Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between James Heappey and Alex Norris(1 year, 4 months ago)
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The Minister for Armed Forces (James Heappey)
I am glad that my hon. Friend and many other colleagues went to Faslane last week and enjoyed their visit. We are of course committed to the replacement of Vanguard submarines with Dreadnought. More importantly, he mentioned the brilliant people based at Faslane who deliver day in, day out our nation’s nuclear deterrent, unseen under the oceans of the world. They are incredible people doing amazing work.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Ukraine
Debate between James Heappey and Alex Norris(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
James Heappey
My hon. Friend, his constituents and the service people who live in his constituency should be enormously proud of what the members of 12th Brigade, headquartered in Bulford and with many living in Tidworth, are doing in Estonia today. I paid tribute earlier to the speed at which the Royal Welsh has gone from a training cycle in Germany to driving north into Estonia. I include, too, the many families of the Royal Tank Regiment who will have been expecting their loved ones home in the next couple weeks and now do not know when they will be coming home because the extension of the tour is indefinite. That, too, is worthy of praise. They are fortunate to have such a fantastic advocate in the House of Commons.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Reports indicate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure. Can the Minister expand on how that is being tracked so that those who perpetrate these crimes and those who compel them to do so will be held to account?
James Heappey
Absolutely. Yesterday, many Members of the House will have seen reported in the news the summoning not only of the Russian ambassador to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, where the top lines of Her Majesty’s Government were delivered, but of the defence attaché to the Ministry of Defence. In the MOD, the discussion was very much around how we are recording the violations of international humanitarian law and the Geneva convention that we have reported, our expectations that Russia will operate under those conventions, and our intent to make sure that it is held to account wherever it does not.