Queen’s Speech

Lord Davies of Stamford Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords, I endorse the very powerful arguments produced by a number of colleagues, such as the noble Lord, Lord Lang, in favour of our spending more money on defence and taking defence requirements in this country rather more seriously than we have in the past.

I have been transfixed over the last few weeks, as I imagine many others have, by the extraordinary courage and selfless self-sacrifice of the Ukrainians, who found themselves victims of an attack by Russia. It is a real David and Goliath story, which, so far, has had the right ending. But we must make sure that it continues to have the right ending. It is very important that Ukraine retains its independence and existing borders—though innocent, it has been made to suffer by having territory taken away from it—and that it continues to be a major force in the western world. As soon as possible, if it wants to, it should be allowed to become a member of the European Union and NATO. I greatly look forward to that happening.

I think the Ukrainians would take it very much amiss if there were any attempt on the part of their western allies to delay their entry into those organisations, which they thoroughly deserve to be part of after conducting themselves as they have in the last few weeks. I hope it will be fine, but I am still concerned that people are talking about making special concessions to the Russians—not upsetting them too much or humiliating them and so forth. If they are humiliated, it is entirely their fault. No one asked them to invade Ukraine, so we should not have too much sympathy with that.

This has been a very good debate. We have managed to make it clear that all is not well in the defence of peace in the world. It is very important that we keep these things under very close review and continue to keep the Government alert to the need to pay attention and contribute properly to the cost of defence. If you do not have any defence, you invite attack and its consequences, with which we are all too familiar.