Ukraine

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, this is all part of the same story. There are links between these different malign organisations that need addressing. I cannot give an absolutely clear answer about the western Balkans, but I am very happy to write to my noble friend with the detail.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, on the issue of sanctions, we are doing the right thing. We are trying to impose as many sanctions as we can on many entities and people. Obviously, we should not stop those. However, reports in the Economist suggest that they are not actually very effective.

The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, touched on European co-operation. In my opinion, as I said on 26 January, it is essential that we co-operate on a European level and decide who is going to do what. I said then that if necessary—if it is what we should do—we should create a Royal Ordnance factory. We should be looking at making 100,000 rounds of 155 millimetres a month, but so far as I can see we are just pussyfooting around. That is what President Putin will see. He will see that we are pussyfooting around. For instance, we are not overturning planning regulations or telling BAE Systems that it can do whatever it likes, and needs to do, to create the amount of ammunition we need. We are not telling BAE Systems that if it needs to requisition a machine tool from another factory and that would totally interfere with the rest of our domestic production, it does not matter. The priority must be to make the ammunition.

If we do not give Ukraine the munitions and other equipment that it needs, Ukraine will fail and be defeated by the Russians. The situation is dire. We will then have to double defence expenditure and keep it doubled for the foreseeable future. The cost to us will be very high, and we will not be able to do the things that we want to do for our people because we are going to have to waste the money on defence expenditure.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for the impassioned view he takes. He is right, and I agree that we need to up the pace of production. Through the International Fund for Ukraine and other enterprises, the amount of money being spent to arm and replenish the situation in Ukraine continues to grow. Out of the £900 million pledged as part of the International Fund for Ukraine, 27 contracts are out with a total value of £340 million, and another £22 million-worth are just about to be placed. There is a competition out for a further £300 million for ammunition. There is £40 million for drones and another £194 million across air defence and maritime packages. That is just this country, but this is a combined effort across Europe. I am sure noble Lords will have seen that the Germans have started building a new ammunition factory, and the pace of growth continues to increase.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

Why on earth are we bothering with a competition?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

To ensure that we get exactly what we want, and to ensure capacity and deliverability.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

Surely, we should tell industry what we want and tell it to get on with it. If it says that it needs some sort of capacity, power or machine tool, we should provide it.

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

There is certainly an element of that, but we work within a global market where resources are not freely available. It is very important to ensure that the vast amount of money spent on the production of munitions is properly spent.