Jim Shannon

The hon. Lady is right to outline that. Clearly, the Minister should be in no doubt that I commend him and this Labour Government on their commitment to the armed forces. I am impressed by what has happened, and I am also impressed by the 5% commitment to GDP by 2035. How could anybody not be impressed by that? Today, on the Floor of the House, there was a clear commitment to new nuclear-certified aircraft and I welcome that. That is the right thing. The policies that have been carried out by Ministers, the Labour Government, and the Defence Secretary are to be welcomed and I wholeheartedly support them. Moving on to the increase in spending to 5% of GDP, although we need increases in cyber tech, know-how and weaponry, we also need boots on the ground. We cannot fight all wars with drones; the cyber age seems to be taking over. The message needs to go out that all skillsets are needed and wanted in the Army. I wrote the next sentence before the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) intervened, by the way: this Government are committed to strengthening the armed forces across this United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will agree that the greatest fighting men hail from Ulster, with great respect to everyone else in the rest of the United Kingdom. One of my favourite quotes on the world war is from Wilfred Spender; I know the Minister will remember it, and perhaps others will, as well. It was spoken after the battle of the Somme: “I am not an Ulsterman, but yesterday, the 1st July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts that I witnessed…The Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name which equals any in history. Their devotion deserves the gratitude of the British Empire.” What I love about the British Army is that it is a British Army of us all in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is the Scots, the Welsh, the Northern Irish and all the English, all together as one. That is how it should be. This is the courage that flows through our veins. It is this courage and expertise that makes us—British soldiers, the Air Force and the Royal Navy—simply the best in the world. We need to get the message out to people throughout this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that we are better together—and we fight better together. What people might associate with Ulstermen is that whenever they are not fighting somebody else, they are fighting themselves. I am not quite sure if that is true, but I know this: boy, do we fight better together.