Ukraine: 1,000 Days
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(5 days ago)
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Mr Lammy
I am pleased to have the opportunity to reply to my hon. Friend. I was once the baby of the House—I was much thinner and much better looking then. I remember sitting in his place 25 years ago. He is absolutely right: the volunteer spirit across this country has been extraordinary. People are making so many missions to Ukraine. They are facing danger as they go into Poland to provide support on the borders. It is quite incredible. Of course, I congratulate all those in his constituency on the work that they have done.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement, but I cannot hide my disappointment that he has nothing to say about freeing the hands of the Ukrainians to use our long-range missiles. How can he lament the attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure when he will not allow the Ukrainians to use our weapons to strike back and retaliate? He says all the time, “We’re doing all we can,” but we are not, and we are now foot-dragging. We used to lead; now the Americans are in the lead. Can I invite him to change the paradigm of this war and lead from the front by setting an example—as the former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson), described—as we did in the past? Otherwise he is foot-dragging, not leading.
Mr Lammy
I am not foot-dragging. We are leading, but we must be careful not to discuss these plans in detail in the House. I gently say to the hon. Member that we must not abuse the fact that this is a democratic Chamber that Putin and others pore over. Trust me, we are leading in that debate. We want to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position. I was discussing that with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister just yesterday in New York, and I will meet the Ukrainian ambassador after this statement. We will ensure that they are in the strongest possible position.
China: Human Rights and Sanctions
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for actually coming to the House on this occasion, but does that not underline the fact that he should have volunteered a statement, rather than being forced to the Dispatch Box by an urgent question? Having listened to these exchanges, are Members of the House not still entitled to ask what exactly the Government’s overall strategic policy is towards China—given, for example, the huge build-up of nuclear weapons that China is funding, developing and building? Will he bring to the House a proper and full statement, or even a White Paper, that sets out that strategy once and for all? Let me just reassure him that I am one of the many Conservative colleagues who were open-mouthed in astonishment when we announced that we were going to have a golden era with that communist dictatorship, and I never had anything to do with it.
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman is right: we must have a consistent, sustained position on China. That is why we are undertaking a China audit, and I will of course update the House when it is complete.
British Indian Ocean Territory: Negotiations
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend is right. The Conservative party used to claim to be a party of defence. This is an agreement that secures our national defence and security interests in an important part of the globe, so it is shameful to see Opposition Members behaving as they are.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I just describe the right hon. Gentleman as hopelessly naive? Has he not seen how the rule of international law across the world is collapsing under the challenge from Russia, Iran, North Korea and China? Given a few flimsy pieces of paper, how much does he think that China or any of those other countries will respect it after we have given up the principle that this is British sovereign territory?
Mr Lammy
Up against a tough geopolitical environment in which Russia, Iran, North Korea and China are far from playing by the global rules, it is hugely important that this country is one that supports the rules-based order, and it is hugely important that this facility has been secured for longer than anybody else in this Parliament was able to do. That is what we have secured. I trust the judgment of our closest ally, not that of the hon. Gentleman.
Ukraine
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
It is deeply encouraging to hear what unites the two Front Benches on support for Ukraine. Whatever differences there are, those differences and concerns are expressed by people from all political parties and from no political parties. I very much welcome the tone of the debate.
The Prime Minister was right to warn that the next few years will be some of the most dangerous that our country has ever known, and to refer to an axis of authoritarian states—Russia, Iran, North Korea and China—as a direct threat to global stability and global peace. Whether we like it or not, war has returned to Europe. Our eastern NATO allies are right to warn that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, they might be next. After all, Putin is explicit that his war in Ukraine is against NATO and the west.
The strategic situation is far from satisfactory, but we are at a turning point that hinges on how US policy now develops. That was something the Deputy Foreign Secretary did not address in his remarks; I would be grateful if it could be addressed in the summing up.
The Russian military may be running out of equipment more rapidly than we think, and its economy is more fragile than its hydrocarbon revenue would make it appear. However, Russia is still able to sustain massive casualties, and the Russian population still supports the war. Russia has accepted a subservient position in its relationship with China in order to ensure continued Chinese economic and technological support for the duration of the war.
The US and Europe are distracted from Ukraine by Gaza and other theatres, such as the Sahel and New Caledonia, where Azerbaijan appears to be manoeuvring against French interests. US domestic politics delayed aid to Ukraine by six months—a delay that Russia is exploiting, albeit with massive losses in personnel and equipment.
The delay has offered Putin an opportunity to gain an advantage on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, but the biggest danger is that Putin will win the war on the diplomatic battlefield, which is more a contest of wills than of military supremacy. Putin still believes that he can wear down the west’s will to support Ukraine before the Russian will to fight fails. Ukraine is now under significantly increased military and political pressure.
However, the re-establishment of US aid and strong statements from the UK and others, coupled with the battlefield losses, have forced Putin to take domestic measures to enable Russia to continue fighting indefinitely. The appointment of the economist Belousov—I hope that I am pronouncing that correctly—as Defence Minister marks a decision to increase the level of militarisation of Russia’s economy, putting it further on to a war footing. The new Minister will have the job of doing that, and of ensuring that the measures do not destroy Russia’s economy, as they did in Soviet times.
Any change programme—and Belousov’s appointment indicates a significant change in Russia—creates a temporary weakness in the organisation being changed. Russia is compensating for that weakness by stepping up hybrid warfare attacks on the west, which could include assassination. I do not think that we should rule out some Russian involvement in the recent attempt on the life of the Slovakian Prime Minister, Robert Fico, who may be widely identified as pro-Russian but who is not.
Official US policy is still not robust enough. President Biden does not want to allow Ukraine to lose, but nor does he want to empower Ukraine to the extent that it could inflict a crippling and destabilising defeat on Russia. The US is treating this like a regional crisis that has to be managed, but war is war, not just a crisis, and this war is part of a global conflict. A war must be won, or far more than the war will be lost.
Ukraine rightly complains that the US will not allow the weapons that it supplies to Ukraine to be used to hit targets on Russian soil. I am sure that the shadow Foreign Secretary and the shadow Defence Secretary encountered that frustration when they were there. Before the recent advance towards Kharkiv, the Ukrainians had to watch the Russians build up their forces on the Russian side of the border without being able to use US weapons to disrupt them. The Russian advance on Kharkiv demonstrates—this is the elephant in the room—that the US policy of limiting weapons use is totally illogical. It puts into jeopardy President Biden’s own policy of preventing Ukraine from losing. It makes this a critical turning point.
During a visit to Kyiv on 15 May, US Secretary of State Blinken said in a speech that
“Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war”.
Did that indicate a tacit change of policy? When my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary announced that Ukraine could use British weapons to hit Russian soil, it provoked a huge reaction from Russia, obviously designed to put others off saying the same thing. Blinken’s statement produced no reaction at all, except Russia’s advance stopped when it could have made further progress. Two days after Secretary of State Blinken’s statement, on Friday 17 May, the Ukrainians launched one of the largest drone and missile attacks on Russian targets in occupied territory and also in Russia itself, accompanied on the 16th and the 18th by massive attacks on Crimea.
Secretary of State Blinken’s statement could indicate the first steps towards a significant change in US policy to allow Ukraine to use US weapons against targets on Russian soil, reflecting the realisation of at least some within the Administration that Ukraine must be enabled to win in order to expel Russia from its territory. We do not know. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister for Armed Forces could address that question in his reply. There could be other reasons, such as record daily Russian casualties in their recent attacks. If US policy is not changing, there will be a de facto stabilisation of the frontline, with Russia in a stronger physical and psychological position than before, despite having achieved little of operational importance in terms of territory, and at significant cost in lives and equipment.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Nothing justifies what Putin has done, but what worries me about all this is what will happen if the most likely outcome materialises: namely, a stalemate. Many people in Europe, such as President Macron and others, will say that we have to start negotiations, so what will our attitude be then?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
It is an unthinkable prospect. A stalemate would be a defeat. A stalemate would be a victory for Putin, who would be holding territory that he has claimed illegally. I thought the Deputy Foreign Secretary was very clear on that, supported by the shadow Foreign Secretary in the same terms. I do not think we should talk about defeat; we should be concentrating on how to ensure that we can expel Russia from all occupied Ukrainian territory.
If the Ukrainians’ hands are tied and they cannot use US weapons to strike targets in Russia itself, they will remain vulnerable to further Russian attacks. Russia will appear stronger than it really is, having obscured its growing deficiency in weaponry. Russia will be able to continue to keep up moderate military pressure on Ukraine, to prevent the Ukrainians being able to benefit from an operational pause—in other words, I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), the Russians will have the upper hand. Russia will also step up its information warfare and influence campaign in Europe, employing hybrid and grey zone attacks.
Worse, with the US’s failure to call Russia’s nuclear bluff—that is what this policy amounts to—other states, most immediately in the middle east, will increasingly see nuclear weapons as conferring invulnerability. In the last few days it has been reported that Iran is willing to share nuclear technology with neighbouring countries, proving that the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is ineffective. We should be more honest about that. Too many Governments in the west cling to the illusion that the treaty can lead to a world free of nuclear weapons, but even European countries beyond the UK and France may soon have to consider acquiring nuclear capability, or at least accepting US tactical nuclear weapons on their soil once again.
Gaza has put western influence in the middle east into freefall, while tying up western political attention and US military supplies and helping the Russian narrative to become dominant in the global south. Russia’s information efforts have played their part in making Gaza a debilitating issue for the west and interventions in other theatres, such as New Caledonia, keep the west on the back foot. The axis of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran is strengthening. The temporary stabilisation on the frontline in Ukraine means that western European countries have still not yet had sufficient stimulus to make them appreciate the importance and urgency of going on to a wartime footing themselves and increasing their own defensive capacities.
If the US is, in fact, changing its policy, as I indicated it might be, that is a serious game changer and we must encourage it. It gives notice to Putin that eventually he will lose the war; the US can re-establish the credibility of its leadership of the democratic world and of NATO; the Chinese will draw an important lesson about US resolve, which will have significant implications for Taiwan; the Russian model will appear much less attractive to the global south and Russian influence will wane; and the impetus towards nuclear proliferation will lessen. Sadly, some European countries will feel let off the hook, and it will be harder to galvanise a united European defence effort.
What can the UK do? Sadly, even in the UK we are still reacting too slowly. The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee in December that the Ukraine war was
“existential for Euro-Atlantic security”,
but there is little sign of that understanding in our day-to-day politics. The Defence Secretary has said that the UK defence industry must be put on to a war footing, which means that the whole of Government must be mobilised for that effort, and our voters must understand that the sacrifices to fund victory in Ukraine will be far less than the costs of defeat for Ukraine in the longer term.
The UK should build a cross-party assessment, which I think has already been built in this debate, of what needs to be done to move the UK by stages on to a war footing and to increase defence capability and capacity, rather than just talking about increasing the defence budget.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am going to bring my remarks to a close, if that is all right.
Even if we do not have enough kit to send to Ukraine, we could help the Ukrainians to make more kit themselves and significantly improve our training effort, which we now know is not providing the Ukrainians with the breadth or depth of training needed to win this war—I hope the Government will respond to that point. We must press the White House to understand that Ukraine must be enabled to win this war, or the war is lost. We must also keep encouraging our European allies to follow suit. We can all learn from the way that countries such as Finland and Poland have moved on to a war footing and are building much increased military capacity at less cost.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I welcome the debate, and I thank Ministers for making time for it. My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary and I wanted to respond to it together rather than delegating the task to others, in order to underline the importance that we attach to the United Kingdom’s support for Ukraine. This has also given us the opportunity to draw some lessons, as my right hon. Friend did earlier, from our visit to Ukraine last week. Like my right hon. Friend, I thank the Foreign Secretary for his help in facilitating that visit. We would be grateful if the Deputy Foreign Secretary passed on our thanks.
While my right hon. Friend and I were in Irpin, we met three Ukrainian teenagers. We talked about their families and friends, about possible careers and about their hopes for the future—but these young people had been through something so horrific that it belongs in the 1940s. After Putin’s full-scale invasion began, they were kidnapped and sent to camps in Crimea and Russia. Every morning they had to sing the Russian national anthem, and they were sent into isolation if they did not do as they were told. One, a diabetic, was refused insulin and became very sick. Those who were running the Russian camps told those Ukrainian children, “No one cares about you”, “Your families are dead”, and “Ukraine no longer exists”. I want to praise the work of the Ukrainian charity Save Ukraine, which is doing vital work to rescue the stolen children, reunite them with their families and help the survivors to deal with their trauma.
Despite those young people being told “Ukraine no longer exists”, more than 800 days on from Putin’s full-scale invasion it is still standing, and civilian and military alike are still fighting with huge courage. We toured a factory and spoke to the wives, mothers and fathers who had fled from the east to Kyiv in the face of Putin’s invasion, and are now working together to support the Ukrainian war effort. While their loved ones are on the frontline, everyone in Ukraine is fighting to defeat Putin.
The shadow Foreign Secretary and I had one simple message to convey during our visit: the UK continues to be united for Ukraine. If there is a change of Government after the election this year, there will be no change in Britain’s resolve to stand with Ukraine, confront Russian aggression and pursue Putin for his war crimes. We told the Ukrainian Defence Minister, President Zelensky’s chief of staff and the parliamentarians whom we met that this was our Labour guarantee to Ukraine. That is why we have fully backed the Government’s increased military aid to Ukraine, for this year and the years ahead.
The Deputy Foreign Secretary said that in his speech the shadow Foreign Secretary had shown the unity of the House. He was right, and all the speeches tonight have shown the unity of this House. In fact, this House has shown a unity behind Ukraine that goes beyond the debates in this Chamber. As UK parliamentarians, my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) and for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin), and the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), have all been involved in gathering aid and driving it to Ukraine over the past couple of years. Other Members have taken in Ukrainian families. Like tens of thousands of big-hearted Britons, we have offered, through the Homes for Ukraine programme, shelter, refuge and a life in this country to over 140,000 Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s invasion.
I turn now to the contributions to the debate. Characteristically, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) made a deeply reflective speech with a wide sweep that recognised that, as he said, this war is part of a global conflict. He quoted Secretary of State Blinken, who, as he rightly said, was in Kyiv on the second day that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary and I were there, which was 15 May. The hon. Member quoted Blinken as saying that
“Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war”.
In fact, the rest of what Blinken said is important. He said that Ukraine is conducting the war
“in defence of its freedom, of its sovereignty, of its territorial integrity. And we will continue to back Ukraine with the equipment that it needs to succeed”.
The hon. Member for Angus (Dave Doogan), who speaks for the SNP from the Front Bench, added the SNP’s voice to the all-party consensus, although I was puzzled when he described himself as an impartial observer of the UK’s activities in Ukraine. However, he was dead right when he said that it is essential for western European security that Putin’s full-scale invasion fails. If he prevails, he will be tearing up the rules-based system. That is why it matters so much to us, as well as to the Ukrainians, that they win.
The hon. Member for Filton and Bradley Stoke (Jack Lopresti) has so many innovative defence companies in his area that he speaks as someone with quite a lot of technical expertise. He described how, and with what kit, the Russians are stepping up their rate of successful fire on the frontline. He said that defence of Ukraine today is defence of the UK tomorrow, and I liked that argument. It is an argument that I consistently put in different terms in saying that the UK’s defence starts in Ukraine, and we need to do more on both sides of the House to convey a sense of importance and urgency to the British public so that we can help reinforce their continuing support for the war.
Characteristically, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) made an argument as well as a speech, which I always like to hear. He said that we think about this war in terms of values, sovereignty, territorial integrity and democracy, but that we think less than we should about making the long-term partnership with Ukraine valuable to the UK. That seems especially important, as a successful Ukraine will become, in partnership with the democratic west, central to wider European security and prosperity in the future.
The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) rightly urged, as I will in my remarks, more attention and effort on the diplomatic front to build what he called the “coalition of the willing”, and he pointed the attention of his own Government and the House towards countries in south-east Asia and the middle east that should be part of such a coalition. Like the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex, he also warned about the increasing co-operation between China and Russia.
My hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) reinforced the argument that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary made in his speech: we in the UK are still too often playing catch-up on sanctions, and on tackling the dirty money of Russian oligarchs in our country. She urged the Government to demonstrate more action and greater leadership in directing frozen Russian state assets towards the much-needed reconstruction help for Ukraine.
The right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said that he wanted to inject some realism into the debate, and he was right to say that we cannot just will what we want. He said that if what we want is a Ukrainian victory, we must will the resources. However, I say to him that the Ukrainians can cope with what he described as the mismatch with Russia, as long as we and other nations maintain our backing for them.
That point was picked up immediately by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West, who said that the importance of our ramping up production lies in the fact that if we and other allies of Ukraine provide ammunition and weaponry, Europe and the US can, between us, easily counter the levels of increased Russian production. He showed a really extraordinary grasp of the history of Ukraine and of the reality of Ukrainian history, rather than the Russian revisionism that we sometimes hear. I pay tribute to him and the other officers of the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine for their work.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Would it not also be sensible to emphasise that if we want this war to go on forever, we should allow Russia to stay in control of sovereign Ukrainian territory? If we want to have a clean and clear end to this conflict, the only way to do so is to expel Russia from illegally occupied territory.
John Healey
I will come to some of the military challenges faced by Ukraine in a moment, if I may; the hon. Gentleman made that point very powerfully in his speech earlier.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) echoed what we have declared as Labour’s intent: to try to take the politics out of the UK’s support for Ukraine in the run-up to the election. I trust that the Government will respond in the same way. Like the hon. Member for The Cotswolds, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said that more diplomacy is required with countries that he described as having yet to declare their position, alongside the military aid that the UK is supplying.
I think my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Kevan Jones) was the only one who reminded the House that the Ukrainians have not just been fighting Russia since February 2022; they were fighting it for over eight years before that, after proxy forces invaded parts of the Donbas and Russia seized Crimea. One of the things that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary and I found most moving about both of the visits we have made to Ukraine is the wall of remembrance for fallen heroes, which has the photographs and details of all those who died before February 2022. Over 13,000 Ukrainians lost their lives through fighting the Russians on Ukrainian soil. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham also reminded us, in his role as a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, that the Parliamentary Council at NATO had established relations with Ukraine way back in 1991. He asked what would happen if we failed in Ukraine. He was right to say that the Baltic countries and the former eastern bloc countries all know that they will be next.
Finally, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) reminded us about the pattern of military aggression from Russia, not just in Ukraine but in Georgia. It is exactly what the UN charter is designed to prevent: big nations redrawing international boundaries by force. It is exactly why it is so important that Putin does not prevail. When we were in Kyiv last week, the message of those we met was consistent. They described the conflict in Ukraine as being at a critical moment, with new offensives around Kharkiv and new attacks along the length of the frontline. That is an easy thing to say, but the length of the frontline for the Ukrainians is 800 miles. That is as far as London to Aberdeen and back. The scale of the challenge they face is huge.
It is tough for Ukraine at the moment, and it is set to get tougher still in the months ahead. Its most urgent and complex challenge is to stabilise the front in the coming weeks and prevent what are local tactical gains by Russia from becoming a wider operational success. Stabilising the front depends on the prompt delivery from the west of air defence, artillery and long-range strike systems. Also, it depends not just on the western allies; it depends on the Ukrainians to construct effective defensive fortifications, to boost their own military manpower, to maintain the quality advantage that they have in training their forces and also to restore morale.
Alongside this, the Ukrainians have also scored significant successes with their own offensive operations, and we must not lose sight of that, particularly outside the land war. These have involved long-range strikes with indigenously produced weapons systems, partisan warfare in parts of Russia and the occupied territories, special forces operations and maritime operations. These are no longer symbolic; they are increasingly substantial in their effect. They have destroyed one third of the Russian Black sea fleet. Notwithstanding Putin walking away from the Black sea grain initiative, they have opened up freedom of navigation in the western side of the Black sea and Ukraine is now exporting more grain than it did under the initiative when Putin gave it the go-ahead. It is also exporting many other goods. For the large majority of Ukrainians, it is quite clear that the stakes are nothing less than the survival of the state and the nation. People in Kyiv told us, “Even if the west stops supporting us, we will not give up fighting.”
This has also become a war about the survival of Russia as a state and the survival of its elites. Too often, the western view has been that this is somehow a war of choice for Russia, but that has underplayed how Russia has once again become a country whose primary vocation is war. In that vein, Putin has now moved his industry on to a wartime footing. He is now spending a total of 40% of his Government’s budget on defence. This war is not only military; it is also diplomatic and economic, and Putin will not make peace if he thinks he can win on the battlefield. He will not stop at Ukraine if he succeeds there.
Our recent military aid packages from the UK and allies have been really warmly welcomed and received in Kyiv, but more is needed. Deliveries of air defence, ammunition and long-range missiles need to be speeded up, and further diplomatic and economic action must be taken to isolate Putin further. We have to be able to show him that things will get worse for Russia, not better.
That is why we are asking Ministers and allies to take three immediate steps. First, deliveries of military support need to speed up and reach the frontline. As NATO’s Secretary-General Stoltenberg has said, any country that can send more should send more. Training for Ukrainian troops should also be expanded.
Secondly, UK diplomacy should be accelerated leading up to the G7, with the NATO 75th anniversary, the European Political Community meeting and Ukraine’s peace summit all taking place in the next few weeks. The purpose will be to strengthen support for Ukraine, seize frozen Russian state assets and close sanction loopholes. All those must be the outcomes of successful summits over the next few weeks.
Ukraine
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(9 months ago)
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Mr Mitchell
In respect of the first part of what the hon. Gentleman said, he underlines the point that I have repeatedly made today about the importance of the American contribution getting through Congress and arriving in material terms at the front as swiftly as possible. On his second point, we are doing everything we possibly can. The Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister have clearly been in the lead in the support that Europe is giving to Ukraine. We are seeking to persuade in every way all our friends and allies to do the same. I submit to him that in recent months there has been a welcome increase in that support from our European allies, and I hope he will share my pride that the United Kingdom is right at the forefront of those pressing for more and better in the future.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I flee the Chamber for a 2 o’clock meeting of the Liaison Committee, which I must attend immediately after this question. May I point out to my right hon. Friend the Minister that it was notable how swiftly No. 10 played down President Macron’s suggestion that French or NATO troops might be directly deployed to the conflict in Ukraine? Can that be used to demonstrate how vacillation in Washington will lead to escalation in Europe? Could the European members of NATO perhaps explore some kind of lend-lease arrangement with the United States, as we had in the 1939 to 1940 period?
Mr Mitchell
First, may I wish my hon. Friend every success in his outing at the Liaison Committee this afternoon? He is right that we need to stretch every sinew to ensure we give as much support as we can in the way he suggests, but I must re-echo the words of the NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, when he said yesterday that there are no plans for NATO combat troops to be on the ground in Ukraine.
Hong Kong Update
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I think we are all agreed that that is exactly what we want. Indeed, our police and security authorities do that, and have done so successfully, for many vulnerable groups whenever it is required. As I said, I will not discuss anything that may be in place for the particular British nationals overseas who are here, and the three in particular who are bravely speaking up and using their voices to challenge, so that we cannot in any way compromise the integrity of the support that is being provided.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know that I have long taken an interest in strategic thinking in Government, where there is widely perceived to be a lack of capability and consistency. That is underlined by the ISC report that came out today. It states:
“While we sought to examine whether the Government’s strategy for dealing with such a large adversary was up to the task, they”—
that is, all the witnesses—
“felt very strongly that HMG did not have any strategy on China, let alone an effective one, and that it was singularly failing to deploy a ‘whole-of-government’ approach when countering the threat from China—a damning appraisal indeed.”
Will the Minister contribute to the Liaison Committee’s inquiry into the scrutiny of national strategy and strategic thinking of Government, which we are now undertaking?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As I say, over the weekend, I will read in detail the report from a Committee that always has a depth of wisdom, because it includes those who have spent many years in this House and who understand the workings of our democracy and Parliament. We will continue to work with it, but I dispute that there is not clarity. The Foreign Secretary’s speech at Chatham House a few months ago set out a very clear framework around protecting our assets, aligning our interests where we can, engaging on many issues—many of which will be beyond our borders—and working together on issues such as development and climate change challenges. That was very clear. The integrated review refresh, which was published a couple of months ago, set out in more detail what that means. We have a clear direction of travel in which we are very comfortable working, and the whole of Government is aligning around that to deliver positives, where necessary, and to protect UK interests as required.
Illicit Finance: War in Ukraine
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House notes the Second Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, The cost of complacency: illicit finance and the war in Ukraine, HC 168, and the other work by Committees of this House on the war in Ukraine; affirms UK support for the government and armed forces of Ukraine in the defence of their country against the illegal and unprovoked invasion by President Putin’s military forces; is deeply concerned at the suppression of democratic freedoms to the detriment of the Russian people and utterly condemns President Putin’s war of aggression; reaffirms the UK’s steadfast support for NATO and the security of the UK’s allies and supports Sweden’s swift accession to the alliance; and therefore urges the Government to continue and accelerate its support for the Ukrainian armed forces through the provision of weaponry and training, and through rallying international opinion and action in support of Ukraine, until the Russian armed forces have been expelled from all Ukrainian sovereign territory as recognised in international law.
It is my privilege to move the motion standing in my name and those of all the other Chairs of Committees who have signed it. I sense that the NATO statement may have sucked a little attention away from this debate, but that is not the point. Why is the Liaison Committee putting this motion forward for debate at all? The answer is simple: the Government have come to the House to make statements, take part in debates and answer questions, but the House itself has never expressed its collective view on the Ukraine war, on behalf of the people we represent. The Liaison Committee believes it important to agree this cross-party motion and to put it to the House, so that the House puts its view clearly on the record.
The Russian aggression in Ukraine is state-on-state warfare in our continent, and it represents the greatest existential threat to peace and security in Europe since world war two. Peace in Europe, and the era of peace in most of the world since that time, is the most signal achievement of the post-world war two era. Without victory for Ukraine, lasting peace will not be restored. What does victory mean? We should be clear about what it does not mean. It does not mean just stopping the fighting, by trading sovereign Ukrainian territory for peace, simply because Russia has occupied it. That would not be peace, but a defeat for Ukraine and for the whole of the free world.
Any peace after that would be a false peace because, first, Russia would have proved that illegal military aggression rewards the aggressor. Secondly, it would leave Russia, which is already rearming as fast as it can, to resume the war whenever it chose to do so. Neither Ukraine nor the rest of Europe would be safe from Russian aggression. This motion spells out what a Ukrainian victory must mean: nothing less than the wholesale rolling back of Russia’s armed forces out of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, as recognised in international law. I am grateful to His Majesty’s Opposition for agreeing on that clear wording. That is what the free nations of Europe, and of the whole world, must support Ukraine to achieve.
If we are to prevent Russia and other autocratic states, such as China, from proving that aggression pays, there can be no halfway house, no split-the-difference deal, that segments a sovereign state. That would shred what Winston Churchill called the “sinews of peace” in the title of his famous iron curtain speech, which helped to lay the foundations of the global security and stability that we have too readily taken for granted. The democratic powers would gain only short-term respite from further wars of aggression, selling out generations of blood spilt and of patient deterrence, to offer the next generation —well, exactly what? Who can ever forget that “peace in our time” in 1939 turned out to be a false respite?
So this motion is an important message. It is also a signal to our own public about how we are inviting our own voters to regard the Russian aggression. Our news channels and politics are cluttered with trivia, but also with any number of urgent issues that are also existential threats—not least, climate change and the race to net zero. But we need to convey an ugly truth: war, and the threat of war, displaces every other threat by its immediacy. If the globe, by neglect, cascades into the chaos and waste of increasing state-on-state warfare, with all its death and destruction, and economic and trade disruption, the net zero target will be just another casualty. So our democracy, and democracy around the world, must not fail this test.
The question is: how can Ukraine win this war, in the terms set out by the motion? On that, we find that some are more doubtful than others. We have had the strange spectacle of the US President’s reluctance to advance Ukraine’s membership of NATO, for fear that, as President Biden said:
“If the war is going on, then we’re all in war…with Russia”.
That somewhat misses the point. President Putin has himself declared that his war is a war against NATO. The fact is that we are already in the war. Denial of that is denial of the profound and dangerous consequences of this war for our own security. The democratic world cannot afford to stumble in our support for Ukraine. The House heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister confirm earlier that the Vilnius summit was one of the most significant in NATO’s history. Ukraine was not immediately offered NATO membership, as we and others might have hoped, but we should understand why. It is problematic to extend the article 5 protection to a nation that is being torn by conflict as we speak.
However, we can be pleased to see the words of the Vilnius communiqué:
“Ukraine’s future is in NATO.”
We can also be grateful for President Biden’s support for those words. Furthermore, the Vilnius summit dispensed with the requirement for the usual membership action plan, and also established a new NATO-Ukraine council, formalising a relationship between Ukraine and NATO. All that and, not least, the continuing active and practical support for Ukraine, reinforces the underlying intention of NATO nations, in principle, that we will accept only one outcome from the war: the complete expulsion of Russian armed forces from Ukrainian territory.
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend the Minister would agree that NATO membership for Ukraine is also essential as soon as the war ends. Will the Government commit to that? There will only be a significant flow of investment into a post-war Ukraine if that investment is underpinned by NATO’s article 5 security guarantee. When the Czech Republic was first offered accession talks for NATO membership in 1997, the flow of private foreign investment into the country doubled within a week.
I wonder whether the Labour Opposition can expand on their position on the commitment to NATO enlargement. Earlier this week, a slightly different motion was planned for today’s Order Paper, but I was persuaded to remove the reference to continuing NATO enlargement, in the interests of cross-party unity. That is what we are pursuing today, so this is a genuinely well-motivated inquiry. Why was it necessary to remove the reference to NATO enlargement?
Today, the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), supported enlarging it. I am grateful for that late support, but will Labour make clear its support for the text in paragraph 4 of the Vilnius communiqué? That includes the words:
“We reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door policy and to Article 10 of the Washington Treaty. Every nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements.”
Does Labour stand by the decision made at the Bucharest summit in 2008, reiterated this week in Vilnius, which says that not just Ukraine but Georgia
“will become a member of NATO”?
The House will await the shadow Minister’s response to those questions.
What Ukraine must also have now is more NATO standard weaponry and more training. It still does not have enough and, as its young men die on the battlefields, we should be forgiving of President Zelensky’s constant pleading. I am certain that the Secretary of State for Defence did not want to cause a stir with his slightly unguarded remarks, but they carried an important message that the Ukrainian Government and Ukrainian representatives can be more persuasive of others who are perhaps reluctant to support Ukraine, or reluctant to support it with the necessary weapons and matériel.
The UK has been a trailblazer. The Government should be congratulated on the UK being the first nation to give significant military support to Ukraine, while countries such as the United States and Germany were holding back. We were the first to provide military training and lethal weapons, and the first to commit tanks and long-range missiles. It is in the interests of the whole world that the Ukrainian armed forces get what they need, and as fast as possible. The more they have now, the quicker they can achieve victory. It is a simple equation. The longer the war takes, the more expensive it will be for NATO countries and for the rest of the world in the longer term. It will also be more dangerous, because the longer we take to help Ukraine achieve victory, the bigger problem a belligerent Russia will become.
The UK does all of this not out of some misplaced notion of national vanity about our role in the world, but to defend our own national interest. The UK plays a vital leadership role in the world. The UK has to step up, or the world will become a far more dangerous place for our own citizens, as well as for everybody else. The post-war era of peace and security was founded on deterrence. When deterrence failed and the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on 24 February last year, the peace and security of Europe was shattered. It must be restored, or democracy around the world will have failed in its resolve and the dictators will have triumphed.
The motion before the House this afternoon is not just a declaration of support for the policy of His Majesty’s Government on Ukraine; it is a banner under which we must rally our people and the other democracies of the world, in support of the freedom and security of us all.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Every day I wake, I thank the Lord that I am not caught up in a war. Each of us should do that. It is the most solemn duty of Government to protect our people from the prospect and threat of war. It has been my honour to put this motion on the Order Paper on behalf of the Liaison Committee, and I thank all members of that Committee for their support. I also thank all those who have participated in the debate. It has not been a debate wracked by dispute and contention; it has been a consensual afternoon. I hope that there is no need to divide the House on the motion and that, by the time I sit down, the House of Commons will have spoken for the people of Ukraine, for the global peace and security that this country can contribute to the world, and for the safety and security of our own people, their prosperity and prospects. I believe that, despite this being a quiet little debate, it is quite an important occasion for the House of Commons. Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes the Second Report of the Foreign Affairs Committee, The cost of complacency: illicit finance and the war in Ukraine, HC 168, and the other work by Committees of this House on the war in Ukraine; affirms UK support for the government and armed forces of Ukraine in the defence of their country against the illegal and unprovoked invasion by President Putin’s military forces; is deeply concerned at the suppression of democratic freedoms to the detriment of the Russian people and utterly condemns President Putin’s war of aggression; reaffirms the UK’s steadfast support for NATO and the security of the UK’s allies and supports Sweden’s swift accession to the alliance; and therefore urges the Government to continue and accelerate its support for the Ukrainian armed forces through the provision of weaponry and training, and through rallying international opinion and action in support of Ukraine, until the Russian armed forces have been expelled from all Ukrainian sovereign territory as recognised in international law.
Situation in Russia
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 year, 5 months ago)
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James Cleverly
I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the point he has made. As always, we keep decisions about proscription of organisations open across Government Departments, but as he will know, we do not typically comment on future proscriptions or designations. Back in June, when the announcement came out that volunteers would be contracted to the Russian Ministry of Defence, we looked at the implications of that for the sanctions structure and others. I am not at liberty to discuss the outcome of those deliberations, but I can reassure the hon. and gallant Gentleman and the House that we have had those things under consideration.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Many in the House and elsewhere are commenting on the opportunity provided to the Ukrainian armed forces to press home their advantage while the Russian command chain is in a shambles, but is it not a truism that the more help we can deliver to the Ukrainians now, and the quicker we can do it, the more likely it is that we will end the war quickly with a favourable outcome? What are we doing to press home the advantage by galvanising ourselves and our allies to give more support to the Ukrainian armed forces?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the situation over the weekend makes the command and control of the Russian forces less effective. I assure him and the House that we have never been distracted from our primary goal, which is to support the Ukrainians financially and militarily so that they can press home their counter-offensive, and we will continue to do exactly that.
Integrated Review Refresh
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the presentation of this paper, which shows a far greater strategic awareness of the vulnerability that the whole of the west faces than we would have seen in any document just a few years ago. But is not the ghost at the feast still the money? I very much welcome his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence, but when are we going to see our armed forces restored to the critical mass that is capable of deterring the kind of aggression we are seeing in Ukraine and the kind of aggressive policies we are seeing from China? The £5 billion announced today will patch up what we should have been spending already, but it is not going to make a huge difference.
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is right to say that all defence postures need to be paid for, and that is why I am proud that we have the additional £5 billion that we have announced on top of the money previously announced in 2020. Obviously, when we are talking about expenditure as a percentage of GDP, one of the best things we can do is to grow the economy, which is why I full support the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy so that we can have a larger defence budget in absolute terms, because it will be a percentage of a growing economy. I highlight the fact that that is in stark contrast to the lack of commitment to a proportion of defence spending from those on the Opposition Front Bench, along with no credible plan to grow the economy. I take the point my hon. Friend makes to heart.
Russia’s Grand Strategy
Bernard Jenkin Excerpts(1 year, 10 months ago)
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Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of Russia’s grand strategy.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate again, because I secured a debate last year about the same topic. Then, I outlined Putin’s global policy and I set out how Russia was threatening Ukraine as part of a campaign of blackmail and hybrid warfare directed at the Americans and NATO. I explained how Russia’s grand strategy was being conducted across the whole spectrum of foreign, defence, security and domestic policy. I discussed Russia’s warlike strategic headquarters at its national defence management centre at the old Russian army staff HQ on the Moskva river. Today, I make the same fundamental point as I made last year: Russia has a grand strategy, but we do not.
The idea of global Britain demands a global strategy, which means grand strategy and must be a whole-of-Government enterprise. It is fair to ask, “If Russia has an effective grand strategy, why has it not done better in Ukraine?”, because when the war started, all the assessments predicted that the Russian army would be much more successful. The answer is simple: Putin’s decision bypassed the usual strategy process and went against the views of his general staff.
This is about the difference between policy and strategy. Policy is the aim—the political objective—and strategy is the interactive process by which that policy objective might be achieved. Putin was driven by his obsession to subjugate Ukraine. He overrode the general staff’s strategy process and disregarded the limitations of the army. It could be considered odd that he did that, but he had used lethal force before with great success. In Georgia and Crimea, surprise and speed brought him a quick victory, although on those occasions the general staff were behind him; in Ukraine, they advised him against going to war.
Of course, Putin is not the first to override his general staff in pursuit of an obsessive policy; the same was Hitler’s undoing. It seemed, until a week ago, that it might also be Putin’s, but he has learned from his mistake and has rediscovered strategy. Last week’s appointment of the chief of the general staff Gerasimov as the overall commander brings the general staff back into the planning and command chain. Other commanders, warlords and private military companies will be brought under his authority. As Gerasimov gets a grip of things, I am afraid that we must expect to see Russian performance in Ukraine improve considerably.
Russia is not giving up, so Ukraine’s survival will now depend on western military and economic help being delivered a lot more rapidly and in far greater quantities than it has been so far. Unfortunately, the approach of the UK’s current foreign and defence integrated review refresh process is underpinned by an explicit but premature assumption that Russia will lose in Ukraine and will then prioritise investment in maritime, particularly sub-surface, as well as space, cyber and special forces. It argues that Russia will not invest meaningfully in land forces, but our eastern European and Nordic colleagues do not share that view.
The integrated review refresh risks over-optimism that would allow us to tilt our posture and capabilities away from the most immediate threat in Europe and, instead, towards long-term gambles on technological superiority and a focus on the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS and the tilt to the Indo-Pacific are certainly policies, but they are not backed up by any strategy process to determine if they can be achieved with the limited ways and means that we have available.
The policies of global Britain and AUKUS are admirable and, conveniently, cheaper, but they are not enough on their own. Painful though it is, we need much stronger land power as well. We must still gear up to defend the UK and to deter a war in Europe against a peer enemy. Of course, Russia will invest in sub-surface, space and cyber, but it shows no sign of dispensing with large-scale ground forces, heavy armour and artillery. If anything, the Ukraine war has convinced the general staff of the need to reinvest in their army.
The Nordics and the Poles know that Russia is a land animal. Strategic missile submarines excepted, Russia sees its navy as flank protection for a land war and its air force as the third dimension of that land war. Despite evident lack of progress and perceived weaknesses, Putin shows no signs of intending to stop, of scaling down his demands, of looking for a way out or of making serious proposals for peace. In fact, Ukraine is expecting a new all-out assault in the spring or even sooner.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
In the debate last year, I made the point that I felt that we were already in a cold war, which some disagreed with. Does my hon. Friend think that our European allies have changed their position on that or is there still a resistance to accepting that a new cold war is well and truly under way?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I think that we are in denial of not just a cold war, but a hot war. The hot war that is being conducted in Ukraine is laced with rhetoric and invective about NATO being the threat and about the United States of America provoking that threat, so NATO and the United States must somehow be defeated in this war. If we do not understand that Putin is now conducting a hybrid and political war against Europe and NATO, backed by a hot war in Ukraine, we are not yet living in the real world.
If the process of reinvigorating Russia’s armed forces and preparing for a further assault on Ukraine is not derailed and Putin is successful, by 2024, the west will face a more formidable Russia that believes that it can establish its place in a future world order by force of arms. This is a long-term strategic challenge that requires a long-term strategic response from the UK Government, all European Governments and NATO.
Putin’s strategy depends on time. We all admire Ukraine’s bravery and agility, which have left the Russian army in something of a quagmire, but it would be an epic tragedy if we now allowed Russia the time to mass its forces, so that its brutal war of attrition could become overwhelming. It is crucial for the west to increase the tempo of its supply of weapons systems to Ukraine, so that Ukraine, rather than Russia, can be first to develop the mobile formations necessary to break the current battlefield deadlock. The reality is that Russia’s whole grand strategy is on a knife edge and the next few months could be crucial.
We should not be deterred by Putin’s so-called red lines. In war and crisis, red lines are political and flexible. We proved that when Russia’s build-up to the invasion last year crossed several NATO red lines, and we did nothing. Likewise, Putin’s incorporation of Donbas into the Russian Federation was intended to set up a red line of Russian territory being attacked, but when Ukraine attacked, it turned out there was no red line.
Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
On the point about how we in the west might have set some red lines, I thought at the time that the west was not being firm enough in the red lines it was laying down. What we saw in mid-February was the US President and others talking only about sanctions, and how there would be nothing more than sanctions as a consequence of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I regard the United States as our closest and most important ally and personally I love the United States of America, but on its response to this crisis—it has been voluminous compared with that of the rest of Europe and a lot of money has been devoted to it—its signalling has been very weak. What matters in wartime is not what red lines we set; it is what we actually do.
I am afraid our own Government made a terrible error when we set a red line about the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, and then what did we do? We backed off when chemical weapons were used. The effect of that has been to weaken the influence of the United States, the United Kingdom and the whole of the west in the countries that really count in this war as potential allies or neutral states—for example, the Gulf states, which despaired of our lack of resolve in that conflict. Red lines are less important than what we do, and what we must now do is send far more matériel into this conflict to support the Ukrainians, so that the Russians are deterred or fail to achieve what they attempt to do.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
On my hon. Friend’s point about doing as opposed to just saying, with which I entirely agree, does he agree with me that part of this is that the German Government should now release their legal hold over the export of Leopard tanks from European allies to the Ukrainians to allow them a chance to counter-attack?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I certainly think that is the case, and I think the constant fear of our escalating the conflict has been misplaced because Putin has escalated the conflict anyway. There is nothing we can do to prevent him from escalating. In fact, the signal we have sent by being too timid and too slow in sending support into Ukraine has encouraged him to escalate. There is no deterrence in timidity, which is what too many western Governments have shown.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
To drag together that point with something my hon. Friend said earlier, surely such timidity also follows failure to have the capability to be more assertive. In other words, now that their defence budgets have been stripped out, western Governments are worried that any attempt to try to show that they are more belligerent, shall we say, exposes the very fact that most of them are simply incapable of delivering any of that belligerence at all.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I entirely agree with that, but in more direct response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), the timidity of the Germans not just to release their own tanks, but to allow the tanks of other nations, such as Poland, to be sent into the conflict to support the Ukrainians sends more than a signal of timidity—it is appeasement. I am sorry to use that word, which I know has a loaded connotation, but it is appeasement. However, we must congratulate Germany on having come a very long way from the days of Gazprom being chaired by a former Chancellor of Germany and Angela Merkel making Germany dependent on Russian gas as a matter of policy. We have come a long way, and we should welcome the fact that Germany has committed to spend €100 billion more on defence, but we are still yet to see what that really means, and it means nothing if Germany is not prepared to help send heavy armour into this conflict.
If I may say so, we have committed to send 12 tanks, but why not 120 tanks? What are our tanks for? Are they there to sit around on Salisbury plain and in Germany to decorate the British Army’s capability, or should we tool them up and get them into this conflict so that the taxpayer can actually get value for money out of this investment? If necessary, we can launch an urgent operational requirement to acquire some more tanks to replace those that we will probably not ever see again in our own country.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I will, but I do want to press on, and I will probably be overrunning my time very shortly.
John Howell
I will try not to interrupt my hon. Friend for too long. Does he agree with me that the timidity on the part of the UK is exampled by the fact that when I asked Zelensky how many air defence missile systems he had, he said 10%—that is all? When I got back to the UK, there was an email from a well-known Cabinet Minister saying, “Be very quiet about this, because we do not want to stress the fact that we are giving him so few.” Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a prime example of such timidity?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
We should not trash what the Government have done, which is considerable, but we should point out that the failure to do much more—much more—is going to cost us in the short term, the medium term and the long term. We must also dispense with the false hopes that some kind of regime change would be likely to reverse the Russian urge to control its near abroad, or to use its army as a tool for suppressing dissent and keeping the country together.
My conclusion is that if the UK is going to help lead the NATO alliance, which protects Europe against Russia, we need meaningful land power to make an effective contribution, supported by mobile air cover and a Navy to deliver the Army to where the action is. For that, we need a new mobilisation system to come out of the integrated review refresh, and a procurement system to back it up that looks much more like a system of urgent operational requirements, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford suggested during the statement earlier this week, than the absurdly slow and costly peacetime procurement process that we somehow insist we have to maintain, despite its delivering—or not delivering at all—equipment, at vast expense, with limited capability.
This demands a drastic—even revolutionary—change of UK grand strategy, which I suppose is why we seem to avoid having one and, I suspect, why the IRR is stuck where it is. In the long term, how do we find a way to stop burgeoning state-backed health and welfare systems crowding out defence and security spending? In the short term, Whitehall in general and the Ministry of Defence in particular must accept that, if we continue to spend defence money as we have done over the last 20 years, we really are lost. We need a complete revolution in defence acquisition and procurement, making it look and feel much more like a continuing series of urgent operational requirements—a system based on wartime emergency procedures that, historically, delivered much cheaper and more timely equipment. We need to regain the ability to adapt our force structure, kit and tactics to outmatch an active enemy, just as the Ukrainians have done and the Poles are doing.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am drawing to a close. There are growing pockets of awareness and belief in the value of strategy in the civil service, the diplomatic service, the security services, the National Security Council, the MOD, the Foreign Office and No. 10, but Whitehall as a whole is still miles away from the kind of capability and capacity for constant strategic analysis and assessment that would provide Ministers with the right questions and might lead them to the right answer. Why do we not have a Minister in the Cabinet Office for national security who is responsible for answering on grand strategy? Without the right apparatus and the right culture in government, we will always be behind the curve of events, as we seem to be now, and mis-appreciating what is really happening. We need to find the right answers to the new and evolving threats the UK and the whole of the free world must confront before it is too late.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
When I started the process in the Council of Europe that had Russia expelled, I was unsure where it would end up. One of the things I have done since then is to introduce what I hope will turn into a new convention or treaty that will hold Russia to account for its aggression against the environment. Human lives and human aggravation are already accounted for, but there is nothing to be able to hold it to account for aggression against the environment.
Secondly, I have asked for a current affairs debate on two countries: Serbia and Kosovo. Why have I asked for a debate on Serbia and Kosovo? Because it is clear to me that Putin is making a big effort to make Serbia a second front to take our attention away from Ukraine. I think he is also doing it as a result of wanting to expand Russia. It is a pretty good example of that.
In 2015, the Russian state media, Sputnik, began broadcasting anti-EU and anti-NATO disinformation. It began broadcasting it not from Russia, but in the western Balkans from its regional base in Belgrade. Only at the end of last year, on 13 December, a rally was held in Belgrade to demand the intervention of the Serbian Government in Kosovo. Members may think there is nothing to be said about that, but many of the people attending that rally were waving Russian flags and chanting hateful and racist comments.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
In fact, it is even worse than that. The state-controlled media in Serbia simply broadcasts Russian propaganda and has recently accused Ukraine of killing its own civilians, when in fact those civilians were being killed by Russian missile attacks.
John Howell
I am glad my hon. Friend has taken away a large part of what I was going to say, which has made it much easier to concentrate.
Russia and Belarus have provided Serbia with 14 MiG-29 fighter jets. Eight are donations from Belarus and six are from Russia, and Serbia has bought the rest. Russia has also beefed up Serbia with 30 T-72 tanks and 30 other armoured vehicles. The Pantsir-S1 air defence system has reportedly also been sold to Serbia, along with the longer-range Buk air defence system. A shipment of Kornet anti-tank missiles has also arrived from Russia. The co-operation in military activities has gone from 50 in 2016 to over 100 joint military exercises in 2021. It is no wonder that, according to the US Department of Defense, Serbia provides the “most permissive environment” for Russian influence in the Balkans. When Kosovo took reciprocity measures regarding the temporary licence plate issues in 2021, Serbia escalated the military provocation, flying Russia-donated MiG-29 fighter jets and continuing to make available Russian helicopters on the border with Kosovo.
We know the short-term reasons why Russia is doing this: to stop Kosovo having a role to play in the EU and in the Council of Europe. We have defied Russia in the Council of Europe and given Kosovo seats so it is able to participate in debates, even though, for the moment, it cannot vote; that is because of the opposition of Serbia and that will be dealt with.
This is a serious situation because it affects not just Kosovo. We must not forget that Serbia is also influential in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hon. Members may have seen that, only last week, in the Republika Srpska, the Muslim part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader, with great pride said that he was giving Putin the highest medal of honour for his
“patriotic concern and love for Republika Srpska.”
I ask you. Members can judge for themselves what that concerned.
We are dealing with some very unpleasant people. The Republika Srpska has the site of the genocide of Srebrenica. We are not allowed to call it a genocide because the Serbians do not like that term being used for it, yet it was a genocide of almost 8,000 Muslim people killed in that area.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on once again bringing this important debate to the House. I also congratulate all the Members who are attending it, many of whom were here for the previous debate a year ago.
“Russia’s grand strategy” is an interesting title, which leads to the question of what constitutes the counter-strategy. As was said a year ago and as has been said by several Members today, where the current actions have come from has been laid out along the line by Putin, whose actions are pretty clear. If you are a citizen of Lithuania, probably Belarus, east Poland or the Caucasus, you will notice that you are mentioned in Putin’s essay of 20 July, and you will certainly not sleep easily if you think that we will step back and let Russia win the battle in Ukraine.
I have a concern that many have touched on which is that a certain amount of hubris is starting to develop among western nations when they say, “We will win in Ukraine.” I very much hope that that is true, and we are doing everything we can to do so, but it does not seem to take into account the way in which Russia is now regrouping, restrategising and re-energising, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said in his opening speech. We have to take a strong look at how we are going to supply Ukraine and how it is to move forward.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) has already made the point about Leopard tanks. European defence as a whole needs to take a long, hard look at itself. There can be no excuse for countries to say, “We will supply the tanks that are needed, but we need Germany to approve it” and for Germany to say, “Well, it’s up to the US.” It really is not up to the US. It is really up to nations within Europe. What concerns me, and Putin will be well aware of this when we are looking at the grand strategy, is that he will see that article 42 of the Lisbon treaty—the permanent structured co-operation, or PESCO, commitment—and where that leads to could spell a real problem for NATO.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I reflect on the irony that one of the reasons why some of us wanted to leave the European Union was that it was insisting on having its own defence policy and armed forces, ostensibly in order to be independent of the United States, because of course it is NATO that guarantees peace in Europe and the EU would be incapable of doing so on its own. So it is a bit of an irony that Germany is now saying that it cannot send tanks to Ukraine until the US approves. It rather gives the lie to the idea that the EU is capable of even thinking independently of American defence policy.
Alec Shelbrooke
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I do not seek to raise an EU Brexit issue here. I want to highlight where I think there is a real concern about the future of NATO, what Putin will be looking at and why it is so important that we do not allow Russia to be victorious.
The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) made a good speech, and I congratulate him on researching the speeches that we all made last year in this debate. It is important to know the context. He said that the Budapest memorandum was not worth the paper it was written on. That is an important statement to make because with Putin, nothing is worth the paper it is written on. When people talk about moving towards a negotiated settlement, what does that actually mean? If we get commitments on paper from Putin, it is frankly a waste of everybody’s time. The only way this conflict will be resolved is by winning it militarily.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I thank everyone who has taken part ably in this debate, and my hon. Friend the Minister for his response. I would point out to the Scottish nationalists that I do not think that President Putin would have attacked Ukraine if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons. But the main point that I wish to make—for all the positive things that my hon. Friend said—is that it is complacent to say that Putin’s strategy is failing and our strategy is succeeding. Setbacks, yes, but two words keep coming up in military literature in Russia at the moment: Stalingrad and Finland. Stalingrad because its doctrine is victory at any cost and Finland because that is where it expects the west to compromise to cede territory in order to gain peace, which is what Finland did in 1938.
Russia is tooling up its entire economy for war. It is reported in Vedomosti, the business daily in Russia, that Putin when visiting a factory called the work of the Russian military-industrial complex one of the factors of victory in the Ukraine war. We have yet to hear that the UK Government are doing enough to support Ukraine—I regret that—although we are leading many other European nations from the front. Russian grand strategy has been clear for at least a decade, yet the west has been continually blindsided because we do not have a strategy of our own. We do not have the capacity for analysis and assessment that would keep us alert to these threats. This is a topic to which I will return, I can assure this House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of Russia’s grand strategy.