Graeme Downie

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. Those are two points I will come on to, as to why the UK must act independently but also with our European allies in the High North and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap in particular. We must always remember that Putin will respond to actions, not words, and we cannot afford to sleepwalk unprepared into a geopolitical High North and Arctic. Secondly, as with any bully, Putin will feel the need to retaliate after the actions last week, but it might not be against the big kid of the USA; he could act against the UK. That is not something that should make us scared, but it should highlight that we must be ready for a response from Russia in one domain or another and make sure that we are able to respond and defend ourselves effectively. I commend Ministers for initiatives to strengthen our armed forces, including raising the service pay, bringing housing back under public control and strengthening industrial partnerships across the UK. As my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) mentioned, we have also increased investment in the joint expeditionary force working with High North allies. In both visits to Estonia and the US, that was mentioned as something that the UK should continue to do to implement effective security measures as actions, not merely words.