Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I will indeed express that solidarity, and not just with those Ukrainian families and children; I also pay tribute to the people of Milton Keynes who have opened their homes to house the families of those Ukrainian children. It is often the children and the families who will feel the threat and the grief most fiercely, and the fact that they have expressed such strong solidarity with those British Council workers in the face of that attack is something that we all appreciate, and I would be grateful on behalf of the House if my hon. Friend passed that on.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House share my disgust at the sight of the killer in the Kremlin having a red carpet rolled out for him that might as well have been stained with the blood of all those who have died in a conflict that is down entirely to him, and to him alone. However, when we talk about meaningful security guarantees, it is perhaps worth remembering that the only reason why, when Germany was divided at the end of the second world war, that was a stable division was that both sides knew that anyone crossing a line would be initiating an international conflict. Surely any security guarantee that does not automatically guarantee the involvement of other states in the defence of Ukraine will not be worth the paper on which it is written.

[John Healey]

The purpose of the “coalition of the willing” force that we are leading the work to plan for is about actively securing the Ukrainian skies, actively making the Ukrainian seas safe, and providing a presence that will help to reassure, as well as helping to build up the Ukrainians to deter and defend for themselves. It starts from the first premise that in the circumstances of a peace agreement, for the medium and the long term, the strongest defence and the strongest deterrence is the nature and strength of the Ukraine armed forces themselves. That is our purpose, and that would be part of our mission.