Ukraine

Katherine Fletcher Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

Welcome to your position, Mr Deputy Speaker.

The Secretary of State has shown immense leadership and hard work in the last few months. I thank him for his service in that area. He will know that Lancashire is absolutely peppered with Ukrainians hosted through the generosity of people in South Ribble and beyond. They are here to work and find solace, but what they really want to do is go home. We have supported the Ukraine military with £2.3 billion this year, and I welcome his and the Prime Minister’s commitment to extend that into next year. Will he update me, the House and Ukrainians in Lancashire on what he is doing to bring a broad coalition together and ensure that others continue to show a united front to Putin and help Ukrainians win?

[Mr Wallace]

So far, 201,300 visas have been issued for Ukrainian people in the United Kingdom. That shows the scale of support, and is something to be welcomed. A number of countries, including our friends and allies, have hosted and are putting together conferences. The French recently had a donor conference on helping to rebuild parts of Ukraine, and we will have one in the new year. One of the best ways to help those wishing to go home is to ensure that they have an economy to go home to and that their infrastructure has been rebuilt so that they can continue their lives.

One of the cruellest things is that, early on in the war, the Russians targeted shopping centres in Ukraine to put people out of jobs. It was not anything other than that—it was not about the military. The Russians decided early on to hit big shopping centres on the outskirts of cities deliberately to put lots of people out of a job and to try to break the economy. That was striking to see, and that was their level of callousness. It is therefore important that our funds, and those of the international community, go to rebuilding that economy alongside the military effort.