Speeches by Pollard.

“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…”

“We would keep all options on the table in relation to how that works, but it does not necessarily mean that it is an eye for an eye. Certainly, there is a benefit in not being our adversaries in terms of the approach, but one of the strengths that the UK has in deterring some of these activities is that we are part of …”

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

“I would also point to the broader area of UK leadership when it comes to Ukraine, because quite a lot of our counter-Russia activity has a Ukrainian flavour to it in terms of our support for Ukraine. This year, we are spending £4.5 billion, which is more than before, on our support for Ukraine. That is not just in ammu…”

“Yantar is a really good example of that.”

“You have seen from this Government examples of where we are being more proactive.”

“A Typhoon can be a response to a hybrid threat as well as a conventional threat. What underlines the difficulty of how this area is approached in public debate and your inquiry is the fact that you can count them separately. We could draw lines across it. That is an unhelpful approach to how we look at the capabilities…”

“We know what our budget is currently.”

“What I would say, though, in respect of an answer is that there have been some very clear changes. For instance, the move of the British Army from being an expeditionary force fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq to now being much more orientated against a state threat—Russia—does change the force posture. It changes what …”

“As a matter of default, we would not comment on operational activities or intelligence matters, so I would not be able to comment on that specific example. If we were to point to activities that are in the public domain in relation to a similar type of cohort, we know that there have been Russian-backed activities in t…”

“I might bring colleagues in to answer that, but at a high level, we are seeing an increase in sub-threshold activity, which can have an influence on both the UK and our allies. Some of that is using technologies that already exist, such as drones. The MOD operates a good counter-UAS capability, but drones are dual-use …”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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…”

“It is quite a challenge, and one of the reasons why our adversaries undertake hybrid activities against us and our allies is because there is a difficulty in attribution. When that is accompanied by misinformation, as well as an effect, that is deliberately designed to confuse a population or to cast doubt on the under…”

“Some of the underlying assumptions are still broadly the same, though. We are still seeing Russian activity in Ukraine using different tactics and doctrines than we may have viewed in the past. We still have a situation where the US is a key partner for the United Kingdom and will remain so. We know that there are new …”