Ukraine War: London Talks

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I remind noble Lords of the announcement that was made some weeks ago now about increasing defence spending—at the expense of my own overseas development budget. We are putting the additional resources into defence, and I think it right that we do that at this time, because we need to stand ready to do what we need to do to support Ukraine. Clearly, that is not just about people; it is about technology, cybersecurity, securing undersea cables and so on. A modern defence offer looks very different from how it may have looked in the past, but my noble friend is right to remind us that this is a long-standing commitment: we have just recently agreed a 100-year partnership with Ukraine.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, last week in Grand Committee, we discussed in depth the 100-year partnership between Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Both during evidence and in that debate, the Government were very bullish about the opportunities, and the Minister herself has just talked about some of those. Which Government department will be co-ordinating the implementation of that partnership between our two countries, and when will we start to see the flesh on the bones of that? There is an awful lot of detail that still needs to be set out.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I think this is going to be done across departments. There are different chapters to the agreement and there will be different needs for different elements of it. The noble Lord is right: it needs to be fleshed out and more detail needs to be provided. However, we are committed to this: it is a 100-year arrangement, and we want to make progress on it. There are some things that are already happening, as the noble Lord knows. I look forward to coming back to the House with more information; I think there will be widespread support for it.