PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Military Aid to Ukraine - 24 March 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

As a new Government, we stepped up and speeded up the delivery of UK military aid to Ukraine. This year the UK will provide £4.5 billion in military support, the highest ever sum. We are fully behind President Trump’s pledge to bring a lasting peace to Ukraine, and we want to see success in today’s talks, but we will not jeopardise the peace by forgetting about the war.

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his answer. Over the weekend, President Trump’s special envoy dismissed the Prime Minister’s plan for an international force to support the ceasefire in Ukraine, calling it

“a posture and a pose”.

Whatever the wisdom of those remarks, does the Secretary of State see a future in which UK forces could deploy on peacekeeping operations in Ukraine without a US security guarantee?

As the Chief of the Defence Staff said over the weekend, no one should doubt that the work that the UK is leading with France to pull together a coalition of nations willing to step in and help ensure lasting peace in any negotiated settlement in Ukraine is critical and substantial. The UK is determined and will lead that effort.

I do indeed. Putting the Ukrainians in the strongest possible position as they choose to go into discussions is part of the responsibility and commitment of this Government. We plan very closely with Ukraine the support we provide, and our 2025 plan to support Ukraine has been developed with the Ukrainians and reflects what they need most: drones, air defences and ammunition. That is why this month the Prime Minister announced a £1.6 billion deal to supply more than 5,000 lightweight multi-role missiles for air defence that were built in the UK, both backing the Ukrainians in their fight and boosting British jobs and business.

In this age, when the plot of “The Manchurian Candidate” appears more like a documentary on US politics than a work of fiction, have the Government received any indication that their efforts militarily to support Ukraine would be actively opposed or blocked by the Trump Administration?

The Prime Minister has made it clear that, in the context of a negotiated peace, the security arrangements or guarantees in Ukraine will need US support. I have made the same point strongly in my discussions with Secretary Hegseth. As Defence Secretary, my job now is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position by continuing levels of UK military aid, encouraging other nations to do more, and developing—alongside the French—plans for multinational support to maintain the long-term security of any peace in Ukraine.

Rochdale’s Ukrainian community is fervently proud of what the Prime Minister has done in recent weeks, and not just on the diplomatic front but with the record support for Ukraine militarily. Does the Secretary of State agree that it is important to call out the Russian lies and propaganda that have been propagated of late, including the lie that somehow Ukraine is not a real country, but a fake country, and to call out the lie that Britain’s security does not also depend on Ukraine’s security?

My hon. Friend is right. The first line of defence for the UK and for Europe is in Ukraine. The Ukrainians share our values and are fighting with huge courage—military and civilians alike. It is our job to stand with them during that fight to safeguard their future and their ability to make their own decisions as a country. If and when they go into the negotiations, we will stand with them then, and we will stand with them after a negotiated peace, which we all hope President Trump is capable of securing.

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

May I associate the Opposition with the Secretary of State’s remarks about Paddy Hemingway, the last of the few to whom we owe so much?

On the potential peacekeeping force for Ukraine, we have heard from the Secretary of State that it is jointly British and French. In fact, in every one of his answers he stressed the amount of work we are doing with France. Is it therefore not extraordinary that, at the very same time, France should be working to undermine our defence industry by having us excluded from a £150 billion European defence fund, which will include other non-EU states?

The hon. Gentleman is clearly a glass-half-empty type of guy. The European Union, when it produced its defence and security white paper last week, set in place specific arrangements for any third nation, such as the UK, that strikes a defence and security partnership with the European Union. That is exactly what we went to the country with, promising to undertake that as a UK Government. Any country with a partnership in place then potentially has access to those sorts of programmes and that sort of funding, and that is what we will try to negotiate for this country and our industry.

I can assure the Secretary of State that I am full biftas behind our armed forces and the UK defence industry. Is not the point that we provide our nuclear deterrent unconditionally to European NATO countries 24/7, our Army is in Estonia defending Europe’s eastern flank, and we have done more than any other European nation to support Ukraine? Will the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister stand up to President Macron and stress to him that this is the worst possible time to prioritise fishing rights over Europe’s collective security?

I just ask the hon. Gentleman to drop that Brexit rhetoric. We are leading efforts with the French Government and the French military to meet the challenge of the US and the requirements of Ukraine to have a coalition of countries willing to stand with Ukraine in the context of a negotiated peace, to help them secure enduring stability and deterrence, to prevent Russia re-invading that sovereign country.