Speeches by Pollard.

“I thank my hon. Friend for raising the issue and that case. It is vital that no matter who you fall in love with, there is a place for you in our armed forces. I am pleased to announce that since the LGBT financial recognition scheme was launched on 12 December 2024, we have now made a total of £1 million in payments t…”

“I am sure the whole House will join me, on the death of Lord Etherton, in passing on our condolences and sympathy to his friends and family. His legacy will continue to shape an inclusive and fair future for our armed forces community. The LGBT financial recognition scheme has a budget of £75 million, which is 50% high…”

“As we speak, Exercise Hedgehog is currently demonstrating the rapid deployment of the 4th Brigade by road, rail, sea and air to Estonia as part of NATO’s forward land force, with nearly 2,000 British service personnel in addition to those already permanently deployed to Estonia. To keep Britain secure at home and stron…”

“I met the Estonian ambassador and, indeed, all ambassadors from JEF nations on board HMS Sutherland last week, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right: fast, deployable forces are vital deterrents against Russian aggression. They underline our key commitment to NATO’s eastern flank, and particularly our strong commitmen…”

“It is not always an eye-for-an eye approach.”

“No. All UK service personnel are covered by our normal approach to operational security, and the Committee will understand that I will not go into the details of how we keep our involvement in any support for military operations in the Red Sea or anywhere else. We have high confidence that the measures that we have wit…”

“I would always be cautious about listening to speculation in the media. The position on the strategic defence review has not changed. The work is well advanced, as the Prime Minister said last week. We still intend to publish in the spring. That will be part of measures that will be reported from Lord Robertson and his…”

“It will be for Lord Robertson, as this review is externally led, to create his report. That will then be sent to the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Defence Secretary. We would probably expect for there to be further announcements by the Ministry of Defence as we seek to operationalise what would be a strategic …”

“The intent of the Department has not changed from when it was announced in July last year. The Prime Minister has been clear that, in addition to the strategic defence review, which is an MOD-led review, albeit externally led by Lord Robertson and the reviewers, there is a parallel review taking place largely out of th…”

“I am really confident that it will provide us the opportunity to bring forward a capability situation for our armed forces at 2.5% earlier than originally planned. The 2.5% level that we will reach by April 2027 provides the opportunity for us to embark on deeper reform of our defence apparatus to meet the challenges t…”

“I can understand why you are going down that line with the question. The Ministry of Defence has very clear policies in relation to what information can be shared and in what format. We do not comment on how allies share their information, for good reason.”

“We certainly take security classifications very seriously in the UK armed forces and across the Ministry of Defence, and have a variety of policies that set out how information should be used and shared. All officials and military personnel will be familiar with those. As a relatively new Minister, what has been made c…”

“Again, I understand why you are going down this line. It would depend on the context, the information that was being shared and who was sharing it in terms of where in the chain of command. My general rule would be that, if operational decisions are being taken, we should all, regardless of our role within defence, tak…”

“If anyone were sharing information in our system outside of the authorised systems that allow that data sharing, we have clear procedures in place for how we would address that.”

“You said that it was an easier question.”

“How you define hybrid threats would be the first challenge to scrutinise there. The Ministry of Defence does not use the definitions “grey zone” or “hybrid” threats in the same way. We use “state” threats as our definition. Our allies would use slightly different language as well, and it is certainly true that even som…”

“The answer is that it is the Prime Minister and that he delegates it to a cross-Government approach. The reason that it is important to stress that is that the Ministry of Defence does not take any action in this area on our own. We take it as part of a joined-up, integrated, HMG-wide approach. It is hard, because grey…”

“In some cases, across Government, the Cabinet Office does function as a convening power to bring people together. What has been true—and I am stealing Pat McFadden’s approach here—is that the Cabinet Office functions differently under this Government than perhaps under the last one, because it has fewer discrete, addit…”

“The Prime Minister takes his responsibility for national security incredibly seriously, and I have to say that he feels that very personally in terms of his approach to how he is addressing the increasingly difficult world in which we find ourselves as a nation, but it is absolutely true that it is a team sport when we…”

“Yes. I might bring colleagues in to give some more detailed examples in response to your question. Broadly, we took a decision, as Ministers, to declassify not just the activities of the Russian spy ship Yantar, but also our response to it, as a clear deterrent activity that would prevent Russia being able to operate i…”