It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for initiating this debate on the high Arctic and its increasing importance to our security—an incredibly important topic. The UK has a long and storied history in the High North, and for some 50 years the Royal Marines have practised Arctic warfare alongside our Norwegian allies. As the threat from Russia has cast an increasingly long shadow over Europe, our High North capabilities have grown only more important, with High North deployments of Royal Marines up 40%, with year-round cold-weather operations. The reality is that we have a frontline with Russia in the North Atlantic, and the Russian threat is higher than it has been for decades. Russia is an increasing threat to our critical underwater infrastructure, and Putin is rapidly re-establishing military presence in the region. The Arctic is warming up four times faster than the global average, and the strategic defence review projects the region to be ice-free each summer by 2040, opening new routes, trade dynamics and flash points. Spearheading our capabilities is our littoral response group north, which is our specialised Royal Navy task group that deploys across the north Atlantic, the Baltic and the High North, with dedicated personnel, ships and helicopters to project power and respond to crises. We have also launched Atlantic Bastion, which is our groundbreaking programme to protect the UK from Russian undersea threats using an AI-powered network of sensors. We are working ever more closely with our nine partner nations that make up the joint expeditionary force. Finland and Sweden's accession has transformed NATO's northern posture, meaning that seven of the eight Arctic states are now NATO allies. The UK is playing a full part in NATO's Arctic sentry mission, which is enhancing NATO's posture in the Arctic and High North. We have also worked closely with the Finnish military, including through NATO's Exercise Dynamic Front, with the British Army conducting its first live firing of our Archer mobile howitzer on Finnish soil. Defence spending will rise to 2.6% in 2027, 3% in the next Parliament and 5% by 2035. Just as important as raising defence and security spending is making sure that we continue to pursue a NATO-first defence policy. We are a Government who are delivering the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war, to keep Britain secure at home and strong abroad.