Ukraine

Stewart Malcolm McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I hope that in due course we will have more to say on the specific provision my right hon. Friend asks about. He will recall the Ukraine reconstruction conference that took place in London last year, where we announced a number of specific measures to lay the foundation for Ukraine’s long-term future. I hope very much that the £250 million of new capital that was announced then, along with the £500 million UK loan guarantee via the World Bank, is seen as a down payment on that effort. In respect of the use of wider funding, he may be sure that his words are being heard.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

May I back the comments of the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)? You can back Trump or you can back Ukraine; you cannot do both. No Member of this House should try to ride two horses at once on this conflict.

I am probably one of the few Members of Parliament who have been to Avdiivka, Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, going back over six years. That long line of blood in the loss of Avdiivka two weeks ago can be drawn back to two things: first, weapons being held up vis-à-vis what is going on in Washington in Congress; and secondly—this is another frustration that Ukrainians told me about this weekend when I was there with the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee—the slow yes they get from Europe. When Europe and the west decide to provide certain types of capability, it is a slow yes to providing it, and then even slower again to getting it into Ukraine to be used. That is what will see towns such as Kramatorsk go next.

There is rightly a determination to win, but there is an anxiety in that country that I have not experienced in all the times I have been going for six or seven years. What is the Minister’s plan, not just to keep doing more of what the Government have been doing on weapons, which I commend wholeheartedly, but to turn the slow yes into a fast yes, so that Ukraine can achieve the victory it needs?

[Mr Mitchell]

In respect of the first part of what the hon. Gentleman said, he underlines the point that I have repeatedly made today about the importance of the American contribution getting through Congress and arriving in material terms at the front as swiftly as possible. On his second point, we are doing everything we possibly can. The Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister have clearly been in the lead in the support that Europe is giving to Ukraine. We are seeking to persuade in every way all our friends and allies to do the same. I submit to him that in recent months there has been a welcome increase in that support from our European allies, and I hope he will share my pride that the United Kingdom is right at the forefront of those pressing for more and better in the future.