CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman for the terms in which he, broadly speaking, has addressed the UK’s recent diplomatic activity. I have just a couple of points to come back on. He talks about the UK breaking international treaties. I do not know what he is talking about there, but if he was talking about what we are doing in respect of the Northern Ireland protocol, that is not what is happening. We believe that our prior obligation, which I would have thought he supported, is to the balance of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. That is what we are supporting. He talks about the UK’s ability to win people over. It was striking in the conversations I had with leaders from around the world how few of them, if any, raised the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol, and how much people want to see common sense and no new barriers to trade. What the UK is doing is trying to reduce pointless barriers to trade and one would have thought that he supported that.

On the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s points about the UK’s contribution to NATO and to the new force model, and whether that is sustainable, I suggest that Opposition Members should talk to NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg about what the UK is producing and committing—it is colossal. We are the second biggest contributor to NATO and the second biggest contributor of overall support for the Ukrainians, providing £2.3 billion in military assistance alone. We are also ensuring that our armed forces are provided for for the future, with £24 billion in this spending review—the biggest uplift in defence spending since the cold war. Defence spending is now running at 2.3% of our national GDP, which is above the 2% target. That is felt around the room in NATO; people know what the UK is contributing and are extremely grateful.

As for what the UK also contributes to NATO, under the new force model, we will contribute virtually all our naval forces. As the right hon. and learned Gentleman also knows, we are the only country to contribute our strategic independent nuclear deterrent to NATO. I still find it a sad reflection of the Labour party that, at this critical time, when Vladimir Putin is sadly using the language of nuclear blackmail, we are in a situation in which the principal Opposition party in this country still has eight Members on its Front Bench who voted to discard our independent nuclear deterrent, including the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). Apart from that, I welcome the terms in which the Leader of the Opposition has responded.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s statement. I ask him: was there general agreement at all three summits that our fragile rules-based order is under threat, and that strategically we have entered a profound era of geopolitical change? I commend his efforts in Ukraine—it is a shame that other NATO countries have not lent as we have—but I encourage him to go further and secure a UN General Assembly resolution to create a humanitarian safe haven around the critical port of Odesa, so that vital grain exports can reach not only Europe, but Africa, to prevent famine there.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend particularly for his point about grain exports. As he knows, the work is being led by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The UK is doing a huge amount to support but, as I have told the House before, we may have to prepare for a solution that does not depend on Russian consent, because that may not be forthcoming.