Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Roberts of Belgravia Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome this excellent report, which struck me as a model of its kind. Of course, after the disgraceful scene in the Oval Office on Friday, the situation has changed since the publication of the report and significantly for the worse. We must not underestimate the gravity of what has happened, which is that during a war against totalitarian dictatorship the United States has effectively changed sides. It is very unusual for a country to change sides during a major war. Historically, Italy did it in 1943, but that was hardly decisive. However, the Saxons and Württembergers changed sides on the third day of the four-day Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, which doomed Napoleon in that campaign. Before that, the Stanleys changed sides on the morning of the Battle of Bosworth, which similarly spelled doom for Richard III.

We might be shocked by the Trump Administration’s volte-face but we should not be surprised by it. He never hid his antipathy to Ukraine and her existential struggle. Frankly, he is right about the pathetic and woeful levels of GDP that we and the Europeans presently spend on defence. However, the sheer brutality of his dealings over the past week, and especially the United Nations vote alongside Russia, Syria, the Central African Republic, North Korea and Belarus—countries in which I am sure your Lordships would like to live—from which even the Chinese had the decency to abstain, thrusts us into utterly uncharted territory.

What needs to be done now seems clear. The rest of NATO must get its spending up to the 3.4% of GDP that the Americans spend. The $300 billion of frozen Russian assets sitting in Euroclear in Brussels need to be given to Ukraine. EU cohesion funds need to be repurposed for defence, and defence spending needs to be exempted from the EU’s fiscal deficit rules. Meanwhile, missile defence systems must be rushed to Kyiv and Kharkiv.

The brave President Zelensky needs to do his country yet another great service by biting his lip, stop speaking truth to America’s overwhelming power and sign the minerals deal that will financially incentivise the United States to be invested in a durable peace. Winston Churchill called President Roosevelt’s lend-lease agreement “the most unsordid act”, when the Americans allowed us 65 years to pay off the debt. By total contrast, the Trump Administration are gouging Ukraine while the war is still going on—the very definition of kicking a man when he is down. There is no point in expecting security guarantees worth their salt from the United States for the heavily armed 700-mile border that will now scar south-eastern Europe, probably for decades. Security guarantees are only worth while if they are given willingly. The Europeans and some countries outside Europe, such as Canada and Australia, will instead have to patrol that long frontier between civilisation and barbarism. The willingness of the Canadians and Australians, once again in their histories, to step up to a great task should make us proud of the Commonwealth.

Mr Vance has spoken of trying to stop pushing Russia

“into the hands of the Chinese”,

but a policy of trying to draw Russia away from the Chinese orbit will not work. Democracies’ attempts to draw dictatorships away from other dictatorships have consistently failed ever since the Stresa Front of 1935. It might take time to fail, but fail it will. Meanwhile, the tragic by-products of the Administration’s Ukraine policy are already evident, not least in a 15% drop in pro-Americanism in this country almost overnight. I fear that, if the United States was to suffer another 9/11—God forbid—we would not see the wholehearted and full-throated support for her that we saw in 2001. A wholly transactional foreign policy has unseen costs that do not show up on balance sheets and profit and loss accounts.

When Winston Churchill spoke in the Munich debate, he used words that Europe should heed today, as we fundamentally rebalance our world in the light of this startling American defection to the side of a dictator who, throughout his career, has only ever wished America ill. Churchill said that we needed

“a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour”,

so that we could

“arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/10/1938; col. 373.]

We must adopt that stance, adopt it now and take this first-class report as our template.

King’s Speech

Lord Roberts of Belgravia Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I preface my remarks by thanking the doorkeepers, the police, Black Rod and the clerks for their unfailing courtesy and good nature to me over the last year. In particular, I thank Simon Burton, the Clerk of the Parliaments, who pointed out to me after the introduction ceremony that I had moronically signed my name in my noble friend Lady Lawlor’s box rather than in my own. He did not use “moronic”, I hasten to add, but he must have thought it.

I believe it is customary to say a few words about one’s self in one’s maiden speech—something I have never really needed much encouragement to do. I had a conventional and happy middle-class upbringing in Surrey. There was one problem, in that I was expelled from school—in fact, two schools. It was drinking and climbing: I used to get drunk and climb up buildings and, quite rightly, the school decided that it would sack me before I fell off any of them. My wife later said that all I have really done in life since is to drink and social climb.

On the rest of my career, after coming down from Cambridge University, I joined the City as a merchant banker and discovered fairly soon afterwards that I was functionally innumerate, so I chucked it, or they chucked me—recollections may vary. I then started to try to write history books, and that did not start very well either. I think I have personally met pretty much everyone who bought any of my early books. Afterwards, my wife Susan, who is a very successful businesswoman, said that she was going to introduce me to a new business model, which was to try to write books about things that people wanted to read about, and that all changed.

I would like to say of the gracious Speech that the Government are to be commended for their stance on Ukraine and Israel. It is also worth pointing out that Labour should be commended on that too—the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, earlier today was tremendously patriotic.

I went to Kyiv with General David Petraeus, the American general, six months ago. We were co-authoring a book. As well as going to Kyiv, we went to Bucha and Irpin. We saw the places where the Russian soldiers had massacred innocent Ukrainian civilians and tortured them in all too many cases—455 of them in Bucha alone. It is so important that we stick to the policy of continuing to help the Ukrainians up until the point when, finally, Putin recognises that the war there is unsustainable.

As far as Gaza is concerned, wars are not won by ceasefires. Humanitarian pauses are of course a good idea, but nothing must impede or hamper the Israeli Defense Forces in their operation to try to extirpate Hamas. Israel has the right to do that, and we should be on its side.

Finally, I will prove, I hope, a hard-working, attendant and zealous Member of your Lordships’ House.