UK-Ukraine 100-year Partnership

Richard Tice Excerpts

Monday 20th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the partnership between schools under pillar 9 is fundamental. It is what gives us the bedrock on which to build both the English language capability in Ukraine and, I hope, the Ukrainian language capability in this country.

[Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)]

It is to be hoped that, as has been said, President Trump can indeed bring significant additional pressure to bear on the dictator Putin to end this horrific war. Will the Foreign Secretary give additional reassurance to the British people that, although we have invested billions and billions of pounds in supporting Ukraine, we are committed to recovering it from the frozen assets of the Russian state in due course?

[Mr Lammy]

I know that the hon. Gentleman understands history. He will know that after the second world war, we were in quite a lot of debt to the United States as a result of lend-lease, which it took us many years to pay off. Today, no trading relationship of ours is bigger than that with the United States: it totals over $300 billion, with $1.2 trillion invested in each other’s economies, and 1 million British people working in US companies and 1 million Americans working in British companies. This partnership sets up something similar for the next 100 years. It is the result of war, but it has brought our two nations together. He is absolutely right to centre on how we can better use those Russian assets. That is a matter of close discussion across the European family.