Valerie Vaz
Main Page: Valerie Vaz (Labour - Walsall and Bloxwich)Department Debates - View all Valerie Vaz's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(1 year ago)
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James Cartlidge
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to champion the community groups supporting Ukraine. On his other point about the US, I can only speak from my own experience. I referred to the contact group meeting we had on Teams recently. Secretary Austin led that from the beginning to the end, emphasising all the way through that as far as he was concerned, the US was in it for the long haul. I believe that that is the case. This is about freedom. Freedom is at stake here. We have fought this far to protect it, and we have to keep doing that job if we are to defend freedom across our continent.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
In August this year, the then Defence Secretary said that he would publish the action plan for Ukraine in 2023. Will it be published before the end of the year?
James Cartlidge
I simply say to the right hon. Lady, as I have been saying throughout, that we are delivering action every week in Ukraine. The amount of ordnance we have supplied and continue to supply—particularly in terms of air defence, which is now increasingly crucial—is huge. I have listed the many numbers. Some of it, of course, we cannot talk about. There are technologies that we are testing out there, ensuring that our munitions are successful. What I can say is that if we look at the work of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, for example—as I say, I cannot talk about the detail—we can see that it has had a huge bearing on the impact of what we have donated into theatre.