Ukraine

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

I am certainly aware that there was an alarming level of content from the west in a number of Russian systems that were compromised in the early part of the war. That leads to two further points. First, there is the reassurance that if we are constraining our supply chain to Russia—which the sanctions regime largely is, albeit not completely and we need to work on that—its capacity to develop complex weapons is diminished. Secondly, that also suggests that Russian industry does not have the ability to do these things itself.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

It does seem now as if this war will be much longer than we had all hoped. In that context, political leadership will change. While it is important that NATO maintains its present position, NATO leadership may change over time. What steps can be taken, including by our Ministry of Defence, to make the case across the world that the defence of Ukraine is in the global interest, not simply the Ukrainian national interest?

[James Heappey]

The UK has been making that case from the outset. The stated aim of the UK Government has been that Russia must fail in Ukraine and be seen to fail. That is first because that is the right moral outcome for Ukraine—it deserves to restore its territory and live as a free sovereign country—and secondly because if Putin does not fail in Ukraine, he will be emboldened to go again and again. Euro-Atlantic security over the next 30 to 50 years would be profoundly affected as a consequence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Grant Shapps]

As I have described, it is a complex position on the ground to get the aid all the way through, but I am happy to either meet or take details from my hon. Friend to ensure that those donations get where they are intended.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Defence Ministers will be aware that the situation in Kosovo is deteriorating dramatically. Can the Secretary of State give us an assurance that the current international military presence there is sufficient to counter any threat from Belgrade?

[Grant Shapps]

When the Supreme Allied Commander Europe asked us for additional support for the Kosovo-Serbian border, the answer was immediately yes, that weekend, and we have a battalion there now, which is doing a great job. That has contributed to a lessening of tensions, and we are keeping a close eye on it in our conversations, to ensure that we do not see the situation erupt.

Ukraine Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 5th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The size of the Army currently stands at about 79,000. There has not yet been a reduction from the 82,000 as such. In fact, I think it is higher than when I first started as Defence Secretary, so my record is in the wrong direction at the moment. We will obviously look at the issues around vulnerabilities. The integrated review identified Russia as our most pressing adversary, and I do not think that anybody is going to need to change that observation. If we receive more funding—I think the first preparation for battle will be with the Treasury, to make sure that we get the profile that makes the difference—I will of course be delighted to have a much wider conversation with all Members of the House about where they envisage us spending that money in order to make our armed forces the very best they can be. We have a role to play not just in Ukraine and Europe, but globally. That is one of our differences and I would be delighted to explore more with hon. Members.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

History can be a double-edged teacher. We know that the Soviet Union lost out in Afghanistan because public opinion among the people of the Soviet Union turned so firmly against it. Are we able to do more to make sure that real information is getting through to the Russian population, particularly older people who are dependent on state-controlled media, about what exactly is happening to their sons in Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

There are two parts to that. Obviously, we do our best to make sure that the people of Russia understand what is going on, and I would be delighted to arrange a briefing for the hon. Gentleman, if he would like one. On the wider issue, we should not forget that, although this is not getting out of Russia, the Russian people are feeling it themselves. It is not possible to ignore the cemeteries, with lines and lines of graves, the exodus of international companies, or the fact that the standard of living is starting to drop in some parts. The problem is that, in a country whose Government do not really listen to, or care much about, their own people, I am not sure that has a major effect on the decision makers, but we need to never stop telling the Russian people what is actually going on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

A brilliantly topical question, if I may say so, with Farnborough taking place this very week. I was delighted to announce last Friday at the Royal International Air Tattoo our £2.3 billion investment in ECRS mark 2 radar. This British-made world-leading electronic warfare capability will transform our combat air. It is just one example of how we will continue to invest in combat air as we develop our next generation future combat air system programme. We are currently investing some £2 billion into FCAS, with industry and international partners likewise investing in what will be an extraordinary combat capability.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

A few moments ago, the Defence Secretary mentioned Typhoon and the advantages of international co-operation. Is this Government, post Brexit, prepared to have a clear strategy to say that co-operation across Europe is in the interests of defence jobs here in the United Kingdom?

[Jeremy Quin]

It is absolutely the case that co-operation across Europe is helpful to our own defence sector and to the capabilities of the entire western alliance. A couple of weeks ago, I was there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation, a major procurement hub that we do jointly with the Germans, the Belgians, the Spanish and the Italians. There are umpteen programmes, including Typhoon, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, and Boxer, on which we work very closely. Indeed, the ECRS mark 2 programme to which I have just referred will be integrated by a P4E integration programme across our Typhoon partners. It is absolutely right that we work with all our allies across NATO and they include many of our European friends.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Heappey]

My hon. Friend has already seconded me on a number of occasions to speak to colleagues around Government on his behalf, as part of his campaigning on behalf of those who worked for the British Council. He knows, I think, that both the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Home Office are seized of the need to do the right thing by them. The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme is clearly the opportunity. In Islamabad three weeks ago, while of course my focus was ARAP, I was able to also reassure myself—I hope he will be encouraged to hear this—that all is in place to begin bringing people out under ACRS through that route as well.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

9. What steps the Government are taking to support NATO allies in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)]

We have doubled our presence in Estonia, reinforced the enhanced forward presence battlegroup, and deployed an aviation taskforce to Lithuania. We are contributing to enhanced air policing over Romania and Bulgaria, and enhanced vigilance activity in Cyprus, Poland and the Baltic states. We have deployed additional troops and capabilities to Poland, and led the development of joint expeditionary force activity options.

[Tony Lloyd]

One of the strengths the Secretary of State will have at the NATO summit is the fact that this country has done so much to support our NATO allies. His second great strength is that we hit the 2% of GDP contribution. That is important to empower those who argue with our NATO allies that they must hit the same figure. Earlier on, the Minister for the Armed Forces would not answer directly the question of whether we will maintain that 2% spending. Can the Secretary of State assure the House now that the 2% will be maintained or, preferably, increased?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman asks a straight question and I will give him a straight answer. Between now and the end of the comprehensive spending review period, we are at 2%—in fact, 2.3%—of GDP. However, inflation, GDP and growth shrinking off GDP will affect all those GDP pledges, which is why some countries in NATO have very high GDP spend, but also have a very small economy. Within the comprehensive spending review period, I am on track to be above 2%.

Ukraine: UK Military Support

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The rebuilding challenge to be completed by our Ukrainian friends, supported by allies, will be huge. The rebuilding of infrastructure will cost billions of dollars. I think that we will be supporting that effort from the Government side, and I am sure that there will be many private sector opportunities. Bridges will be involved in that infrastructure effort.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Russia has significant cyber-attack and cyber-defence capabilities. Can we provide assistance to the Ukrainians so that they can adequately defend themselves against such attacks?

[Leo Docherty]

That is an extremely pertinent question. The answer is yes. Of course, there are other centres of excellence around the world; the Estonians, for example, know a great deal about countering the Russian cyber-threat. We must understand and be aware that the collective western response is not just about positioning large, static forces of men and women in military units; it is also about ensuring that Ukraine and her allies are afforded a robust cyber-defence.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

4. What steps the Government are taking to support NATO allies in response to Russian aggression.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

16. What steps the Government are taking to support NATO allies in response to Russian aggression.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

We are currently supplying significant air power to NATO’s eastern flank, as well as sending ships to the eastern Mediterranean. We have a well-established and enduring contribution to the NATO enhanced forward presence battle group in the Baltics and in Poland—in recent weeks we have almost doubled our military forces in Estonia to demonstrate that capability and our resolve to support that region.

[James Heappey]

NATO is acutely aware that the threat has evolved beyond the three conventional domains and into space and cyber-space as well, which is why that is a key part of NATO’s transformation plans. The UK is to the fore in that, because we have invested ahead of many of our allies in both defensive and offensive cyber-capabilities. So the UK voice is very much to the fore in discussing with NATO how we develop a cyber-capability for the alliance.

[Tony Lloyd]

Is not one lesson of the brutal aggression of Russia in Ukraine that the decision by the Baltic states to join NATO was the right one? Aggression in Ukraine is not a vindication of NATO’s expansion; it is a vindication of the Baltic states’ joining our military alliance. Is there not a lesson for all NATO powers, including our own: we have to think again about how much we are prepared to spend on defence?

[James Heappey]

Make no mistake: the NATO membership of our great friends and allies in the Baltic represents one of the great strengthening moments of the alliance generally. Nobody is prouder to fly the NATO flag than Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, and we stand four-square behind them and behind what it would mean if President Putin were to try to compromise the territorial integrity of those countries in any way. As for the hon. Gentleman’s wider question about resourcing defence across the alliance adequately, I strongly agree; we are one of only a few countries that has been routinely spending the 2% of GDP target. It is fantastic that this moment of challenge within the euro-Atlantic has meant that other countries have now increased their spending to meet that target, too. If there are arguments for more money for defence, no Defence Minister is ever going to object, but we should reflect that the UK has been spending 2% for a while and was given a very significant uplift from the Treasury only 12 months ago.

Support for Ukraine and Countering Threats from Russia

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

Our guiding principle must be that the sanctions are swift, severe and sweeping. On those three tests, what has been done so far still falls short, as my hon. Friend says. This House and Members from all parts of it have an important role to play in ensuring that we maintain unity, but also that we do more.

I say to the Minister that we will give Labour’s full support to the economic crime Bill introduced into this House on Monday, but it was promised more than five years ago. We will give our full support to the reform of Companies House, but that was first announced two and a half years ago and we still have only a White Paper, not legislation. I urge him to urge his colleagues in other Departments to step up, to speed up and to display the kind of leadership that he and his Front-Bench comrades from the Ministry of Defence have shown in recent weeks. We also give them our full support.

This is a debate for Members far more expert than I to speak in, so I will be brief. I want to emphasise that there are six areas in which action is required and in which our unity will be tested. These are six areas in which the Government have had Labour’s full support in the action they have taken so far. To the extent that the Government go further, they will maintain Labour’s support.

First, there is military support for Ukraine. As further Ukrainian requests come in—I know the Minister and the Secretary of State for Defence are serious about this—we must respond by scouring our inventories, stockpiles and weapon stores to provide the Ukrainians with what they can use immediately. We must reinforce their capability and capacity to defend their country.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend raises an important point. We need to ensure a supply of arms for the Ukrainians, but could we also look at the possibility of our Polish and Czech allies furnishing weapons that we backfill? It would be quicker to move them into Ukraine from Poland or the Czech Republic than waiting to move them from the UK.

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right, and I expect we may hear from the Minister that exactly that sort of action is being taken. It is certainly what some other European countries are doing, because the premium is on providing the defensive weapons and lethal aid that the Ukrainians require now. The fastest route to do that is required.

The second area is the requirement to cut Russia out of the international economic system. Putin himself has opened up a new front. The western sanctions are now opening up a new home front for Putin to fight on, because people in Russia are rightly asking why they cannot take their money out of the bank, why they cannot use their credit card and why they cannot use the metro. People in Russia are bravely coming out on to the streets to demonstrate the growing dissent in Russia for Putin’s rule.

But to be effective, we must do more and act faster. As I said a moment ago in response to interventions, to the extent that the Government are willing to act, they will continue to have Labour’s full support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

Can I begin, as others have done, by expressing my admiration for the role that the Ukrainian armed forces—sometimes irregular, sometimes regular—have played? Most of us have been astonished by the resistance they have been able to put up, and I think that that astonishment applies in Moscow as well. Along with that, I want to add my genuine appreciation for the Defence Secretary and the Defence team, who have been exemplary in the way in which they have operated to ensure that we are supporting the capacity of the Ukrainians to defend their own country. That has been absolutely fundamental, and it is a leading example of how we as a nation ought to behave, so well done there. I wish I could be quite as complimentary about the role of our sanctions regime, because we are playing catch-up there. It is a matter of fact that the EU has sanctioned far more individuals than we have, including two who have major UK interests, Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman. We have not sanctioned those individuals, and it is astonishing that we are seeing the EU sanctioning those with assets here when we do not.

Something else that we now have to look at seriously is the way in which our legal system has been acting to defend the interests of those around Putin and the oligarchs who base their moneys here. An example is the ability to prevent journalists from examining the truth. Inquisitive journalism is fundamental to outing the role of dirty money in the City of London, as we must do. That is a matter of national shame, but we are playing catch-up on that as well. I hope that Ministers will take that message on board, because it is now time now to do this. I think there is consensus that we can do it, but it is not just about the dirty money; it is also about those who protect that dirty money in our society. I think there is consensus around that.

I am also bound to reflect on the potential, even now, for the flow of refugees. We do not know how this situation is going to end. We do not know what will make Mr Putin and those around him pull back from this level of adventurism, and because we do not know that, we have to assume that things will get massively worse and that the flow of refugees will get worse. If the flow of refugees does get worse, and if we are talking about the potential for many millions of refugees, the UK clearly has to be prepared to respond.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Following a point made by the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) about places being unable to cope with the numbers of people coming through and the need to keep them flowing, one of the difficulties is the dog-leg in the UK system that people have to navigate to get visas. I am currently waiting in real time for the Home Office to tell me where a bunch of 12 people can go to get visas. Their travel to Scotland is all arranged, but the difficulty, the bottleneck, is the Home Office. We should not be doing this right now. People can get moving and get going, but they do not know whether to get a bus to Warsaw or where else to go, or where they can get a visa. Hopefully we will know in the next few hours, but the frustration and the angst for their family back in Lewis is huge. I just wanted to put that on record.

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Gentleman is right. If we could see the same alacrity from the Home Office that we have seen from the Ministry of Defence, we could make a material difference.

I spoke earlier this week to the ambassador from Moldova. Moldova is a country of something short of 3 million people, yet it has already taken 90,000 refugees, which is proportionately the equivalent of the UK taking in 2 million people. Moldova is a desperately poor country and it cannot accommodate that 90,000. There has to be some process by which the flow of refugees can be moved from the reception countries to those that have greater capacity, but in any case we need to ensure that we are making the necessary humanitarian assistance available to Moldova. The bureaucratic point about the Home Office is inevitably a real one, and it is time for Home Office Ministers to act to ensure that they are part of the solution and not part of the problem.

There is one other point I want to make, and it is a little more wide-ranging. We have to look forward, and we have to do that in two ways. First, we need to make sure that we have a commitment that our role with respect to Ukraine is not just during this period of crisis. We are always excellent at focusing on a crisis before moving on, whether it be Syria or Libya—we can all list them. We have to be here for the long run, because Ukraine is too strategically important both militarily and to the ecosystem of the wider Europe. On that basis, and the time is not now, reconstruction has to be somewhere on the planning agenda of the G7.

My other point will be massively controversial. When the European Coal and Steel Community was created back in the 1950s, the logic was that coal and steel were the key strategic industries of the era of post-war reconstruction. The community worked together to create something a little different. Energy is today’s strategic variable.

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, made an incredible move by saying that he will wean Germany off Russian oil and gas, and we have to begin thinking about how we can play a role in supporting those who depend on that gas. That will be Moldova and Ukraine, and it may well be Germany, too. It will take imagination, but it is the kind of thinking we saw when Ernest Bevin created NATO and when the European Coal and Steel Community was created all those years ago. That may be controversial, but now is the time to do it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I thank my hon. Friend for the question. We have more than 1,000 science, technology, engineering and mathematics—or STEM—representatives. We ensure that about 90% of all non-commissioned roles have the opportunity to take apprenticeships, which go right the way across new areas of skills, including STEM skills. That includes the outstanding Harrogate College. From memory, part of the syllabus includes space, autonomy and cyber. We are ensuring that we are absolutely at the cutting edge.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

T8. The rise of terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa is continuing and poses a strategic threat to the United Kingdom. In that context—given that the United States is probably downgrading sub-Saharan Africa, and only France is totally committed—what actions will the UK take to bring our allies together on this issue?

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (James Heappey)]

I am not sure I will accept that characterisation of the US position. I thought Secretary Blinken’s speech in Abuja was very encouraging. The UK is committed in east, west and southern Africa, against not just the rise of violent extremism, which concerns us enormously, but also increasingly how our competitors and adversaries are using countries to develop their influence. We see that as a bad thing in the long term, and we are seeking to counter it.

Loss of Secret Documents

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Quin]

I understand my hon. and gallant Friend’s concern, which will be shared by other hon. and gallant Members and by his former serving colleagues, but I think it is important that we have the investigation and find out exactly what is at fault. That also includes an examination of our policies and procedures to make certain that they are fit for purpose.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister recognised in his comments, I think, that revealing this information could have put the safety or even the lives of our serving personnel at risk. In that context, it is not scapegoating to say that if it was human recklessness, it has to be dealt with in a salutary manner—but if there is system failure, Ministers have to look very carefully at themselves and at senior officials to know why it could have taken place. The investigation has to give reassurance that this can never happen again.

[Jeremy Quin]

I am not going to say whether it is human recklessness, or what it is, until the investigation has reported. As I say, there are quite serious policies and procedures in place; whether they need to be tightened again is a subject for the investigation, and I will be interested to hear what it says. We will take what it says very seriously, I can assure the hon. Gentleman.