European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend speaks with great force and a huge amount of wisdom on this issue, but I think it is too early for the history books to be written. What really matters is that the countries of the European Union, the United States and the international organisations, such as the UN, recognise that we need a long-term approach. When the history books are written, I hope they will show that Europe decided to become more energy independent, that the UN stood up for the importance of its charter and that Britain, America and our allies took a series of predictable and consistent steps to demonstrate to Russia that what she was doing was wrong. If we take a long-term approach, I think we will achieve an outcome that the history books might be kinder about.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I commend the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary’s strategy. In the absence of sending gunboats, which I think few of us would recommend, a step-by-step, long-term approach is sensible. Ukraine is one of the very few countries in the world that voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons on its soil, and it did so in return for clear guarantees of its territorial integrity, including from Russia. Given the talks on nuclear security that he has been involved in, can he say what further steps need to be taken to ensure that Russia’s invasion of Crimea does not undermine the international strategy to reduce nuclear proliferation?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman, who served as Foreign Secretary, makes a very good point. There was never an option of sending gunboats. There is not some military answer to this. The only approach is a considered, long-term, tough and predictable one so that Russia knows that if it goes further into eastern Ukraine there will be very significant economic consequences. He makes an important point about countries that have given up their nuclear weapons not fearing that they have made the wrong decision, because there were countries, such as Kazakhstan, represented at the conference in The Hague which made the point that they had taken those steps too. That only serves to underline the importance of taking a long-term and tough approach to Russia on this.