War Graves Week

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Grant Shapps)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered War Graves Week.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission does extraordinary work keeping alive the memories of the 1.7 million men and women who gave their life in the service of our country and the Commonwealth in both world wars. It tends to and maintains graves, memorials and sites at 23,000 locations in 153 countries around the world, from single graves to the largest cemetery at Tyne Cot, near Passchendaele, where almost 12,000 of the fallen from the first world war are buried and remembered. Among the 300,000-plus total casualties of Passchendaele was 20-year-old James Leaning, a private with the Hertfordshire Regiment. He was tragically killed on the first day of the battle, and is buried at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres, which is lovingly maintained by the commission.

Beyond concerning itself with the neat-cut grass, the flower beds, and the mind-blowing numbers—row upon row—of pristine headstones, and of names on memorial walls, the Commonwealth War Grave Commission does even more extraordinary and priceless work to remind every generation about the service and sacrifice of those who died to forge our freedoms, and about the gargantuan human cost of war. We celebrate the commission’s work during Commonwealth War Grave Week, but I know that Members on both sides of the House will join me in expressing our appreciation for what it does to keep the flame of remembrance burning 365 days a year.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

It is a great honour to have the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headquartered in my constituency. Given what my right hon. Friend has just said, I am sure that he will join me in thanking not only the staff based in Maidenhead, but those around the world who manage and maintain war graves—often in very difficult circumstances, in countries where other conflicts are taking place—so that the families of those who have fallen know that the sacrifice of their loved one is appropriately recognised.

[Grant Shapps]

I very warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s contribution, and I join her in thanking her constituents at head office in Maidenhead for all the work that they do—often, as she rightly says, in incredibly difficult and sometimes conflict-live locations around the world.

I am sure that Members will join me in thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) for their work as serving commissioners. I take my role as chair of the commissioners, and the Ministry of Defence’s long running relationship with the commission, extremely seriously. The Government provide nearly 80% of the commission’s budget—around £55 million each year—and the other member Governments of Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa together provide the remaining 20%, in direct correlation to the numbers of each nationality commemorated.

An important part of the commission’s work is to continue the search to identify all those who gave their life but have yet to be commemorated, and to tell the stories behind the names carved on headstones and memorials.

Ukraine

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s support. He will know that throughout this process the Government have been grateful for efforts to be united across this House. That has been one of the strongest messages we can send to Russia, as is our being united across NATO and the EU, to make sure that this behaviour is seen as unacceptable.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about sanctions. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has been in conversation more than weekly with the EU on co-ordinating sanctions to make sure that the EU Commission, which is the EU’s lead on sanctions, the United States and the United Kingdom are as closely as possible in lockstep. The EU has taken the position that it will prepare and deliver the sanctions, should an invasion happen, at that moment. The United States and the United Kingdom have laid out—we have put this before this House—the sanctions that they would put in place. That is a difference of approach. However, we know from our own experience that the EU can move very quickly at a Commission level when it wishes to do so. There is no lack of appetite in the EU to deal with President Putin through sanctions should he make the tragic error of invading Ukraine. No one should play into the differences of timing to suggest that; it is simply a different mechanism of approach. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is also working through a group called the Quint plus plus—that is, the US, the UK, Italy, France and Germany, plus NATO and the EU. They are all working together on these types of responses and are regularly having discussions.

I will write to the right hon. Gentleman on the OSCE, but I know that one individual has been in touch. He is a UK citizen. When the Foreign Office advice was issued, there were certain pieces of advice to citizens of our country. If someone find themselves in any organisation, we give our advice to them. Other members of the OSCE have left—not all of them—but I will get him the full detail on that as well.

As regards the bigger questions on issues such as aid, Ukrainian resistance and further support, the right hon. Gentleman will know that this has been best pursued on a bilateral basis between countries or groupings of countries such as through lethal aid. Much has been made of the fact that countries such as Germany and France have not provided lethal aid to Ukraine. I simply reflect, as I did at NATO last week, that the strength of an alliance of 30 is that we can all play to our strengths. It is important that we recognise that not every country, in its political system or political leadership, is going to have the same view, but in an alliance of 30 we can play to our strengths and deliver to Ukraine what it needs. We have seen, for example, an increase in aid to Ukraine from the likes of Germany, as well as medical supplies, while in other countries such as the United Kingdom and the Baltic states, lethal aid plays a part. That is really important. In order to keep going together at the same speed, we recognise that if we are going to tackle Russia, we have to be able to play to those strengths. The EU has a strong role to play in helping the resilience of neighbouring countries such as through migrant flows in Belarus. If 1 million refugees appear in Hungary, Romania or Poland, I would urge the EU to step up and think about what it is going to do about millions of refugees on its soil rather than think about it afterwards. That is where the EU Commission can play a strong role in resilience-building.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the integrated review, but I think the situation is actually the opposite of what he said: if we read the full integrated review and the defence Command Paper, they show that we have to be ready. They show that Russia and adversaries like Russia do not go in with a big bang and just arrive in a big invasion; they soften up their targets using sub-threshold methods, cyber, corruption, organised crime and so on, and they turn up incrementally. Many of the forces we now see massed on Ukraine’s border were in fact pre-positioned in April following an exercise and then went home to barracks. That allowed them to be ready and to deploy in days, while NATO’s traditional model has been that it has taken us weeks and months to deploy.

That is why, in our defence Command Paper, we put a premium on speed and readiness. That premium may sometimes mean less mass, but that is why we have an alliance to pick up on that; we have an alliance of 30 countries, and we way outspend Russia collectively as a group of nations, and indeed on capabilities. It is also why I am now able to offer our NATO leaders true forces—forces that will actually turn up on the day, rather than what we had even in my day, when I was serving in West Germany or north Germany, which was fictional numbers, which meant that that when we pressed the button, instead of a division, we got a brigade. That is far more important in showing strength to the Russians and showing that we mean what we say and that we can deliver on it.

I was Security Minister when I introduced the Criminal Finances Act 2017. There was no greater champion of taking down dirty money in the City than me. I brought in the unexplained wealth orders. I brought in the mobile stores of wealth when people got round the provisions. I helped to set up the economic crime unit in the National Crime Agency. I ensured that we changed the law on tax evasion so that we got more people. I also pushed incredibly hard and successfully through the G7 for the transparent register of beneficial ownership.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need to do more. I absolutely supported at the time, and still do, a register of foreign agents. He is also totally right on areas such as Companies House. The whole Government are now looking at these issues and are committed to doing something about them, and I expect an announcement soon on a range of them. He is right that the consequences of Russia’s actions, going way back to Salisbury and before, are that we must stop the oligarchs resident in this country, with their dirty money, behaving as if this was a place of refuge, when they should not be welcome. If it comes to an invasion of Ukraine, Russia should know what it costs to be isolated.

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend and the Government for the robust stance they have taken alongside our American and European allies in the face of Russia’s threats against Ukraine? President Putin wants to weaken NATO and the western alliance, but does my right hon. Friend agree that any further action by the Russians to invade Ukrainian territory can only strengthen the determination of the UK, NATO and the western alliance to defend the rights of sovereign states and to defend democracy?

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I was her Security Minister, it was her support that allowed us sometimes to overrule the Treasury and to get some of that legislation through to deal with criminal finances. She is absolutely right. In 2014, after the invasion of Crimea, President Putin got exactly the opposite of what he wanted: more forces in the east of Europe and more defence spending across NATO. If he continues down this line, I suspect he will continue to get more forces on his border and greater defence spending across NATO—the very opposite of what he intends. I hope he learns the lesson of 2014. At the moment, it is not looking good.