Ben Coleman

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. I have been passionate about strengthening ties between the UK and Germany for most of my adult life, ever since I spent two years living in West Berlin in the mid-1980s—vor der Wende—before the wall came down. I lived in Kreuzberg, a neighbourhood that at that time was surrounded on three sides by the wall. It was an exhilarating, sometimes surreal, experience. It was a vibrant city, but also a cold war frontline, never far from the wall or the watchtowers beyond. I remember having dinner at a neighbour’s flat on the evening of a 1 May street party that turned into a riot of car burning and looting sparked by a boycott of the national census. When we saw the sky suddenly light up, we thought at first that the riots had set a local supermarket ablaze. Then we realised it was East Berlin, and they were celebrating May day with fireworks, completely oblivious to what was happening just a couple of kilometres away. They were very different times. Another memory I have from that time, which may seem a little bit odd—although perhaps not for an English politics geek, whose country lacks a written constitution—is discovering Germany’s proud basic law, the Grundgesetz, and learning about the role that Britain had played in bringing that into being. Germany is deep in my heart, as it is in the hearts of so many of my fellow citizens. I have the pleasure of representing the constituency of Chelsea and Fulham, and Fulham is under the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, which has long been twinned with the Berlin borough of Neukölln. I was very impressed, when we visited Neukölln, to see that it actually had the Hammersmith and Fulham crest in concrete at the front of their town hall, which shows a level of respect and seriousness towards local government that we can perhaps learn from. Despite our strong relationship with Germany, we allowed something so precious to be damaged. After Brexit, the UK dropped from being Germany’s third most important trading partner to ninth, and German school exchanges to the UK fell by more than 80%. Our relationship did not break, but it was badly strained. We have to be honest about that, and be honest about the pain that we caused, not just to ourselves, but to the German side of our friendship. That is why I am so moved by the enormous strides we are now making to restore and deepen our partnership with practical steps, as my colleagues have set out, that will benefit all our citizens. We are living in disturbing times. All of us recognise that—today perhaps more than any other day, after four years of the Ukraine war. The United States is retreating from Europe, Russia is a growing threat and the hard right is gaining ground, driving division across our continent, so I am glad that Britain and Germany have chosen to respond by moving closer together, not just in words but in deeds. We have, as has been mentioned, the Trinity House agreements signed in October 2024, laying the foundation of establishing defence co-operation as a central pillar of our relationship. Under it, we have extraordinary things, such as British and German forces now operating together from Scotland to counter Russian submarines, flying jointly in maritime patrol aircraft, joint plans, including for purchase of advanced torpedoes, and growing real-time intelligence sharing. Very importantly, we are also ramping up cyber-security efforts to counter Russia’s hybrid warfare.