Ukraine

Lord Bellingham Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bellingham (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure, as always, to follow my noble friend whose extraordinary geopolitical grasp, experiences as an MEP and brilliant journalism give him such insight. We are all always very pleased to hear what he has to say.

I thought the maiden speech by my noble friend Lord Soames was absolutely superb and very powerful. He will contribute a huge amount to this House. He and I were elected to the Commons together in 1983. I was serving as a PPS at the Ministry of Defence when he was the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, and he had an illustrious career. Unlike mine, it was not interrupted by losing his seat in the landslide of 1997. He took the good caution to have uninterrupted service and we are very fortunate to have him here.

I agree with those noble Lords who said that yesterday was a historic day, when Zelensky came to this Parliament. The British public have taken him into their hearts, and I thought his expression of gratitude to Britain, for our military aid and our political assistance in aid, was absolutely effusive; it was very impressive. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, that aid has been crucial in enabling Ukraine to defend its borders against this quite atrocious aggression. The NLAWs, the Javelins and now the squadron of Challenger tanks which, along with American M1 Abrams, will unlock the 70 Leopards that are going to be donated by countries such as Finland, Spain, Portugal and Holland. That will mean that Ukraine will have the makings of an armoured division. As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, the need for logistical support, engineering and mechanical back-up, an all-arms input, and making sure that the problems around interoperability are dealt with, means that there are big challenges. However, I think it is a significant step forward.

As far as aircraft are concerned, I think the training is going to be crucial—I always have huge respect for the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, who was station commander at Marham when I was the MP for that area and once took me up in an aircraft, which was one of the most terrifying experiences I have ever had. I suggest to the Minister that there may be a quicker way of getting these aircraft to Ukraine, by making sure that some of the eastern European countries that have Soviet-era aircraft donate some of their existing capability to Ukraine and have that capability replaced by modern aircraft from America and maybe the UK, perhaps with F-16s and Typhoons. That could be a much quicker way of ensuring that they have air cover.

Can the Minister say to what extent have our own supplies and reserves have been diminished as a result of our donations to Ukraine? A number of noble Lords have touched on that already. I know that the Minister of State at the MoD also touched on this, but we are obviously facing an incredibly urgent situation and, like my noble friend Lord Soames and many others, I would like to see defence expenditure increase immediately. If we cannot do that, we should be making sure that we have in place a really well-calibrated replenishment programme. I ask the Minister: if we had to deploy a battlegroup into a theatre now, could it be deployed with the requisite levels of ammunition? What would happen if that battlegroup were engaged in a heavy set of fighting early on; how long would the ammunition, and the back-up logistics, last to keep that battlegroup in place? I urge the Minister to address the point, which has been made by a number of noble Lords, that this could be a really critical, difficult situation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, talked about a green Marshall plan, which is something I think we should all be very cognisant of. We have to look at what will be the massive reconstruction of a country that has been totally devastated. We have heard about the cities that have been caught up in the front line—Kherson, Melitopol, Mariupol, Bakhmut, Soledar—but many other cities, which have not been affected by the front-line fighting as such, have been bombarded with missiles and drones and have suffered horrendous damage.

Somebody told me that Kharkiv has suffered damage to 60% of all buildings and that in one of the oblasts some way back from the front line, something like 90 schools have been seriously damaged, so the necessary rebuilding will be absolutely vast. As the noble Baroness and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, mentioned, there is also chronic damage to infrastructure, including power stations, dams, roads and municipal buildings; the list goes on and on. We will need a huge Marshall plan—a plan bigger than the actual Marshall plan. I urge the Minister to play a key part in making sure that HMG are well prepared for this and to be part of a major donor conference that encompasses all the key organisations and forums—the UN, the EU, and indeed the entire western world—to make sure that this plan is in place early on. Can I also ask the Minister what the Government’s thinking is about Russian reparations? Whatever happens, there will be an end to this war. Surely, the perpetrator of these really quite horrendous acts of violence against an innocent country needs to pay serious reparations at the end of the day.

A number of noble Lords have talked about the western alliance; I have been incredibly impressed by how it has held together. I think the Minister, rather than talking about the alliance as such, talked about the “pro-Ukraine coalition”, which is rather a good way of putting it. I do not think anyone expected that alliance to be quite so durable and effective so quickly, building on the military training that had already taken place. I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord McDonald—who has far more experience than I have in these matters—was optimistic that the alliance would continue and that the world would carry on in its efforts to support Ukraine. I would be perhaps a little more cautious than that, for reasons that other noble Lords have mentioned, particularly the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. Ramstein showed that there were fractures at that juncture. Ultimately, Germany did step up and do its duty, which of course unlocked 70 Leopards from those other countries. The Republicans now have a majority in the House of Representatives, and they have been talking about the importance of Biden not giving a complete blank cheque to Ukraine.

We also have to look elsewhere in the world, such as Africa and the Middle East. This has been said already; I think the noble Lord, Lord Howell, made this point. If one looks not just at those countries one might expect to want to cosy up to Russia, there are others, including the two great democracies of South Africa and Brazil. South Africa recently hosted a Russian naval exercise. I think it is a great pity that, when President Ramaphosa came to this country, we did not have candid conversations with him about the support for the Commonwealth and for those western countries that are part of this pro-Ukraine coalition. In Brazil, the new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, recently called for “an immediate negotiated settlement”. We have to be very pragmatic about this. The pro-Ukraine coalition is incredibly important, but I think HMG must do more in terms of reaching out to all those countries we are close to, including smaller countries in the Caribbean and Africa, and using all our diplomatic muscle and soft power to make sure that they receive the correct message and are not taken in by the Russian narrative.

No one knows where all this is going to end, and we would be speculating if we tried to make predictions. All we know is that it will go on for quite a lot longer. I take the view very strongly that it is not for us to tell Ukraine what it should or should not do. It is not for us to tell the Ukrainians that they should reach a negotiated settlement. It is not our country that has been attacked and decimated in this way. I am mindful of what Zelensky said before:

“It’s a victory when the weapons fall silent and people speak up.”