Luke Pollard
MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport · Labour (Co-op) · United Kingdom
“As the Member of Parliament for Devonport, where we not only base-port but refit Type 23s, I know that many of those ships that have given decades of service are no longer able to provide the capabilities we need.”
“It is unlike the SNP to be so positive about defence, isn’t it? The Type 83 and Type 32 were PowerPoints—there was no budget attached to them. That is why in the defence investment plan we set out a plan for a common combat vessel and a hybrid Navy to fulfil the opportunities that the retirement of the Type 45 presents for us.”
“If the right hon. Gentleman is talking about a salary of up to £1 billion, he is cosplaying as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), isn’t he? Seriously, we are the third-largest cash spender in NATO. At the spending review next year, we will be setting out an increase in defence spending.”
“My hon. Friend really is the Member of Parliament for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, as she is determined to champion it so frequently. She will have seen in the defence investment plan our commitment to the new generation of fleet solid support ships, and she will have seen the work that this Government have undertaken since 2024 to address…”
“I say seriously to the House that my hon. Friend has been an incredible advocate for Rosyth. I have met him on a large number of occasions, and he has been absolutely determined to talk not just about the potential of Rosyth, but about the professionalism of the men and women who work there and the opportunity for young people to have a c…”
“We inherited a situation where the north-east was the region with the lowest Ministry of Defence spend in the country and we have made it a mission to increase defence spending in the north-east. We have an incredible talent pool in the north-east, with brilliant defence companies both large and small doing brilliant work.”
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“Can the Minister confirm, when he talks about adding civilian expertise to the defence serious crime unit, the length of the embedding expected of reservists? Murphy highlights that short placements will neither benefit the overall operational capacity of the DSCU nor help the individual who is placed. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent about the recommendation of the Henriques review that the deputy Provost Marshal should be a civilian. I note that when this instrument was debated in the Lords, and the question was raised, the Minister replied that the embedding of reservists who are police officers in the Home Office police forces will be a way of adequately coping with the lack of civilian oversight, and will bring in more civilian expertise.”
“Will the Minister tell us what the staff capacity will be when the unit opens next month? Is 370 the establishment figure that the Department is aiming for, or will it be 370 people at their desks, operational, by the time it opens in December? In relation to civilian expertise, we all recognise that there are pockets of expertise in our armed forces, but also in civilian policing. Finding ways to share expertise is really important. The Government have said that the DSCU will have access to civilian expertise, a promise that must be kept in light of the expertise deficit that was found in the Murphy review. The Murphy review also said that short, informal training placements are no good.”
“Are they simply being transferred from other service policing, or is there a specific form of recruitment that the Department has undertaken to find the gaps in expertise and fill them with some of those 370 people? Will the Minister set out what the unit’s annual budget will be and, importantly—because we are in an era where the Defence Secretary has accepted annual real-terms cuts in the defence budget—could he set out whether the budget that the defence serious crimes unit will have will be the same this year, next year and every year until the end of this spending period? Having 370 personnel sounds good now, but if that is to be cut by the same proportion as the day-to-day cuts to the armed forces that we are seeing from the Government, that figure will be lower at the end of the spending review period.”
“I do have concerns, though, about the capacity of the defence serious crimes unit to do enough to remedy the legitimate concerns that we and service personnel have about restoring trust. It is in that spirit that I am going to ask questions of the Minister. My first question is about staffing and resourcing of the defence serious crimes unit. I note that in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood the Minister made the case that it would be 370 personnel. That is a sizeable commitment and is very welcome. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out where the expertise is coming from within that 370 personnel and where those personnel are being drawn from.”
“It is right that each branch of our armed forces has a service police that investigates crimes, and I put on record my thanks to the highly motivated staff for the work that they do. I am concerned that reports and investigations into many of our service police forces have found that personnel cannot be considered proficient in investigating serious crime due to their lack of experience. That is the conclusion reached by the Government’s commissioned review from 2020, conducted by the former chief constable of Merseyside Police, Sir Jon Murphy. Labour welcomed the provision for the tri-service serious crimes unit during the passage of the Armed Forces Bill, and we note that the extension in today’s statutory instrument is a step in the right direction.”
“We need only to have read the news over the past few months and seen the lived experiences of many of our service personnel, especially women, to realise that it is not just the execution of justice at the end of a criminal inquiry, but a culture within our armed forces, that has enabled many of the most serious offences to be covered up and sidelined, or not get the attention that they should have done from commanding officers and peers within our armed forces. It is welcome that a journey has started, but more still needs to be done. Reform is needed, and Labour will not be opposing either of the statutory instruments. However, I have a number of questions that I would like to ask the Minister, the first of which is about the Armed Forces (Tri-Service Serious Crime Unit) (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2022.”
“I think everyone in this House agrees that our service personnel deserve a system that is able to investigate and prosecute crime effectively, but there have been clear challenges to that system, and clear holes that have appeared over the past couple of years. It is good that the Government are looking at this issue, because there are serious flaws in our service justice system that need to be looked at.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Fovargue, and I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the SIs and answering so many of my colleagues’ questions about them. It is good to see him in his place, even if it does mean that I have lost my co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the National Trust, who will be replaced in due course. I warn the Minister that the last time my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and I served on a statutory instrument Committee together and I said good things about the Minister, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), she was sacked only hours later. It was sad to see her go, so I will be careful about how positive I am about the Minister today, because I would like him to stay in his place a little longer.”
“The court martial system is one part—an important part—of our service justice system, but for service personnel, veterans and the public to have confidence in the whole system, every part of it must work properly. The prosecution of serious crimes in the service justice system is not working as well as it should. The conviction rate for rape cases tried under court martial was just 9% between 2015 and 2020, whereas the figure in civilian courts is 68% for parallel charges. If we look at the quality of justice, as the Minister suggested we do, we see a gaping divide between the expected outcomes in service justice on the prosecution of rape cases, compared with those in civilian justice.”
“The Minister said that the DSCU’s victim and witness care unit would be operational by early 2023. Will he set out more detail about the timetable for that and what will happen in the meantime? That may be only a few months away but, knowing Government timetables and what “shortly” sometimes means, I know that early 2023 could be at any point in 2023. Getting some specifics on the timetable is important to build trust. I turn to the Armed Forces (Court Martial) (Amendment) Rules 2022. Labour will support these rules at the end of the debate, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide answers to a few questions. They are worth asking, and they complement the discussions that many of us in this room had only a few weeks ago on the most recent SI on service policing.”
“If the Minister is making the case that civilian policing and the operation of the DSCU should be parallel, such a cosy relationship should not be allowed with the DSCU—or, indeed, with the service police. The Minister said that the SI had been introduced because of the Armed Forces Act 2021. That was three or four Ministers ago, and it has taken a long time for these small but important changes to be brought forward. Will he set out what other changes from the Act we are still waiting for? The reforms are moving at a snail’s pace. He will know about the regularity of armed forces Acts, and I do not want him to get to another one before many of the provisions from the last one are implemented. That means having a clear timetable for implementing the provisions.”
“He says they will be published in the usual way, but I would be grateful if he could commit to them being publicly published, so that people can look into them. On the extent of the scrutiny and inspection, section 104 of the Murphy review says that all three service police have “an arrangement whereby from time to time they negotiate with HMICFRS as to what they consider they should be inspected upon. This arrangement could be regarded as ‘cosy’ and does not exist in civilian policing” where “Chief Constables have no say in when they are inspected or on what subject.” Will the Minister set out whether the same cosy relationship will apply in the case of the DSCU inspection regime, or whether it will be sufficiently different?”
“Will the Minister set out the expectation for the gender balance in the overall unit, and whether there will be any specialist trained officers or personnel in that unit who will deal with serious sexual offences, if they will be investigated? The hon. Member for Barnsley Central raised an important point on inspection, and I want to probe the Minister a bit further on that. It was said in the Lords debate on this SI that the DSCU would be “independently inspected by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 8 November 2022; Vol. 825, c. 566.] but the Minister did not concretely say that the findings would be published publicly.”
“It would help to look at that when ironing out discrepancies, as the Minister talked about. The final thing that I want to understand regarding the DSCU is gender balance. The Minister was right that, when we discussed a previous statutory instrument about personnel not only on courts martial and other boards but in investigations, there was a discussion on the gender mix and the experience that can be brought to bear. That is especially true when we are looking at the large number of crimes against women in our armed forces. It is about ensuring that those who prosecute offences have appropriate lived experience, for the sake of the victims of those offences.”
“That is a good principle, notwithstanding the unique environment in which many of our armed forces operate, but he also said that the DSCU command, as well as being operationally independent, will look at civilian policing qualifications for DSCU officers, I imagine to try to get greater experience and expertise across from civilian police forces. That seems welcome. Is there a similar ambition for service police? I am working on the expectation that many of the 370 personnel in the DSCU will be drawn from service police forces. Is it the intention that the training in civilian police qualifications will happen when they are moved into the DSCU, or will there be an attempt to match that qualification on to the DSCU feeders, which will be the individual services’ policing operations?”
“In response to the initial intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood, the Minister said that there has been no impact assessment, but given the heavy reliance that the Ministry of Defence is placing on reservists it seems to me that some work will have been done to look at the overall capacity and availability of personnel to fill that role. I am not quite convinced by the argument that no impact assessment or work has been done to provide that information, because if it has not been done there is a real risk that it may not work, despite the Government’s good intentions. I welcome the Minister saying that he would like more of the process to be aligned with civilian processes.”
“Will police officers who are reservists be moved into the posting? Will those individuals be given much choice about it, and how will that work? I want it to work; my concern is that a lot of emphasis is seemingly being put on something that we cannot quite understand the true extent of. I would be grateful if he set out what that will look like. Will he also set out the seniority of the civilian officers he expects to be embedded, and how they will be managed? Will it be part of the normal structure, or will there be another structure? Will a minimum threshold of training and expertise in handling serious crime be required to be embedded, or will the qualification simply be that of being a police officer in one of the forces, and being a reservist and having passed the necessary training?”
“Can the Minister expand on what he means by specialist investigative support when it comes to additional civilian expertise? Who will that come from and on what basis? What expertise will be provided, or will it be commissioned on an ad hoc basis depending on each investigation? What budget will be allocated for it? With the addition of specialist investigative support and the embedding of reservists, the Government are seemingly putting a lot of weight on cavalry coming over the hill to resource the unit, rather than the expertise being built and trained in establishment figures every day. I would be grateful if he set out what he means by that in particular. I would also be grateful if the Minister said what he means by embedding reservists. Is that on a case-by-case basis? Is it a formal drafting or a secondment?”
“I am grateful for that intervention. That is useful to know. In relation to where the specific expertise comes from within those forces—the Home Office and other forces—we need to understand how many of the 370 will be reservists and how many will come with specific experience, because there is a big difference between drafting in a reservist with many years of experience as a traffic officer and drafting in a reservist with many years of experience of investigating serious crimes, particularly serious sexual offences. I would be grateful if the Minister spelled that out, because the backfilling of the expertise that we need seems a bit woolly. Paragraph 7.1 of the draft explanatory memorandum says that specialist investigative support will be provided to the DSCU.”
“If we are to look at the two systems in parallel and consider which is most effective, I am not convinced that the argument has been made as to whether we should be looking at simply defence of a system or at defence of an outcome. If we are to look, as the Minister has invited us to do, at the quality of justice and the quality of outcomes for murder, manslaughter and rape, we should perhaps look at that in relation to where this sits.”
“Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood about which recommendations of the Lyons review the Minister has decided to accept. In our last SI discussion, I asked the hon. Member for Wrexham, who was sitting in the Minister’s seat at the time, about the recommendations for moving manslaughter, murder and rape from military courts to civilian courts. That recommendation was made in not only the Lyons review but the Defence Committee report that the former Minister drafted when she was on that Committee, to which more than 4,000 serving women and veterans contributed. The Government opposed the amendments on moving manslaughter, murder and rape and other sexual offences when we debated the Armed Forces Act last year.”
“I am grateful for that intervention, because it allows me to challenge the Minister. If we are seeking to provide greater continuity between service justice and civilian justice, we need to question why those large gaps exist. Is the decision on whether to try a case based on the threshold of evidence presented in that case, or is it about the outcomes of the procedures within the justice system? We have a parallel justice system, and unless someone has been through it or operated in it, there is little public awareness of military justice compared to civilian justice. Notwithstanding what the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead has said, I think it is fair to try to understand what gaps exist to challenge the quality of justice. The point was made well by my hon.”
“Some of the assumptions about how justice is delivered in our armed forces are sufficiently different that an introductory session into defence justice would make a useful addition to the experience provided to Members of Parliament in the AFPS.”
“I understand that it does, but I would be grateful if the Minister could set that out. Finally, in our last debate on these statutory instruments, it was obvious that there was a lot of cross-party interest from Members of all parties. However, there was not a huge amount of experience in defence justice. I suggested that the fantastic armed forces parliamentary scheme, which is co-ordinated between the Armed Forces Parliamentary Trust and the Ministry of Defence, could look at a component relating to defence justice. The previous Minister said that she would take that up. I would be grateful if the Minister who has taken her place could also look at that. Although there are many parallels between defence justice and civilian justice, the approaches are very different.”
“In the past, it has been said that is because the Gibraltar regiment sits outside the rules, which is an argument that I can understand. However, that does not apply to UK armed forces stationed in Gibraltar. Will the Minister set out whether alternative provisions apply to Gibraltar for UK personnel stationed or based there, whether those provisions apply to the Gibraltar regiment or UK armed forces personnel stationed at a base in Gibraltar separately, and how the improvements being offered by the SI apply to UK armed forces personnel in Gibraltar? It seems that there is a deficit in relation to Gibraltar. It says in the territorial application—I say this for those who are following online; I am sure the debate makes good listening—that there is an ability for this to apply to courts martial held around the world.”
“I am not convinced that without any work being done, it is sufficient for the Minister to say, “It will all be fine on the day,” when he has told this Committee that no impact assessment has been made. What assurances can the Government provide that the expansion of six-member boards will not contribute to a backlog in hearings? What assessment has been made of that? Will the Minister look at the territorial extent of the regulations? As set out in paragraph 4.1 of the explanatory memorandum, the regulations deal with the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories, except Gibraltar. The Minister has probably been told by his officials that I ask this question fairly regularly. It seems that we are building up a large deficit of updated regulations that apply to Gibraltar.”
“Will the Minister set out whether the gender balance of the court martial panel would need to be looked at if the woman was disposed of by illness or other things? Will the guidance that his Department provides cover whether the gender balance of a depleted court martial board should be a reason for a trial to be re-resourced? What guidance will be provided? I turn to the capacity of the service justice system to deal with the changes proposed in the statutory instrument. Dropping the level from seven to two seems logical. Looking at the number of personnel needed on a panel, the changes proposed seem to make sense. Will the Minister set out whether the increased numbers that would be required fit within the estimates of available personnel, and how those estimates were made, given that the Government have made no impact assessment?”
“I am grateful for that advice. If we are to look at court martial for serious offences, we need to look at whether things should be in the military system or should be dealt with via the civilian system, but I will go with your ruling on this one, Ms Fovargue. If we are talking about courts martial, I invite the Minister to look again at the make-up of military panels. He mentioned the provisions for what should happen if a member were to become sick or otherwise indisposed and therefore not able to look at a case. Something that was heavily debated in relation to our last statutory instrument was the gender balance of those court martial panels—the provision brought forward was for a woman to be on the panel.”
“I am grateful to the right hon. Member for giving way. Reservists do a brilliant job, and the blended force that we have between regulars and reserves is really important. The point I was making is that having the—”
“I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point. That is not what the explanatory memorandum says, however. It says: “The extent of this instrument (that is, the jurisdiction(s) which the instrument forms part of the law of) is the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the British overseas territories (except Gibraltar).” It explicitly says that it does not include Gibraltar. I hope the Minister is correct, but if he is, the wording of the explanatory memorandum may need to be revisited.”
“Plymouth is getting a freeport, and we have shovel-ready projects for building there, but our council and business groups invested heavily in the investment zone bid. Will the Minister confirm whether the investment zone project is now dead? We need to ensure that those shovel-ready projects are delivered—if not by an investment zone, by some other means.”
“There is an incredible opportunity for Ministers to seize, but I implore this Minister to adopt a fair-share approach to the way in which the regions are funded. No industrial strategy will work if the lion’s share of investment goes to the south-east. Places such as the south-west often miss out on the levelling-up agenda. Cornwall is the poorest county in the country, but it often has a very small share of the voice when it comes to the levelling-up narrative. Our kids are worth £300 less per child in school funding. We will not be able to achieve our potential if we miss out on £9,000 per class, and I urge the Minister to look again at how we can deliver on that potential.”
“That would lead to more jobs, more taxation, and more of the commercial spin-offs and innovation that would benefit not only the civilian marine and maritime world, but military deployment as well. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am quite excitable about this project, because I think it is a genuinely exciting project that all Members should have a look at. It is spread across the far south-west, building on the expertise and the network that we have not only in Plymouth but throughout Devon and, indeed, Cornwall. Thales, M Subs, Sonardyne and many other companies are investing in high-skill, decent jobs, creating an avenue for young people in the future to build not only on the work of Princess Yachts—creating world-class British yachts—but on Babcock’s work in our dockyard.”
“Alongside manufacturers of civilian and military surface, underwater and deep-sea autonomous vehicles, we have a cluster of expertise, investment and gold-plated opportunity for the Government to support, and I think they would be foolish to miss out on it. There will be only one world-class autonomous centre on the planet, and Plymouth is at the forefront of what it could be. I ask the Minister to back us, because with more investment in our city, we could be that resource—not just for Britain or Europe, but for the entire planet, creating high-skill jobs here in Britain. Would the Minister consider creating a marine autonomy accelerator in Plymouth, helping to commercialise the spin-offs that we are gaining from our incredible industry?”
“This is a cutting-edge collaboration between Plymouth University, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Marine Research Plymouth and the Marine Biological Association—all of them world-class marine bodies—and it builds on our existing industrial and science base. What we are developing in Plymouth is truly world class: the UK’s first autonomous coastal observing and monitoring network. It builds on the success of Plymouth’s Smart Sound project, which delivered underwater wi-fi and 5G—they provide a better signal than can sometimes be had on land—to kick-start autonomous vehicle research and the first autonomous proving ground in the country.”
“Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)—is no longer in the Chamber, but I hope that if he were, he would add to the long list of examples that he gave earlier the incredible resources and expertise in Plymouth in respect of marine autonomy, which is critical to the exploitation of marine industries in the future. Industrial strategy must not be limited to land-based industries, and Plymouth is turning the tide and showing how important the ocean is to innovation. Last month I attended the opening by Princess Anne of our new National Centre for Coastal Autonomy at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.”
“It is an absolute nonsense that since we left the European Union our passports are no longer made in Britain, but are made in France; it is an absolute nonsense that, probably within days, the fleet solid support ships—those vital new supply ships for our Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary—will, instead of being built in a British shipyard, be built in a Spanish one; and it is an absolute nonsense that our farmers are being undercut by trade deals signed with countries on the opposite side of the planet for lower-standard food when we should be buying more British food. That is what Labour Members mean when we say, “Buy local, buy British” and “Make, buy and sell more here”. As a proud west country MP, I talk about Plymouth with real passion, because we have so much potential. The Science Minister—the hon.”
“We should build, make, buy and sell more products in Britain. I think the Government should redraft their procurement rules to favour British companies first and foremost, creating more jobs in Britain. Labour proudly says, “Buy local, buy British”. It is a shame that there are not more Conservative MPs present to hear that, so I will shout it more loudly to enable Members in the Tea Room to hear it: we want people to buy local and buy British, backing local jobs in Britain. That is at the heart of our strategy.”
“We welcome last week’s announcement on the provision of further surface to air missiles to Ukrainian forces and welcome the announcement of support to protect and upgrade Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, but given the parameters of the support we want to provide I wish to press the Minister gently but seriously on some of the uncertainties in that. The UK must support Ukraine for the long term, and I believe that there is cross-party support on that, but that means that we must move beyond the ad hoc announcements made by Ministers about donating weapons to being clear about a long-term strategy for military, economic and diplomatic assistance through 2023 and beyond.”
“The Minister will know that we on this side of the House fully support the help the Government are providing to our friends in Ukraine, and I want to put on record our thanks to the United Kingdom’s armed forces not only for their work supporting Ukraine and co-ordinating supplies of military aid and humanitarian support, but for reinforcing our allies on NATO’s eastern flank and training Ukrainian troops here in Britain through Operation Interflex. On Britain’s military help to Ukraine, the Government have had, and will continue to have, our fullest support.”
“He has already forcibly enlisted more than 200,000 new recruits into the Russian army, and with around 100,000 Russian soldiers having been killed or wounded since the war began in February, the casualty rate of poorly trained, poorly equipped troops with low morale remains catastrophic. Body bags and burnt-out tanks are all Putin can offer his people. As the Ukrainians continue to show incredible resilience in defending their homeland, we must continue to do all we can to support Ukraine both now and in the months ahead.”
“The Ukrainian liberation of Kherson, a region Russia had illegally occupied for more than eight months, is a testament to the skill, bravery and fortitude of the Ukrainian military and is a significant blow to the Kremlin. The Ukrainian advance comes only weeks after a ceremony in Moscow in which Putin announced the “forever” annexation of Kherson along with the Russian-occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Russia’s retreat from Kherson is a significant moment in the war, and the withdrawal shines a light on how badly the invasion is going for Putin.”
“Before I make my remarks, I would like to pay tribute to our armed forces and veterans who came together on Remembrance Day yesterday. I was on Plymouth Hoe yesterday morning, but wherever we were we saw a nation pause, thank those who served and remember those who did not come back and those who were forever changed by war and conflict. We are now on day 264 of Vladimir Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine, and with each day it becomes clearer that he is failing in this misguided war. Putin has not achieved his objectives: indeed, he has strengthened the western alliance, and with each of his decisions he further strengthens our resolve.”
“Given the Minister’s and Secretary of State’s previous comments on defence spending, can the Minister say whether he and the Secretary of State will still be in their places if Defence funding is cut in the Chancellor’s autumn statement on Thursday?”
“At the Defence Committee, the Secretary of State for Defence said that with additional defence inflation, he has £8 billion of additional costs on his budget. If we are to continue to provide support to Ukraine and ensure that we can afford an enhanced forward presence for our NATO allies and our other NATO commitments, we need certainty that funding will be available as required for our armed forces. I have been re-reading the rather good “Shifting the goalposts?” Defence Committee report, which shows that Labour Governments have always spent more on our nation’s defence than Conservative Governments. Does the commitment to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 still exist? Can the Minister see a point where Government defence spending will fall below the NATO 2% of GDP target?”
“The effect of Russian bombardment of civilian infrastructure is already degrading Ukraine’s ability to provide clean water and power to all of its population, and that will drive a further humanitarian crisis. I turn to how we can afford the defence of the UK and our allies in Ukraine. The Government’s disastrous mini-Budget cost £30 billion—the equivalent of 60% of the UK’s current defence budget, which could have been better spent on hospitals, teachers and the cost of living crisis. That sheer amount of money—abused by the Government—is the cost of 23 brand-new Type 26 frigates. The MOD is the only Government Department in the current spending round with a real-terms revenue cut each year. New figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that, adjusted for inflation, that is a £2.7 billion real-terms cut to defence spending.”
“Just as in Bucha, Izium and Mariupol, there is now evidence of Russian war crimes in the Kherson region. We will not know for some time how many civilians the Russians have butchered, but we must be unrelenting in our pursuit of those war criminals until each and every one of them has stood trial for their crimes. As Ukrainians face the arrival of winter, it is becoming increasingly clear that Putin’s strategy is to target civilian infrastructure, including energy and water plants. The Minister set out some support that the UK Government are providing, but what additional missile defence is the UK providing to its allies to protect Ukrainian infrastructure from missile attacks by Russia? What plans does he have to deal with the potential for an additional flow of cold and hungry refugees this winter?”
“What steps can he take, working with our allies, to monitor and shut off possible purchasing routes for Russia of western dual-use equipment like gyroscopes, wi-fi technology, ceramic chips, resistors and semiconductors? This is a complex area, and I realise that I have put the Minister on the spot, with his colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), replying to the debate, so if he cannot set that out, I would be grateful if he put a letter in the House of Commons Library. It is a difficult area but one that we must ensure that we are getting right. Since the war began, Russian troops have been committing atrocities against Ukrainian civilians.”
“The House has already passed sanctions on such equipment, but the concern is that western electronics and technologies are still reaching Russian weapon manufacturers. That will be concerning to colleagues, so we need clarity that British firms are not, in good faith, making materials or contributing to the supply chain of western manufacturers whose end products could end up killing Ukrainian civilians. What steps are the Government taking to identify dual-use technologies that could be used by Putin? What steps is the Minister taking to stop those technologies from getting into the hands of Russia or its agents? Does he feel that the current dual-use technology sanctions are sufficient?”
“If that is true, that delay is dangerous and one that the UK can ill afford. I turn to a technical but serious area that has not been addressed: dual-use technology, which is civilian technology that can have a military application. Last month, the United States imposed a set of new sanctions on Russia targeting a network accused of procuring military and dual-use technologies from US manufacturers and illegally supplying them to the Russian war machine. The Royal United Services Institute, the UK defence think-tank, confirmed in August that UK components are appearing in Russian weaponry. That can include oscillators and standard crystals. No UK-produced equipment should end up in the hands of Putin and his generals, but it is especially difficult to be sure of that when it comes to dual-use equipment.”