Wes Streeting MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to my hon. Friend for once again raising this issue with me. It is now on the record, but his constituents should know that he has been actively campaigning around the corridors of this place too. The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard), will be very pleased to meet him to discuss his constituency issue. I say to the whole House that there is a big opportunity through defence investment to reindustrialise this country and create jobs, growth and opportunities. Members will see the commitment of this Government, Prime Minister, Chancellor and Defence Secretary reflected not just in words, but in deeds in the coming weeks and months.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  As my hon. Friend the Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry—whom the hon. Gentleman praised—has just remarked, it is difficult and it is complicated, but I take up the challenge. We want to do everything we can in this space. The hon. Gentleman is right to keep pressing us on this, and to keep it in our line of sight. We will continue to do as much as we can, as fast as we can.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend should know by now that repetition is not a crime in the House of Commons; it is a regular feature of our exchanges. I very much look forward to working with him in this capacity—he managed to leverage an enormous amount of money out of me when I was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. I look forward to those high-security containment labs being up and running in his Harlow constituency before too long. I also give to him the commitment not only to support Ukraine and press on investing more in our national defence and security, but to ensure that the good people of Harlow benefit from the jobs that defence provides in his constituency, not least through Raytheon.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  With permission, I will make my first statement to the House as Secretary of State for Defence on Ukraine, the ongoing threat from Russia and the Government’s approach. It is not yet clear whether freedom or tyranny will define the 21st century. What is clear is that the United Kingdom will not be a bystander in that struggle. The frontline is Ukraine. In Kyiv, on my first overseas trip, I saw for myself what modern tyranny looks like. President Putin’s illegal and unprovoked invasion is a challenge to the collective security of all of us in Europe. History—especially the history of our continent—teaches us that when imperialist ambitions go unchallenged, leaders like President Putin come back for more. That is why Ukraine’s security is our security and why we will not waver for one second in our support for Ukraine. This week, I co-chaired my first meeting of the Ukraine defence contact group with my German counterpart Boris Pistorius, alongside Ukraine’s new Defence Minister Evgeniy Khmara and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. We know that President Putin, facing the reality that Russian casualties surpassed 1.5 million this week, is preparing to intensify his barbaric attacks against civilian and energy targets over the coming months. When I met President Zelensky, I heard loud and clear the vital importance of supporting Ukraine through this winter, as did the Prime Minister. We promised to mobilise allies and provide more support wherever we can. We are delivering on that commitment, strengthening Ukraine’s defences and, alongside more than 50 nations, converting commitment into capability. This week I announced that the UK is pledging £100 million to support the rapid delivery of air defence interceptors in response to a direct request from Ukraine. We also reaffirmed our commitment to provide more than 120,000 drones to Ukraine over the course of this year. In total, the United Kingdom has committed £25 billion for Ukraine. That includes nearly 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition, more than 1 million artillery shells, more than 100,000 drones and thousands of air defence missiles and armoured vehicles. Winter in Ukraine is no longer a season; it is a weapon. In Kyiv, the Prime Minister and I saw at first hand the destructive consequences of this war, but we also experienced the spirit and the strength of the Ukrainian people. The message we delivered on behalf of this Government, and on behalf of the British people, was unequivocal: we will be with Ukraine for as long as it takes. That commitment is built on the rock-solid foundations laid by our Labour and Conservative predecessors, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine from day one. Boris Johnson pledged anti-armour missiles before Russia’s invasion. In one of his first acts in office, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister handed over blueprints for British-made missile components so that Ukraine can produce long-range weapons on its own assembly lines. It has been a striking feature, during an especially divisive period in British politics, that support for Ukraine unites this House. One of the things I feel most strongly about in this role is showing our allies, but particularly our adversaries, that there is an enormous amount of consensus and national unity when it comes to defence. That unity is itself a projection of strength and deterrence, so I say to colleagues from across the House: it is your job, and the job of Parliament, to hold us to account. It is right that you do so, but let us not manufacture difference where it does not exist. On this issue, more than any other, there is far more that unites us than divides us, and we have a collective responsibility to level with the British people. If the first duty of Government is to keep our country safe, that is now a greater and more urgent responsibility than it has been for generations. The threats we face are not only evolving; they are getting closer to home. Every day, the UK and our allies encounter espionage, cyber-attacks and military posturing by hostile states. Just yesterday, a 31-year-old British man was charged under the National Security Act 2023 over alleged contact with Russia’s military intelligence agency. Alongside these threats comes the bellicose rhetoric that we hear from the Kremlin. Russia is constantly probing us and testing us, and the tragic irony of where we find ourselves is that Russia sees the UK and NATO as a threat that, in reality, simply does not exist. The UK is not at war with Russia, nor do we seek confrontation with Russia, and nor do we have any quarrel with the Russian people. All we seek to do is to defend freedom, democracy, our interests, our allies and our values. Contrary to the propaganda, NATO has always been a defensive alliance, and if there is one thing that President Putin has achieved through the war in Ukraine, it has been to strengthen NATO and our commitment to our collective defence and security. Moscow should be in no doubt that we are ready to defend every inch of NATO, should Russia attack. Knowing the gravity of the threats our country faces, this Government have overseen the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war. We are already investing £15 billion more in defence than we were at the last spending review, and over the next four years we will be investing £298 billion. As a percentage of GDP, we have gone from 2.3% when Labour came to office two years ago to reaching 2.7% next year. We know that this Prime Minister and this Chancellor are both fully committed to funding our nation’s defence, including meeting our NATO commitment of 3.5% by 2035 and setting out an earlier 3% commitment at the next spending review. No one disputes that there is more to do to get there, but it is important to emphasise how much new money is already going into defence. That money is what allows us to do the things we need to do to strengthen our deterrence so that our adversaries think twice about attacking us, and to strengthen our capabilities so that we have the resources to fight and win if deterrence fails. That means making sure that every penny—both new money and money from existing budgets—is spent wisely, so that our military has the equipment, the training and the kit that it needs to keep us safe. It means making sure that we are constantly pushing the frontier of defence innovation, so that we have an advantage over our enemies. And it means making sure that we are creating more skilled jobs, more training, and more opportunities for people and businesses in our own country—unashamedly backing British to reindustrialise places where defence runs in the blood. That is how we will keep our country safe in today’s more dangerous and volatile world. As I take on this role, I feel the considerable weight of responsibility on my shoulders to proudly and robustly defend our country, our people, our values and our allies. I am lucky that in this endeavour I am supported by our exceptional armed forces, some of the smartest brains on the planet, and the extraordinary service of those working around the clock and around the globe to protect us. I have seen the capabilities that this country has, and they are considerable. We should have enormous pride in what our country does, let alone what we can do in the future. We will build a Britain worth fighting for, and a Britain capable of fighting for it. That is our mission, and that is what we will do. I commend this statement to the House.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his constructive support and scrutiny. Through our work with my German counterpart Boris Pistorius and our coalition, we are regularly mobilising more support for Ukraine, through both direct contributions and active defence diplomacy. I am particularly grateful to my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary for the support of his Department in those efforts. Every country involved in supporting Ukraine faces the same choices and trade-offs that we are debating here at home. We approach those conversations in that spirit, but we also ask people to think about the consequences were Putin to prevail and take that as an incentive to further threaten Russia’s neighbours and our NATO allies. That is why I make the case that supporting Ukraine is the right thing to do morally, but that it is also the right thing to do in our national interest and in the interests of the collective security of our continent. The hon. Gentleman refers to the defence investment plan and raises the issue of defence spending. I want to be clear about two things. We are already delivering the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war. That is a significant improvement on the previous position. He mentions the DIP not being fully funded. It is absolutely true to say that the negotiations on the DIP reached a position where there is a shortfall just shy of £5 billion which we need to deal with in the immediate term. The House should take reassurance from the instincts of the Chancellor and the Government, and from the fact that without any need whatsoever for persuasion from me or my Department, the Chancellor has already confirmed that he will close that gap at the Budget. I am reassured by that. It gives me even greater confidence as the Chancellor looks ahead to the spending review, but that does not mean that we, as a Department and as a Defence team, should be complacent about the need to make the strongest possible case, recognising the trade-offs across Government. We will continue to approach the spending review process in that spirit. The hon. Gentleman raises defence financing. It is true to say that defence bonds are borrowing. None the less, we continue to work closely with our colleagues at the Treasury and our industry partners to look at what more we can do to leverage finance for defence and to do so in a way that creates jobs, skills, opportunities and reindustrialisation here in Britain.

• 10 Sept 2026 · Ukraine and Russia · Hansard source

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  I strongly agree with the hon. Member and thank her for her support. Under the Labour Government, we have had a resilience committee within the National Security Council to plug other Government Departments into the conversation about national defence and resilience. That is something that I benefited from as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, as I was able to respond to that and plan. We need a wider national conversation. The Government are very happy to lead that, and we will, but it needs to involve everyone: Government, business, civil society and all of us as citizens. That is not just in the context of the warfare and security threats the country faces; as I reflected recently, it is in the context of wildfires, flooding and a wide range of disruptions the country could face. We are not as prepared as we ought to be, and as a result we need to work collectively to improve our national resilience, because it is everyone’s responsibility and duty as a citizen.