Graeme Downie

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) in what has been a constructive debate with a lot of cross-party consensus. I welcome the Minister’s speech about the measures that were included in the King’s Speech, such as the Armed Forces Bill and the commitment to support drone testing, which is something that—as we have heard from Members across the House—is very much required. I will make three points in my speech, which are about defence priorities, the threats that we face, and the need for long-term thinking. We heard from the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), who is no longer in his place, about the need for the British people to understand the threats that this country faces and what warfare looks like in a modern context. I am one of those who believes we are already in a conflict with Russia and should take action along those lines; indeed, I believe that in the High North, not only are we in that conflict but we are a frontline nation. Just this week, we have seen the threat we face in reports of Russian submarines in the north Atlantic and attacks on energy infrastructure, and indeed the threat to subsea cables. Those are things that I see and hear about all the time as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Estonia. I was privileged to visit Estonia earlier this year to see some of the work it is doing to prepare not only its military, but its society. This week, there was an article in Foreign Policy by Franz-Stefan Gady that I highly recommend everyone reads. It was regarding the threats and weaknesses that NATO faces, not only on the military front but on political decision making. In that article, Mr Gady describes how he defeated NATO while playing a war game. It was not actually about military strength; it was about the need for quick decision making. He describes the UK forces in Estonia as well as other NATO forces in Lithuania. When the Secretary of State sums up, will he provide some reassurance about Cabrit and the fantastic British forces in Estonia, the speed of their response, and the operational decision making that is in place to make sure we are not delayed by political stasis in the event of Russian aggression through hybrid warfare? Russia’s experience in Ukraine indicates that once Russia controls the battlefield, that makes a counter-attack by NATO or anyone else very hard.