Arms and Military Cargo Export Controls: Israel
Debate between Douglas Alexander and Rachael Maskell(4 days, 10 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Alexander
We are not directly sending parts to Israel for the F-35s. We are continuing to support the global component pool of the F-35 programme for the reason that I have set out. We as a Government judge that there is a material risk to the security of our NATO allies, and more broadly to European security, if the F-35 aircraft that are used by a number of our allies were no longer able to secure the supplies and the aircraft were therefore no longer able to fly.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to understand who is making the rules about the spare parts pool. Surely if we are trading into that pool, we have a right to set the rules. If those components are going on to F-35s that are being bought by Israel, we have a right to block those parts or to kick Israel out, as we did with Turkey in 2019.