Ukraine

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the noble Lord, Lord Soames, on behalf of the two Greens on these Benches. I am sure that that is a first. It was a good speech and I thank him. There was just one jarring note, which was that after 35 years in the other place the noble Lord had no understanding of the value of us—how wonderful we are in your Lordships’ House. Perhaps he can take that revelation back to his former colleagues in the other place and explain just how valuable we are, and what a wonderful job we do. I also very much enjoyed the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McDonald. It was impressive for him to speak for that long without notes. It was very good.

On the issue of the Russian embassy listening, it is a real pleasure to think that it is showing a lot of interest in what we are doing here—more, obviously, than at the other end. I tweeted yesterday about the speech that we had heard and the President’s visit. It was remarkable that within moments abusive tweets were directed back at me. They were abusive towards me, the President, Ukraine and the Green Party. It struck me that most of them were anonymous with few followers. I do not know how many noble Lords are on Twitter, but that sort of thing—the lack of followers and anonymisation—is often from bots, people who do not exist. That suggested that the tweets were from fake accounts and were probably pro-Russian propaganda. They have failed. I am sure that they are doing their best, bless them.

Ukraine has presented a persona for the President and the country right from the start of a united Government, of opposition and bravery. Even the look of the President has been very carefully thought through, wearing his military colours and always speaking out and being heard by the people, with clear updates on the war. Ukraine has allowed journalists to report from the front lines but also in towns and cities. That sort of thing has given us a very positive image of Ukraine and its President. If any noble Lord has not watched “Servant of the People”, which is where the former actor Zelensky showed us what he could do as President of Ukraine if he ever got there, I really recommend it. When I see him now, there are still times when I see “Servant of the People”.

Since Russia began its illegal and, I hope, futile war, it has weaponised energy supply. It has tried to punish Ukrainian society in many ways, and those indiscriminate strikes trying to hit energy supply have definitely been part of it. Hitting the energy infrastructure has meant that innocent civilians have not only died but gone without heating and water at a terrible time of year—the winter is very hard there. NATO has placed much emphasis on the continuation of military supplies. Although new Challenger, Leopard and Abrams tanks provide some hope for Ukraine possibly to repel a spring Russian offensive, they do very little to keep women, children and old people from freezing to death.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, outlined that the West needs to think long-term. That is not easy to do when events are happening so fast, but we have to do it. Just as Truman engineered the economic revival of post-war Europe through a comprehensive plan, the West needs to devise a green Marshall plan—a strategic plan that offers Ukraine the economic capability to secure its survival. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, made a very good speech as well. She actually stole my thunder—so thanks for that—because an energy-secure Ukraine is perhaps Europe’s best safety net against future Russian aggression.

However, the West cannot simply throw money at the problem and potentially burden Ukraine with debts that it cannot pay. Green planning and investment must be at the heart of Ukraine’s reconstruction. Ukraine has set a target of sourcing 25% of its total energy generation from renewables by 2035; it currently has 15%. Solar infrastructure projects must be built in southern Ukraine, where solar irradiance is highest, and, of course, wind farms.

I have not been to a war zone, but I worked as an archaeologist at Axum near Eritrea in the 1990s when the civil war had paused temporarily, so I know the difficulties that a local population can face after war and the sort of assaults individuals have to face—violence, rape and torture. The hardships they face after the conflict has stopped are sometimes almost worse, because they do not have anything else to distract them. In Eritrea at that time it was very hard to eat. I was not very fat to start with and I lost half a stone within a couple of weeks, simply because we could not feed ourselves—and we were the privileged people. The Eritreans wanted us to be there to excavate Axum to find out even more about their heritage, but we could barely get enough food to survive ourselves. I was a vegetarian when I went there, but when I left I had eaten a lot of goat—boiled goat at that—which I would not advise anyone to do.

All the infrastructure and rehabilitation is put at risk by a major obstacle: landmines. Ukraine is littered with them already. Ukraine’s Government estimate that 160,000 square kilometres of land is contaminated with landmines. That is astonishing, and of course the actual figure is likely to be much higher because it is difficult to see things that are buried underground. Schools and local infrastructure cannot be physically built in such a dangerous environment; it renders any plan to reconstruct Ukraine futile. As much as the West might fund Ukraine’s military defence against Russia’s invasion, it needs to simultaneously fund and support the demining effort with equal conviction. The US has already pledged $89 million for demining, but Ukraine needs much more financial support on this front because demining is labour intensive and extremely expensive.

Given the enormity of that challenge, demining has so far been more of an afterthought than a central priority. The UK can help by directing funds and equipment to the demining effort. It should use the British Army’s training facilities here to train Ukrainians in demining procedures, and it should send a fleet of demining machines. Demining the areas where the urgently needed energy infrastructure can be built should be a priority today rather than later, to help a green Marshall plan to be implemented as soon as possible.