Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley. I think it is an appropriate thing to do in a week when the House has been debating the hereditary Peers Bill. He is the inheritor of one of the longest-standing peerages that there that there are, I think, but in his time here—and I have now been here for 15 years—he has made a major contribution to the House. I would just like to put that on record.

The report is right that we need a wake-up call, and I think that there are already signs in the way that Keir Starmer is responding to the crisis that that wake-up call is being heeded. I know a little bit about Ukraine. From the late 1990s to 2004, Tony Blair appointed me to head a No. 10 delegation to meet regularly, which we did every three or four months, with the Ukraine presidential Administration. I was lucky, of course, to be given lots of nice trips around that wonderful country to the Crimea, where I sat in Joe Stalin’s chair at Yalta, and to wonderful cities such as Odessa, Lviv and Kyiv itself.

It was always clear to me in those conversations that there was a great division in Ukraine between those who saw themselves as totally dependent on Russia for their security and their energy and those who wanted to become what I would call a normal European country. Of course, Blair was a very strong advocate of European enlargement, so I could readily say to them that the Labour Government of the time respected their European vocation. Indeed, when I went to Brussels with my noble friend Lord Mandelson and the trade talks started with Ukraine, one of the great things that caused the revolution on the streets in Ukraine, both in 2007 and in 2013, was the feeling that they wanted to be part of Europe, not a Soviet satellite.

I think our Prime Minister has done really well, and I am glad to see that so many people on the Opposition agree on that. There is nothing wrong in principle with President Trump’s wish for peace, and he is right, of course, that there is the most awful killing going on. Not least is the brutality of what Russia has done in Ukraine—and we should not forget this in all these discussions—particularly in taking children from Ukraine to be Russianised. That is absolutely shocking, and it should not be forgotten in any peace discussions.

The basic condition of a peace has to be that Ukraine remains a free and independent country able to pursue its European vocation and membership of the EU. Clearly, security guarantees such as NATO membership have not been ruled out, but the European arm of NATO really has to step up to the plate. That is absolutely crucial. There is, of course, no certainty that the guarantees from the US that we are seeking will actually come. Keir Starmer is doing his best. The Ukrainian President seems to think that the minerals deal, with Americans on the ground in Ukraine, will itself provide a security guarantee; I have to say that I do not agree.

We are on course for a very big need for European rearmament. I welcome the step towards 2.5%, but in my personal view that is nowhere near enough. I think that, with the Robertson review, we need to be thinking much more in terms of something like 3.5%. There is encouraging news on this today from Germany, where the likely new German coalition under Friedrich Merz has decided that all defence spending over 1% should come outside the fiscal brake that they have. I think we need to do something similar in Britain.

Britain has to be full part of this European rearmament. This is not anti-NATO; in fact, it is the only way of saving NATO, by convincing the Americans and President Trump that we are ready to stand up to the plate. But this must be done in a co-ordinated way if it is to secure efficiency and rationalisation of the way that Europe works. I am a little sceptical of talk of buying British in this context, because we have to be co-ordinated. One of the reasons that Europe is so weak is because of that lack of planning and co-ordination.

Fundamentally, what the Russians want is a defeated and demoralised Ukraine, where they can convince the people that they should elect leaders who accept Russian satellite status. That is not what we want. There has to be no Munich in Europe as a result of the present crisis.