Ukraine

Lord Risby Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Risby (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the speech of my noble friend Lord Marlesford. I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lord Soames on his excellent maiden speech. I was his Parliamentary Private Secretary when he was a Minister in the MoD. He was extremely successful and popular, largely because of his amazingly good judgment and common sense. Those characteristics will, I know, inform our discussions in the months and years to come.

It was my role in the other place to take through for the Opposition the legislation to enlarge the European Community, which was unanimously agreed. I say this only because, at the time, I had some remarkable conversations with an exceptional individual who was the Polish ambassador. On a number of occasions, he said clearly to me that we needed to provide a pathway for Ukraine to come and join the family of European nations; and that, if this did not happen, a certain other country would inevitably interfere. That is exactly what has happened, of course; his words were of great prescience.

I have been to Ukraine on multiple occasions, having in the past chaired the British Ukrainian Society for some time. I should declare an interest. For more than a year, I have been much involved with a new think tank, the Council on Geostrategy. We have done much work on Ukraine; we wrote a paper before the invasion as we were already alarmed at the anarchic environment in the Black Sea being created by Russia.

No country is more committed to the freedom of the seas than ours, as we have demonstrated by Royal Navy activity in the Black Sea. Given our current considerable credibility, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, when this horrific war ends, we should promote and encourage much closer co-operation among Black Sea states—particularly given the critical importance of Ukraine as a food exporter with huge energy exploration potential and the importance of the Black Sea as a central gateway between Europe and Eurasia, underpinned by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the Montreux convention?

Ever since the construction of the trans-Siberian pipeline into western Europe, European nations have had to live with the leverage provided by Russia’s energy exports. This has created inordinately high dependence and, at times, unacceptable supply abuse, with the price of energy before and after the invasion being determined by political judgments, not market conditions. Of course, this has all funded Russian aggression and expansionism. It is insufficiently known that Ukraine has the second-largest gas reserves in Europe and holds equivalent to 27% of the EU’s gas storage capacity. It has huge potential as a reliable and diverse energy provider, enhanced by more integration of the Ukrainian energy sector with Europe, to our mutual advantage.

As many of your Lordships have said, we do not know when this terrible conflict will end, or on what basis, but your Lordships will welcome the hosting by the UK and Ukraine of the Ukraine recovery conference, drawing international support and building on the Lugano principles, which takes place in London in June. All of us will want Ukraine to embrace formally the Euro-Atlantic defence and political umbrella, but the cost of reconstruction will be enormous, and Ukraine itself will need to undertake reforms, particularly on the rule of law, which it is already addressing.

In July 2020, the Lublin Triangle was agreed between Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine, at the heart of which is the creation of a zone of security and prosperity, linked to Euro-Atlantic alliances and strengthening military, cultural and political co-operation. In this spirit, in 2022, ahead of the invasion a trilateral memorandum of co-operation was agreed by the Foreign Ministers of Poland, the United Kingdom and Ukraine, to demonstrate a commitment to further strengthen strategic co-operation and engagement. With considerable support and encouragement, think tanks in Warsaw and Kyiv and ourselves will be meeting this month in Warsaw to take matters forward.

This trilateral could play an instrumental role in the post-war reconstruction effort and in putting Ukraine more fully on the track towards Euro-Atlantic integration. In the longer term, the trilateral initiative could assist Ukraine towards a platform where the three countries work together to secure economic and geopolitical objectives, especially as Poland’s role in the European Union becomes more significant.

I echo the powerful words of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. When we reflect on post-war reconstruction, let us not underestimate the huge depth of the problem. More than 20,000 Ukrainian children have been taken from their families and orphanages and sent to Russia. The terrifyingly traumatic experiences of children will require special educational responses. On another level, reports suggest that mined areas are now equivalent to the size of Great Britain, and the clearing will be a huge undertaking, so well described by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. Can my noble friend please give consideration, during the important reconstruction conference in London in June, to issues such as this being discussed too? This should be an integral part of the successful reconstruction and recovery of Ukraine that we are planning.

Finally, I add my support for a clear mechanism to punish those who initiated this war in such an atrocious and shocking way and to seek reparations for the totally unjustified invasion on the people of Ukraine.