We have made it clear to the EU that we are very happy to continue with the European health insurance card scheme, which allows British citizens to access healthcare free of charge anywhere in the EU and the same for EU citizens coming to Britain, but obviously there has to be agreement with the EU to do that, and we are waiting to see whether that is the outcome. On EU citizens living in the UK, we have made it clear that we want them to stay here—they make an important contribution to our economy and national life—with broadly the same rights as they currently have.

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

It is nice to see you after the summer, Mr Speaker. I welcome my right hon. Friend to his new position. The Foreign Affairs Committee looks forward to working with him to deliver a policy overseas that delivers for British people wherever they find themselves and in whatever difficulty they may be.

On the EU and Europe, I want to ask my right hon. Friend about the defence of Europe. With an expansionist and aggressive country to the east corrupting and using its influence in various of our European allies, does he agree that standing up for NATO is just as important as standing up for co-operation with our EU partner states, and does he not also agree, therefore, that tying in the United States is important and that, for example, naming the new NATO headquarters after Senator McCain, a man who did so much for European defence and trans-Atlantic partnership, would be a strong symbol on both sides of the Atlantic that we are in this together?

[Mr Hunt]

I very much look forward to working with my hon. Friend in his role as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I have great sympathy for what he says about Senator John McCain, who was a great statesman and friend of this country. He is absolutely right, too, that we have an opportunistic foe testing our defences at every opportunity, and we are far more likely to be successful if we stand together with our allies across Europe and the Atlantic.