Ukraine: Support

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Lord Ravensdale

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. We do not look at these things in isolation; in the contacts I have had with the Iranian Foreign Minister, we repeatedly make the point that supplying weapons to Russia is unacceptable. Over and above that, we are putting sanctions in place on every country and company that we can which we find is supplying these weapons. I am about to spend time at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting, where there are specific proposals to look at what we can do together to make clear to the Iranians that there will be consequences if they continue to supply drones and more substantial missiles to Russia. We are working together on this and recognise the importance of dealing with it.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the register. The UK led the world on legislation to ban Russian oil imports in 2022, but we still import Russian nuclear fuel, which is a major energy security and national security issue for this country. It is not due to be phased out until 2030. Does the Minister agree that we urgently need to legislate to bring this date forward to the near term, as our allies in the US are doing, with all the attendant benefits for our domestic industry?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I certainly agree that we should look at this. We have been effective at taking Russian gas and oil out of our system and it is pretty remarkable what steps have been taken across Europe to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas. Just last week, we made an announcement about excluding Russia from the London Metal Exchange and other related exchanges. This is the next area that we should look at. I have had a letter from the Ukrainian Foreign Minister that I saw just this morning about this issue. We will certainly take this away and look at it. It is the responsibility of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, as it deals specifically with Urenco, the company that delivers our nuclear fuel, but we will take this away.