(11 months, 1 week ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent 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
I am not familiar with that detail and will have to write to the right hon. Gentleman on it.
You, Mr Speaker, and the Minister will know that one strength that the Government and people of Ukraine have got from this place, both with their President’s two visits and the visits of Members of Parliament, is the cross-party consensus on UK support for Ukraine. Does the Minister agree that it is concerning—unless I have got this wrong—that today the shadow Secretary of State the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey), perhaps for the first time, slipped into party political fighting over this? I have a great deal of respect for the right hon. Gentleman and hope that will not be the case as we get nearer to the election because of the strength offered by this place through the cross-party consensus for support for the Ukrainian effort against Russia’s illegal invasion.
The right hon. Gentleman the shadow Defence Secretary has a job to do and it has been a feature and a great strength of the UK response that it has been largely non-partisan. I think the right hon. Gentleman saw an opportunity through the omission in the autumn statement, but I hope in my initial answer I was able to explain to him why understanding the Ukrainian plan must come first and announcing what the UK will do to support that plan necessarily comes second.
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is unclear whether the right hon. Lady is reading from Hansard because that is exactly the question asked by the Front-Bench spokesman, which I have answered already.
Behind the criminal gangs often lie the root causes of disease, famine, poverty, poor governance, conflict and war. We have heard reference today to Syria, Iraq and Libya. My hon. Friend mentioned the Sahel. What discussions has he had with his defence counterpart in the French Government about President Macron’s decision to withdraw the 5,000 troops based in the Sahel, which of course will stretch UK armed forces further in that important region?
We speak to our French counterparts regularly, and the Sahel is a frequent topic of conversation. The French would argue that they are going through a transition from one operation to another—from Barkhane to Takuba—but that is clearly a decision for France. The UK’s commitment in the Sahel through the UN peacekeeping mission operation MINUSMA and our support to the French through Op Newcombe remains in place, but it will not surprise my right hon. Friend to know that the UK is looking for opportunities all the time to do more in western Africa. We recognise that the instability in the Sahel poses a direct threat to the UK’s interests. Indeed, were it not for the telegraphing of the intent of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) to ask the urgent question, I would have been in Accra today having exactly those conversations. But it is a pleasure to be here answering these questions.
(3 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Gentleman tempts me to give him a lecture on the intricacies of the MACA process, which I have come to love over the last nine months. The reality is that if he feels that his local authorities would benefit from military support, he should ask them to put in a MACA request, and the MOD would look to resource that, as we have done on hundreds of others over the course of the year thus far. If he feels that the chief executive of his local authority would benefit from assistance in generating that MACA request, he can write to me and I will be delighted to help.