John Healey MP: speeches

Speeches

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is a convention that if military action is authorised by the Prime Minister, that is reported as soon as possible to this House. It is important to any Prime Minister and any Government that if they commit UK forces to military action, they will want the support of all sides of this House.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I paid tribute to the previous Government when they put in place Team Barrow, in recognition of the fact that the future of its shipyard and submarine building programme was not just a matter for the Ministry of Defence. I would say the same thing to my hon. Friend, and I would be pleased to meet him to discuss it further.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It is the previous Government who have to answer for the impact of Brexit. As a new Government, we have set out to rebuild relations with key European allies, especially on defence and security. Although NATO remains the cornerstone of our European security, there is an important role for the European Union. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has started discussions with the European Union, as indeed has the Prime Minister, on how we can achieve a greater level of co-operation between the EU and the UK.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have made decisions on the suspension of arms sales to Israel, and we have set out the details of those to the House. We are working, as well as calling, for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza so that all hostages can get out, all the aid needed by the Palestinians can be flooded in, and the first steps can be taken towards the political solution that is ultimately the best guarantor of two states and a permanent peace in the area.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We have an unshakeable commitment to the right of Israel to defend itself and we have demonstrated in the past a willingness to stand with Israel, particularly when it has been under direct under attack from Iran.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The middle east continues to be a major focus for the Government. Last week, we passed one year since the horrifying Hamas terror attack on Israel. We marked the memory of those who were murdered, we grieved with the families of the hostages who are still held, and we share the agony of so many Palestinians over the civilians who have been killed since. We are working on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. In Lebanon we are working to reduce the risk of further escalation, and a ceasefire and the UN plan for a buffer zone are vital to that. In addition, last week I visited British troops in Cyprus, where contingency plans are in place to deal with further developments. On behalf of the House, I thank them for their professionalism and their dedication.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  This is day 963 of Russia’s brutal, illegal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On my second day in this job, I travelled to Odesa and met President Zelensky, because Ukraine is one of my first-order priorities, just as it is for the Government. Since then, we have stepped up military aid, sped up the delivery of battlefield supplies, and confirmed that we will supply £3 billion a year in military aid to Ukraine this year, next year, and every year that it takes for Ukraine to prevail.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  I will indeed. If the hon. Gentleman could be so kind as to send me the executive summary, rather than the full report, I will certainly take a look at it.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  I agree with my hon. Friend, and I too pay tribute to the work of Medics4Ukraine. The UK’s Defence Medical Services is also at the forefront of Ukraine’s efforts to develop a modern military healthcare system. We have provided training for battlefield surgical teams, we have supplied medical equipment, and, as a world leader in military rehabilitation, we are supporting the development of Ukraine’s rehabilitation hospitals. A member of our defence team will be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and Medics4Ukraine to take this matter further.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman is right on both counts. First, the defence of the UK and the rest of Europe starts in Ukraine, and it is essential that we stand with Ukraine and support it for as long as it takes. Secondly, as he says—this is a matter that the Prime Minister and I discussed with the new Secretary-General of NATO, Mark Rutte, last week when he was in London—the allies together must do more to support Ukraine now, and to produce what it needs in the future. The new Secretary-General will make that one of his priorities.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Ukraine: Military Support · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right: that is the first priority. It will be the centrepiece of the Government’s defence plan, and it is at the heart of the strategic defence review. When President Zelensky was in London last week, he made it clear that for Ukraine, this is a critical period in the war. The Ukrainians are fighting with huge courage, but the Russians are putting great pressure on their frontlines. Putin shows contempt for the lives of his own soldiers: the average Russian losses in September were 1,271 per day, a record high and two and a half times the level this time last year. As Zelensky promotes his victory plan, we in the UK and our allies must do all that we can to strengthen Ukraine during the coming weeks.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Russia: Armed Forces · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman describes the double challenge of continuing to support Ukraine and replenishing our stockpiles, particularly of the weapons, ammunition and systems that we have gifted to Ukraine. The Government already have £1 billion-worth of contracts for replenishing UK stockpiles across a range of systems, and I can tell him that around 60% of the contracted production will be in the UK. That is the way we strengthen Britain’s security for the future, but also strengthen Britain’s economic growth and prosperity.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Russia: Armed Forces · Hansard source

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  I feel more confident in this job than I did when I was in my previous job. I recently attended the US-led gathering of almost 50 countries in Ramstein, where they made a long-term commitment to supporting Ukraine now and into the future. That gave me confidence that, with work, we can play a leading role in helping that coalition to hold together, and in getting NATO to do more to co-ordinate action and ensure that we get support behind Ukraine, so that it prevails and Putin loses.

• 14 Oct 2024 · Russia: Armed Forces · Hansard source

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  Russia’s declared total military expenditure was around 4.7% of GDP in 2022. In 2023 it was 5.9% of GDP, and the forecast spending this year is up to around 7% of GDP. As the right hon. Gentleman knows very well, the public figures almost certainly do not tell the full story about Russian expenditure.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is quite right: stepping up the pledges of aid is one thing, but speeding up the deliveries is another. That is why, on that second day in Odesa, I made an undertaking to the Defence Minister and President Zelensky that this was a Government who would do both. I am able to update the Defence Minister in Ukraine of progress on each of the elements of the package that we have pledged.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman asks a question with a good deal more information than the rest of the House. I will write to him with the detail he seeks rather than trying to give a superficial answer from the Dispatch Box.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I have said that Ukraine is my first-order priority, and I was in Odessa on my second day in the job. I have now had the privilege of meeting President Zelensky four times while in post, and I have met his Defence Minister six times. Like the previous Government, we consistently try to respond to the needs that Ukraine says it has for systems and ammunition. At the moment, above all, it needs new supplies of ammunition and stronger air defence systems capable of taking down Russian missiles and drones at different distances. While the US made a commitment at Ramstein last week to an extra $250 million in air defence systems, we made a commitment of an extra £160 million through a short-range modern air defence system—650 LMMs, with production under way—the first of which will be delivered to Ukraine before the end of the year. We are stepping up the support that we pledged for Ukraine and speeding up the support that we deliver to Ukraine.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on Ukraine, but may I first reflect on last week’s dreadful news of the death of Royal Naval pilot Lieutenant Rhodri Leyshon? On behalf of this House, I pay tribute to him. He was a consummate professional to his colleagues and was dearly loved by his family. He will be sorely missed by so many, and the thoughts of this House are with them today. It has now been 930 days since Putin launched his full-scale illegal invasion of Ukraine—930 days in which Ukrainian forces have fought heroically while communities have endured relentless attacks. Children have been stolen to Russia, and families have seen their homes destroyed. Yet, throughout everything, Ukraine has stood tall in the face of Russian aggression. Since day one, when I was the shadow Defence Secretary and sat in the place now occupied by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), this House, and our country, has been united for Ukraine. In opposition, Labour backed every package of military aid, every sanction on Russia and every scheme to support civilians, such as Homes for Ukraine. I know the Opposition will continue to work with the Government in the same way, because this House stands united for Ukraine. I have been proud of UK leadership on Ukraine, and I am determined that it will continue. I am also determined to work across this House, so I will offer Opposition leaders regular intelligence assessments on the conflict. I will offer MPs of all parties regular Ministry of Defence and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office briefings, the second of which took place in the MOD this morning. More than 100 colleagues from both sides of the House have attended the briefings, and the House will receive regular updates on the conflict from me. Ukraine is a first-order priority for me as Defence Secretary, and for this Government. That is why, on the second day in the job, I flew to Odesa and joined President Zelensky and his team for the afternoon. I told him that the Ukrainians’ courage inspires the world. I also told him that this new Government will step up support for Ukraine at this critical moment. In our first week, we announced a new package of UK military support, including ammunition, missiles and artillery guns; a new commitment to speed up the deliveries pledged by the previous Government; and a promise to spend £3 billion on military support for Ukraine this year, next year and every year for as long as it takes. In the weeks since, we have stepped up support even further. We have signed a new £3.5 billion defence industrial support treaty, hit the £1 billion milestone for the International Fund for Ukraine, advanced the UK-led maritime and drone capability coalitions, and agreed a new £300 million contract for artillery shells. At the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting in Ramstein on Friday last week, I announced a new £160 million production contract for air defence missiles. I also announced that the UK’s Operation Interflex, which has trained 45,000 Ukrainian troops since 2022, will extend beyond this year and throughout 2025. Our support is both short term and long term, entailing immediate provision and long-term production. We are training troops today and developing Ukrainian forces for the future. This approach gives the Ukrainians the confidence to plan, and it sends a signal to Putin that the UK and our allies will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. There have been important battlefield developments during the past month. In the first week of August, Ukrainian forces launched a remarkable offensive across Russia’s border and into the Kursk region. This exposed the vulnerabilities of Putin’s frontline forces, and it demonstrates Ukraine’s ability to achieve surprise strategic attacks. It also helps to better defend Ukraine and its northern centres by pushing back against sites from which Russia can launch deadly attacks. Around 900 sq km of territory is now held by Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region, and this has put Putin under pressure. After initial disarray, Russian forces are now deploying to the area in greater numbers. But eastern Ukraine continues to be Russia’s main focus, with tactical advances bringing Pokrovsk within approximately 8 km of the frontline. With Russia continuing to rely on infantry-led assaults, its casualties remain high and rising. Daily casualties have doubled from this time last year, with Russia averaging more than 1,100 a day killed or wounded in July and August alone. Meanwhile, recent Russian air bombardments have been some of the most intense since the start of the war. President Zelensky stated on Friday in Ramstein that 4,000 missiles and drones were fired at Ukraine in the last month, targeting critical national infrastructure and attacking civilian centres, including Poltava and Lviv in the last week. Since 2022, the impact of this has been that Russia has destroyed or captured more than 50% of Ukraine’s power generation capacity, forcing Ukraine to implement power outages with winter approaching. Meanwhile at sea, Ukraine has scored some significant successes, including driving Russia’s fleet out of the western Black sea to reopen export trading routes and destroying or damaging 26 Russian naval vessels operating in the Black sea, including a Russian Kilo class submarine just last month. Despite these notable achievements, Russian pressure across the whole of the frontline will continue in the months ahead. Russian industry remains on a war footing, Russian artillery is outfiring Ukraine by at least three to one, and Russia is also conscripting or recruiting 400,000 additional soldiers this year. For the coming weeks, two things are clear: Ukrainians need to strengthen their frontline in the east and look to hold the territory in Kursk. The longer they hold Kursk, the weaker Putin becomes. The longer they hold Kursk, the better defended Ukraine will be. This was discussed at the US-led Ukraine Defence Contact Group that I attended last Friday with other Defence Ministers and President Zelensky. This was where military support and unity for Ukraine were strengthened among 50 allied nations, and where the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin served an important reminder to everyone: “If Ukraine is not free, the world is not safe.” This is why the defence of the UK starts in Ukraine. If President Putin prevails in Ukraine, he will not stop at Ukraine. If big nations redraw international boundaries by force, the sovereignty and security of all nations is undermined. That is why UK support, alongside allies, is so important: military, economic, industrial and diplomatic support. I also want this House to know that we are seeing clear growing signs of Russian aggression beyond Ukraine. NATO allies are reporting Russian drones violating their airspace. The heads of the UK and US security services have confirmed that Russian intelligence is conducting a “reckless campaign of sabotage” across Europe, and last week the National Cyber Security Centre revealed that Russia’s specialist GRU unit is conducting offensive cyber operations directed at Governments and civilian infrastructure. Putin is targeting our security. He is targeting our way of life. We face a decade of growing Russian aggression, but this is a Government who will protect our people and our country. We will actively deter and defend against Russian threats, working in partnership with allies. That is why, as a new Government, our defence policy will now be NATO first. As we approach 1,000 days of war, this conflict is at a critical moment. That is why the UK is stepping up support. Because this is not just Ukraine’s struggle; it is our struggle too. Ukraine is fighting to regain its sovereign territory, but it is also fighting to reinforce peace, democracy and security in the rest of Europe.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments and for his welcome to me. I note the points that he makes. On the point about my not announcing anything new, I just say to him that I did so on Friday last week. This is my first opportunity to update the House on the announcements of extra aid not just last week, but in the weeks over the summer recess—and, indeed, the package in our first week in office. This is the fourth sitting week since the election, and I hope that he will be reassured by my personal undertaking to ensure that I update the House on developments in Ukraine on a regular basis.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend follows these matters closely and speaks with authority in the House on these things. We have been warning—in fact, the previous Government were warning too—about the deepening security alliance between Iran and Russia. Part of the declaration, made alongside international partners, at the NATO summit in Washington warned Iran that any transfer not just of drone technology, but of ballistic missile technology to Russia would be regarded as a significant escalation. The House can take a broader lesson from my hon. Friend’s point: Iran’s destabilisation is not a malign influence that is simply felt throughout parts of the middle east, but has wider repercussions, which is why Iran is one of the most serious threats to this country in the future.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  May I pass on through my hon. Friend our thanks and tribute to any of his constituents who have been involved in the Interflex training programme to date? On the question of pursuing Putin for his war crimes, this is a Government—indeed, this is a country, which is a tribute to the previous Government—that has been willing to help fund the Ukrainian effort to gather the evidence required to prepare potential legal cases that will allow us to bring to justice those leaders in Russia who are responsible. The Ukrainian legal authorities are currently documenting 135,000 reported incidents of alleged war crimes in their country. That is a huge job and they cannot do it without our expertise and our support. Fundamentally, we are a Government that, in opposition, made the commitment to support the setting up of a special tribunal that potentially could try President Putin for the crime of aggression.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support, his tone and his commitment to continuing to back further military aid to Ukraine, including the £160 million contract for lightweight multi-role missiles that I announced last week. He talked about the “mass sacrifice” of Russian personnel, and he is right. President Putin is a leader who shows contempt for the lives of his own soldiers. On UK leadership, I have set out to the House my determination to maintain that leadership in the support for Ukraine, and demonstrated how we stepped that up in the first week, in the weeks that followed and last week at Ramstein. In terms of the lessons for drones, their deployment and our work with Ukraine, we are learning those lessons. We need to speed that up. Given the hon. Gentleman’s previous job, he will be well aware of the implications for the way in which we procure and contract for capabilities, both for export and for our stockpiles. On stockpiles, we have—as he will also know—so far spent £1 billion in the UK on replenishment. We have plans to build that, because we need to boost not just production, but the productive capacity of UK industry, so that we are capable of demonstrating that it can be scaled up in the face of future threats in a way that is not apparent at present. The hon. Gentleman asks about long-range missiles. I have to say that only Putin benefits from an open debate about those sensitive issues, and I will not comment on operational discussions. There has been no change in the UK’s position. We continue to provide military aid to Ukraine, as I have set out, to support its clear right to self-defence and in line with the operation of international humanitarian law. On the question of 2.5%, we will increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. The last time the UK spent 2.5% of GDP on defence was in 2010, when I last stood at this Dispatch Box as part of the previous Labour Government. In 2010, the Conservatives cut defence spending: they never matched 2.5% in any of their 14 years in office. My priority will always be to ensure that this country is well defended. In the face of growing threats, we will do more to make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I will indeed. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend take his place on the Labour Benches as part of a Labour Government speaking up for Stevenage. His constituency is home not just to the production of some of the most important defence equipment, but to their development and the technology that goes into it. We will build on some of the steps that the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) first took as Minister for Defence Procurement in the last months of the previous Government. I recognise that, with the nature of warfare changing so rapidly—exemplified by what we see in Ukraine—large platforms, which may take many years to produce, risk rapidly becoming outdated in the technology and systems that they cover. We have to be able to procure, we have to be able to develop as we procure and, once in the field, we have to be able to update on a regular basis. My hon. Friend must take it from that that this is a question not just of better value for money, but of more speed and clearer decision making in everything we do. That will be a hallmark of the way we develop our procurement reforms and our new industrial strategy, driven by the need to reinforce growth in this country as part of the success of this Government.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am sure that Lieutenant Leyshon’s family will appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s comments. The outcome of the US presidential election will be determined by the American people. This country has a deep relationship with the US: it is our most important security ally, and we are its most important intelligence ally. The relationship goes back decades and has survived the ups and downs of the political cycles on both sides of the Atlantic. We are determined that it will do so again, whatever the result of the election. On the question of training, I cannot match the hon. Gentleman in citing 18th-century military figures, but I can say that the mismatch between the level of training that we and allies are trying to provide to Ukrainian troops is part of the attempt to counter the outmatch in numbers on the Russian side. I can confirm to the House that that includes not just the 45,000 Ukrainian troops trained so far under Operation Interflex since Putin’s invasion, but the 93 F-16 pilots trained in English and technical matters as well as flying, and almost 1,000 Ukrainian marines trained by the UK, working with allies. That is why I was able to make the announcement last week at Ramstein that this important UK training effort, linked into the new NATO arrangements, will be part of the way that we equip Ukraine forces for the future to be better prepared and trained than their Russian adversaries.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s continuing commitment and support, given on behalf of his party, to stand with Ukraine in this House. For some months, the Ukrainians have been saying they want delivery of the pledges of military aid to help with their fight against the illegal full-scale invasion; they want what has been promised to be in their hands. That is why when I first met President Zelensky, on my second day as Secretary of State for Defence, I made a point to not just say to him, “Right, this Government are willing to step up the support we are offering,” but to tell him that we recognise that imperative and will speed up the support we offer. We will speed up the delivery of the big package of aid announced by the previous Government in April, and we will try to say to President Zelensky, “Where we pledge our support, we will give you a guarantee about the delivery times by which it will be in your hands, to strengthen your fight for your sovereignty and against this illegal invasion.”