Ukraine

Alex Baker Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his welcome for the update. I welcome the Opposition’s continued backing for the steps that we are taking to support Ukraine, just as we gave our backing to their Government when we were in opposition.

The shadow Secretary of State is right to point out that the massive scale of Russian casualties shows the contempt that President Putin has for the life of his own people, as well as for the life of those in Ukraine. He is also right to point out that Russian casualties far outnumber those in Ukraine.

On the coalition of the willing, 30 nations are involved in the planning. The military planning is now complete, and we will keep it refreshed until renewed ceasefire negotiations, which we hope to see soon. Under the plans, there will be a land force, and activity in the air and on the sea. I am pleased to hear the shadow Secretary of State back the aid that we are putting into Ukraine. He asks about the coalition of the willing, but I really cannot recall—and I have checked—him backing the coalition. Does his party support Britain’s leadership of the Multinational Force Ukraine?

Discussions on the Trump NATO plan will be developed on Monday at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group meeting, which I will co-chair will Boris Pistorius. If sanctions and economic measures play a part in the actions that the international community need to take to bring Putin to the negotiating table, we will of course use them. The shadow Secretary of State’s Government had a good record; we have gone a lot further in the past year. Since July, we have introduced over 500 new sanctions against individuals, entities and ships across all the regimes, and as a nation we have now sanctioned over 289 vessels in the Russian shadow fleet.

On base security, I will update the House when the full base security review is complete. On DragonFire, the shadow Secretary of State is right to say that he was instrumental in the UK taking its first steps on that technology, but he left the programme largely unfunded. We are already accelerating it, and will put that technology into four of our naval vessels, not just the one that he planned to put it in.

On drones, the hon. Gentleman knows that what he keeps citing was a very specific answer to a very specific question. He knows that following the strategic defence review, we are doubling to more than £4 billion the amount of money in this Parliament that we will invest in autonomy and drones. He knows that we will establish a new drone centre of excellence. This will mean we can accelerate the use of uncrewed systems or drones in every service. The Army, for instance, will train thousands of operators. This summer, we will start rolling out 3,000 strike drones. That will be followed by more than 1,000 surveillance drones, and we will equip every section with drones for the future. That is what we mean in the strategic defence review when we talk about combining the power of new technology with the heavy metal of platforms like tanks, planes and ships to make Britain the most innovative armed forces in NATO.

[Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)]

As the Member for Aldershot, I know how deeply people in my constituency understand the cost of conflict and the value of standing by our allies, so I welcome this statement and thank the Secretary of State for his leadership on this issue. Does he agree that the outcome in Ukraine matters for not just European security but the UK’s standing as a reliable defence partner, and that for us to maintain this reputation, long-term investment in British capabilities and industries in constituencies like mine—where, incidentally, DragonFire was created—is essential to sustaining our support and deterring further aggression?

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is entirely right: the UK has been the most reliable ally for Ukraine since before the full-scale invasion almost three and a half years ago. She is also right to say that a test of this nation is whether we are willing to step up the leadership on Ukraine, as we have; whether we are ready to step up the leadership in NATO, as we have; and, underpinning all, whether we are ready to step up the level of defence investment in this country, which we have. The Prime Minister announced in February that this country would invest 2.5% of GDP in defence by 2027, alongside the £5 billion extra in defence this year—Labour’s first year in government. This is the largest increase in defence investment since the end of the cold war.