Ukraine

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I too am much looking forward to the maiden speech of my friend and long-time colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Barrow. The House is about to discover that, unlike the present speaker, the noble Lord really knows what he is talking about, having been ambassador in Ukraine and Russia, as well as many other senior posts.

I too warmly welcome the fact that this Government are showing staunch support for Ukraine, in seamless continuity with the approach of the previous Government. That bipartisanship in politics is really important in giving Britain the authority to lead the European response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, which is now approaching its fourth anniversary. The coalition of the willing that is taking shape under British leadership is growing, in my view, into the European pillar of NATO, which I think could be of long-term strategic significance, given the evolution of the US approach to Europe.

It is playing a crucial role in co-ordinating support for Ukraine but also in planning, as the Minister said, for the post-conflict period. We are seeing in Gaza the risks of getting to a ceasefire without arrangements in place to avoid a security vacuum. Ukraine is of course different, but it is encouraging that plans are in place for a multinational force Ukraine. Of course, we will want to scrutinise at the right time the tasks and rules of engagement of the force.

In the meantime, we have to get to a ceasefire. The Prime Minister deserves great credit for his deft handling of President Trump. He and other European leaders have repeatedly shown they can be very effective in countering Putin’s efforts to tempt Trump into selling out Ukraine’s vital interests. For all President Trump’s efforts to get a ceasefire deal, it is crystal clear that Putin does not want one; he thinks he is still winning, as many noble Lords have said. He thinks that we in Europe will tire, and that we will find that he has driven a wedge between us and the United States. So my main point this morning is that the only way to get Putin to accept a ceasefire is to ratchet up the pressure on Russia to the point where he feels his grip on power is in jeopardy.

We have collectively done a lot already on weapons deliveries and on sanctions. But, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, said, we have always been too slow in giving Ukraine the weapons it really needs. We have got to be bolder. We have to give Ukraine the long-range weapons that it is calling for, including persuading President Trump to send Tomahawks. Could the Minister tell us when the Government expect to secure agreement with the EU on the SAFE arrangement, which would allow British defence industries to co-operate across Europe?

On sanctions, we should finalise as soon as possible the deal to use frozen Russian assets to underwrite a loan for Ukraine, of a size that will give it economic security for several years. The Government have said that the £25 billion or so in the UK will be part of that deal. I hope that the £2.5 billion that Abramovich received for the forced sale of Chelsea football club will be there before long as well. The main block, of course, is in Belgium, but this has dragged on too long. We need now to get this settled and get the money to Ukraine.

Yes, we should intensify our sanctions on Russia—again, we have done a lot. President Trump has suggested that the extra 25% tariff he put on India led Modi to say that the Indians would reduce their purchases of Russian oil. But then we see in the FT that there is a large-scale sanctions evasion operation apparently linked to ArcelorMittal. I hope we too are pressing the Indians to reduce sanctions evasion. Are we looking for other ways of applying decisive pressure to Russia economically: for example, against Russia’s central bank?

I have one final thought, adding to what other noble Lords have said. Given all the pressures on public spending, we need to take every opportunity outside this Chamber to emphasise that our partnership with Ukraine is not just about sending money and giving development aid; it provides huge benefits for this country. The Ukrainians are indeed fighting and dying for our security. They are more skilled than anyone in the world at countering Russian cyberattacks. They are world leaders in drone technology and tactics. This is transforming not just the battlefield in Ukraine but every future conflict.

We have an enormous amount to learn from Ukraine’s hard-won experience, and the agreement that Ukraine will share data for the benefit of British defence industries is excellent news. I hope that that can be widely available across the defence industry because, unless new defence equipment is taking account of how warfare now works in Ukraine, it is going to be obsolete before it comes off the production line.

In short, however the war in Ukraine finally ends, we will share a continent with a hostile Russia for the foreseeable future, and a strong partnership with a free Ukraine is in our long-term national security interest.

80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and Victory over Japan

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Friday 9th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the founding chairman of the British Normandy Memorial. I congratulate the Minister on his powerful opening and the right reverend Prelate on her excellent maiden speech.

A lot of this week has been about celebrating VE Day but, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hunter and Lady Meyer, have powerfully said, we should not forget those who fought and served in the Far East, including my father, who was in the Fourteenth Army in Burma. They called themselves the Forgotten Army but it is right that they are not forgotten today. We should also remember that for millions of people in eastern Europe, 8 or 9 May was a day when they swapped one totalitarian occupation for another, and it was another 45 years before they had their liberation day.

As we have heard in today’s debate, celebration has to go hand in hand with the commemoration of those whose sacrifices made victory possible. I want to reflect briefly on the trends in commemoration, on the strength of the experience of designing, building and running the British Normandy Memorial. This was the first major UK national memorial overseas for several decades. The tradition in this country is that we commemorate here at a national commemoration monument, at the Cenotaph or the Unknown Warrior, while overseas the focus for commemoration is in the intensely moving Commonwealth war graves cemeteries. But the initiative for a national memorial in Normandy came from a group of veterans. They wanted all the comrades who fell in the 1944 battle to be remembered in one place, as is the case with the American and Canadian memorials.

With generous help from the Government and many donations from the public, we built what I think I can say is a fine memorial overlooking Gold Beach, which opened to the public in 2021. We benefited a lot from the contribution of other noble Lords: the noble Lord, Lord Dannatt, who has now taken over from me as chairman, and the noble Lords, Lord Janvrin, Lord Soames and Lord Kakkar, who are also trustees of the Spirit of Normandy Trust. We were enormously honoured when the King and Queen, with President and Madame Macron, presided at the official opening on 6 June last year, and it was moving to hear His Majesty refer to his visit to Normandy in the speech he gave at the VE Day concert last night.

One advantage of a national memorial is that it can be inclusive, telling the story of not just a single engagement but an entire military campaign, in our case from 6 June to 31 August 1944. Our memorial commemorates all those who fell under British command, of many nationalities, and includes those in the merchant marine—22,440 men and two women from the Queen Alexandra’s nursing service. One name, indeed, who figures among them, having been killed on 6 June, is Sergeant Vernon Coaker.

The memorial is inclusive in another sense as well. We built a separate memorial on the site to the many thousands of French civilians who were killed in that summer of 1944. Over the last 80 years, the citizens of Normandy have welcomed back the veterans, calling them “our liberators”, and it is only right that the suffering of their forebears should also be remembered.

My second trend is that commemoration needs to be more digital if it is to transmit successfully to the next generation the memory of what happened and why. We invested in a state-of-the-art app so that our roll of honour can be searched. Many families have generously donated photographs, letters home and journals, all of which are now available online. I, like other noble Lords, am convinced that telling the human stories behind the names graven in stone on memorials is the best way to keep interest alive in those momentous events. Our trust has recently completed the Winston Churchill education centre and is focusing on programmes for schoolchildren.

My last trend is the constant need to be creative. These VE Day celebrations have shown the power of creativity. For the second summer, we are delighted to welcome at the British memorial the haunting life-size silhouettes of service men and women created by the charity Standing with Giants. It has installed 1,475 figures at our memorial—that is the number of those killed under British command on D-Day alone—and it is an extraordinarily moving installation. It has proved immensely popular, with 250,000 visitors to the memorial last year, and I pay tribute to Dan and Janette Barton, who founded the charity and whose inspirational work has been very powerful in many other places as well.

If we can be inclusive, digital and creative, we can ensure that the courage and sacrifice of those who fought for our freedom, including the many referred to in this debate, will never be forgotten.

Relations with Europe

Lord Ricketts Excerpts

Thursday 10th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ricketts (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a non-executive director of Eurotunnel, chair of the Franco-British Council and president of the British Normandy Memorial—that is probably enough for now. The choice of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, of the bilateral political relationships was inspired. Like others, I very much look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge; having appeared at the PAC under her chairmanship, I am sure it will be powerful and forensic.

I shall start with two special recent moments in the British relationship with European countries. The first is the visits of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen to Germany and France. The outpouring there of respect and affection for the UK was very moving and a vivid example of how the King exercises real soft power, not least because he is a recognised international leader on climate and environment issues. He is a real national asset. Secondly, I had the great honour of receiving the King and President Macron at the British Normandy Memorial on 6 June to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-day. We commemorated the fallen among the allied troops but also the thousands of French citizens who were killed then. My point here is that bilateral ties with our European neighbours go far beyond government relations. The surface waters have been quite choppy in recent years, although they are calming down now, but the depths were largely unstirred.

I welcome the priority that the Government are giving to restoring the damage done to our bilateral relations during the Brexit years. It is great to see Ministers fanning out across Europe, engaging with partners and working on the big issues of the day. The Prime Minister’s agreement with Chancellor Scholz of Germany for a UK-Germany bilateral co-operation treaty is a case in point. Germany remains Europe’s largest donor to Ukraine and its defence spending is rising, so it is a particularly good time for the defence co-operation agreement that John Healey is pursuing. But commitments to work together are not enough.

If I may, I draw a lesson from the UK-French defence co-operation that we launched at the Lancaster House treaties of 2010. That has led to a step change in co-operation because it was rooted in specific, tangible long-term projects. We are committed for 50 years to use the same facility in Burgundy to virtually test our nuclear warheads. We have a Combined Joint Expeditionary Force, which is capable of fighting together. In the energy field, EDF is building a new generation of nuclear power stations—another 50-year commitment. We need a similar level of ambition for our relations with Germany.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, good political relations have to be underpinned by a much broader web of civil society and human links. I am thinking of all the co-operation across Europe in science and research, education, culture and sport, and citizens’ opportunities to live and work together. Most of these are beyond the control of Governments; what Governments can do best is to clear away the obstacles to them. In that spirit, if I may, I shall pepper the Minister with three specific points that I hope he might cover in summing up.

First, can the Government work with other European capitals to try to create more momentum for an agreement with the EU on touring artists? That would be of great benefit to both sides and is strongly supported by all sides in the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.

Secondly, will the Minister ask his colleagues to reconsider the rejection of the commission’s proposal for a youth mobility scheme? It may be that the scheme is flawed, in which case propose a better one. This has nothing to do with free movement; it would be a visa-based scheme, allowing limited duration stays and the number of visas could, if necessary, be capped.

Thirdly, and rapidly, will the Minister discuss with Treasury colleagues the impact that the imposition of VAT on private schools will have on European schools in this country? These are specialist schools preparing pupils in their own language for exams set in their own country, so pupils whose parents cannot afford the VAT cannot move to the state sector. This is one part of the rich web of relations between countries and it deserves looking at in implementation.