Ukraine

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The DEC appeal has raised more than £200 million and we are deploying our aid into Ukraine. I talked about the work that we are doing with the Australians, and we are supplying food to the encircled cities. The biggest challenge—this a security challenge—is getting the aid into some of those cities. We certainly are well funded for the work that we are doing. The Ukrainian Government are providing a lot of the logistical support to make sure that the supplies get into Ukraine, but the issue is security. We have pushed very hard for genuine humanitarian corridors to be set up. I am afraid that the Russians have not properly done that and, in some cases, getting supplies in is dangerous. Constituents can be reassured that we have the funding and the supplies. The key thing that we are working on with the international agencies is making sure that the aid safely reaches its destination; that is the issue we face.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

In an FCDO press release last week, the Foreign Secretary said that Russian intelligence services have targeted UK national infrastructure in what she called a “calculated and dangerous” hacking campaign and that Putin is sowing

“division and confusion among allies.”

She rightly said, in that press release, that she “will not tolerate it”, so will she reassure the House that she is urging the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to open an investigation into the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report on Kremlin-linked influence in the UK? Will she admit that it is simply not helpful that that report has still not been investigated?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have had that question before, and we have followed through on the report’s recommendations and on making sure that United Kingdom infrastructure is protected.