Ukraine

Debate between Mark Francois and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), who always speaks knowledgably on defence matters—and not just because of his own service—as he has done again today.

I must apologise to the House for missing the initial speeches in this debate, which I would not usually do. I offer the small excuse that I have been travelling for 17 hours and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), have just returned—hotfoot, as it were—from Kyiv. Under those unusual circumstances, I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker, for allowing me to sum up for the Conservatives and to report back to the House on what we learned from our trip to Ukraine.

In my role as shadow Armed Forces Minister, I was one of around 20 UK MPs to visit Ukraine. This was, I believe, the largest delegation we have ever sent, and it included MPs from all the main parties in the House of Commons—although there was no MP from Reform. I regret in all sincerity that, yet again, when we are debating foreign policy and defence in this House, the Reform Benches are empty. As the son of a D-day veteran, I have always believed that the first duty of Government, above all others, is the defence of the realm, so those who aspire to form a Government should at least be bothered to turn up and talk about it.

I also pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), who, while we were there, was presented with President Zelensky’s Order of Merit for the brilliant campaigning she has undertaken on behalf of Ukrainian children who have been captured and forcibly adopted by Russian families, or—in some cases, with older children—put into military training camps for the Russian army, which is totally and utterly contrary to the Geneva convention. We in this House know that she has been a stalwart campaigner on the issue, but so now does the President of Ukraine. We honour her for the honour that she has done us.

I would also like to mention—because if I did not mention him, I will never hear the end of it—the former Member of Parliament for Filton and Bradley Stoke, Jack Lopresti, who served in Afghanistan as a reservist and who has recently joined the Ukrainian army. He is serving as a specialist in communications and information warfare. Good luck and Godspeed, Jack, in all that you do.

Our main purpose in going to Ukraine was to attend the official ceremony of the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which we did in Maidan Square yesterday morning. The ceremony was also attended by President Zelensky and his wife; by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Union; and by several other European Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, including our own Foreign Secretary, who had a platoon of British MPs to support her in her duty. We all laid a small commemorative lamp and paid our respects. In some ways, it is the Ukrainian equivalent of our ceremony at the Cenotaph in November, and I can report to the House that it was carried out with equal solemnity and respect.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

As my right hon. Friend knows, I was with him in Kyiv on that occasion, and managed to exchange a few words with President Zelensky to point out that the British delegation was there. He made it very clear that he was very pleased to see us there, and that we were very welcome. It was an honour to give him our support.

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it was great to have him as a colleague on that visit. He brought his great knowledge of defence and foreign affairs to our trip. I can also report to the House that my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness exchanged some humorous words with President Zelensky, but they are probably best left to posterity.

We visited at a very difficult time. As well as being in Kyiv, we initially visited Odesa via Moldova, which was under drone and missile attack for part of the time we were there. We visited Chernobyl, which I am pleased to report was not under drone or missile attack, although it was attacked by Russian drones some months ago, incredibly irresponsibly. We then moved on to Kyiv, which again was under bombardment for part of our time there. We had burner phones—I do not think I am giving away any secrets by saying that—and they put an app on them that goes off if there is an air raid warning. When that happens, it is quite sobering, but there is also an all-clear, and with typical Ukrainian humour and defiance, when they play the all-clear, it is followed by the words, “May the Force be with you.”

We had multiple meetings while we were there. As the House knows, people come and go on these delegations, but between us we were there for the best part of a week. We met senior staff from the Office of the President, who gave us an up-to-date briefing on the state of the ceasefire negotiations. We met a dozen Ukrainian MPs from the UK friendship group, and we had an intelligence briefing from the Ukrainian military.

We visited several bombed-out residential apartments, including, I am sad to say, one on Kyiv’s left bank, which has suffered particularly heavily as it is an industrial area and a logistics centre where there is a large amount of working-class housing—a bit like the east end of London in some ways. We visited one apartment where, tragically, 23 innocent people were killed, including several children, in a Russian strike. We think that it was aimed at the railway marshalling yards nearby, but because this was a drone it was not as accurate as a hypersonic missile, and those people were tragically murdered. We also attended a veterans’ rehabilitation centre. As the Secretary of State, who is with us, will know, when I was the Veterans Minister I had a bit to do with that, and I am proud of the fact that we managed to provide the Genium prosthetic for our wounded. We saw the Ukrainian equivalent of a rehabilitation centre, and I understand that this is one area in which Britain has been able to provide some advice and expertise, which was clearly warmly welcomed during our visit.

We attended the official opening of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada. I am pleased to report to the House that its Speaker, who is a big man in every sense, acknowledged all the international delegations one by one, but the loudest applause was for the Polish delegation and the British delegation. It was probably impossible to tell between the two, but I think that the MPs in the Rada were under no illusion about who had backed them to the hilt.

It was a difficult time, and at all those different meetings three themes emerged consistently. We were asked to report them to the House, so I will perform that solemn, duty now.

First, our interlocutors were clear about the fact that although we were formally celebrating—or, I should say, commemorating—the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was originally invaded by Russia in 2014. It has been at war with Russia not for four years but for 12, which, to put it into perspective, is longer than the first and the second world wars put together. I think that Ukraine’s resistance for over a decade, in the face of the most brutal attacks from a larger and more powerful neighbour, deserves the respect and admiration of every single Member of this House and every single citizen in this country. The Ukrainians are fighting for us. They are fighting for the same values: for freedom, democracy, and the right to decide their own destiny. Their fight is our fight. We spoke a great deal to people about morale, and I think it is realistic. There are many in Ukraine who long for peace, for very understandable reasons, but they were all clear on one thing, namely that they would not accept peace at any price. Too much blood has been shed by the youth of Ukraine for them to accept a purely unilateral solution proposed by Russia. That theme emerged many times.

The second theme concerned sanctions. Most of the Ukrainians whom we spoke to in those meetings were understandably keen for an extension of sanctions by the western democracies, not least with regard to frozen Russian assets, a subject that we have debated in the House on numerous occasions. Many Ukrainians feel that now really is the time for the western democracies to bite the bullet and use those $300 billion or so of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. However, they also made had a particular point about the shadow fleet, and here I ask for the Minister’s special attention.

The sale of hydrocarbons, whether oil or gas, ultimately props up the Russian economy, which allows Putin to spend about 40% of Russia’s budget on its military and to recruit mercenaries to fight in the Russian armed forces. In some cases, mercenaries are being offered up to $38,000 as a signing-on fee to fight in the Russian armed forces, but according to Ukrainian intelligence officers—they said we could say this—the average life expectancy of those mercenaries is four months.

The Ukrainians would like to see much greater sanctioning of the shadow fleet. The Minister knows that some of those vessels are uninsured, but many are insured and, moreover, many are insured by syndicates at Lloyd’s of London. Surely there is more that we could do to cramp the activities of the shadow fleet by working with Lloyd’s and other insurers to make sure that those ships cannot have insurance, which would make it difficult for them to visit at least some of their destination points. I make a particular point of that, because I am trying to do justice to the Ukrainians, who raised this issue with us again and again and again. They are really hard over on this, and I hope the Minister can say something in his summing up.

[Mr Francois]

I am not an insurance expert and would not claim to be, but surely there is more that we can do. It is not a state secret that Lloyd’s of London is a world leader in maritime insurance, and surely there is more that can be done here. We promised—all of us—that we would relay this back to the House. Minister, over to you.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

It was also clear in our meetings that the Ukrainians are very pleased with the interception of two or three shadow fleet tankers. I wonder why we cannot be far more proactive about uninsured or unseaworthy boats that should not be at sea and that have illegal crews. There are many legal pretexts on which we could intervene with these ships in international waters to add to the cost and risk of Russia’s oil and gas exports, thereby reducing its foreign exchange earnings.

[Mr Francois]

As ever, my hon. Friend is entirely right. The sale of hydrocarbons, including to China and India, is effectively Putin’s windpipe. Some people now refer to Russia as “China’s gas station”. If we could do more against those ships, it would be important for Ukrainian morale. We were told time and again that when the Ukrainians hear that a shadow fleet vessel has been impounded or captured, it raises their morale. This is something that we could do, in difficult circumstances, to raise their morale even further. Between us, my hon. Friend and I have made the point, and hopefully the Minister can follow up on it.

The third theme that I want to stress before I finish is that we were thanked again and again for Britain’s support militarily, diplomatically and economically, and for our humanitarian aid. Wherever we went, people said, “Thank you.” I think it is true to say that the previous Government gave real leadership in Europe on this and I think it is true to say that the current Government have continued in the same vein, but the House should know that people from the Office of the President downwards went out of their way to thank us for everything that Britain, and indeed this House, has done.

The Speaker of the Rada gave us a sombre warning. He said: “No one knows the Russians better than us. If we fall, you and your friends are next.” It is important that this House appreciates that. I do not want to spoil the non-partisan spirit of this debate, but there are lessons for us in the United Kingdom not just about the overall level of defence spending, but about the long-delayed defence investment plan. I say to the Secretary of State for Defence that we desperately need that document. We cannot wait much longer, and we have waited since the autumn, so the ball is in the Secretary of State’s court. It would be good for Ukrainian morale to see Britain committing to a long-term equipment programme.

UK-EU Summit

Debate between Mark Francois and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 13th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I agree with my right hon. Friend, and that is why it was an extremely ominous portent that the Minister at the Dispatch Box refused to answer him on the question of whether there would be alignment or subjection to the European Court of Justice. If the referendum was about one thing, it was about taking back control of our laws. In fact, many of us in the leave campaign at the time argued that the British people do understand sovereignty—they certainly did by the end of the referendum—and getting into permanent alignment of regulation or subjecting the meaning of laws applied in the United Kingdom to the scrutiny and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice is giving back control. It is a dangerous thing for a Government elected on the principle of honouring the referendum result, and one who are now playing dog-whistle politics with immigration, to be backsliding in secret, with a sleight of hand, into allowing jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and permanent alignment back into our law while pretending that is not happening. That is exactly what the Minister did at the Dispatch Box.

[Mr Francois]

rose—

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I will give way to my right hon. Friend, but I have another point that I wish to make.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Francois]

My hon. Friend will well remember that during the referendum a booklet was circulated to every household in the United Kingdom, which famously said:

“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”

The people decided to leave, and some in this place spent three years trying to frustrate their decision. In that context, is he concerned that today the Minister blatantly refused three times to answer a straight question about whether the Government would concede dynamic alignment at the summit? Is that not the sort of duplicitous behaviour that made the public so angry in the first place?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I agree. But there is another dangerous game being played by another political party: the Liberal Democrats. My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) pressed the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary), who wants to rejoin the European Union, on whether there would be another referendum, and he did not say that there would be. That we would have a referendum to leave the European Union but not require a new referendum to rejoin it would be incendiary politics for this country.

Why have people become disillusioned with their politicians? It is because politicians seem to agree to one proposition and then do something completely different from what was voted for. I hope we can all agree on one proposition: that there could be no possibility of a proposal to rejoin the European Union or to accept dynamic alignment or the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice—except over its current limited areas, which will eventually expire—without a further referendum. That is a serious matter.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

This is something that I have looked at quite closely. The reason for the collapse is that the United Kingdom is not in the internal market, so we do not give direct applicability and direct effect to EU SPS laws. The EU procedure is to check every consignment of shellfish coming into the EU to see if it complies with EU standards, even though the provisions in EU law on clean rivers, clean beaches and clean water all exist in the United Kingdom, and our provisions are probably of a superior standard to those that apply in much of the EU.

[Mr Francois]

I defer to my hon. Friend, who is clearly a subject matter expert.

I will conclude, because others want a chance to speak. The Labour Government will go for dynamic alignment. They will sign us up as a passive rule-taker at the behest of the EU, despite the British people voting in 2016 to take back control of their laws. I have absolutely no doubt that if the Labour Government get away with this surrender summit early next week, that is precisely what they will do. It is therefore very important that we alert the British people, and the media that serve them, to exactly what Labour is up to, in an attempt to expose the situation and prevent it getting any worse.

In summary, we will not allow our obsessively Europhile Prime Minister—in this context, our “white flag” man—to surrender our right to govern ourselves. This surrender to the EU has absolutely no democratic mandate, and we will oppose it tooth and nail. If necessary, we will eventually overturn it. Remember what the booklet in the referendum said:

“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”

The British people decided to take back control of their own laws. It is not for Labour to give them away.