5,731 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them

1. 8 Dec 2025·Parliament·Alison Griffiths

   Digital ID

   There is certainly no mandate for either. If a Government wish to change something as fundamental as how we prove who we are, they need to be up front about it; they need to win consent for it. Attacks on our privacy and personal freedom must be debated in depth, not sneaked in through the back door. Over two thirds of the respondents to my local survey told me they opposed digital ID entirely. Many have little confidence that their personal data will be kept safe. They worry about who will hold their information, what else it could end up being used for and what will happen to those who do not have a smartphone at all. There is also the basic fairness test. Ofcom believes that about 4.5 million people in the UK do not own a smartphone, and many more struggle with digital access or confidence. We should not be building barriers for people, especially not those who already find public services hard to navigate. Ministers have said that digital ID will help tackle illegal working and benefit fraud, but we have never been told in clear terms what the new scheme would do that our existing tools cannot already manage. If there are gaps in the system, they should spell them out. I want illegal working to be dealt with, and I want public services that work smoothly, but not at the expense of civil liberties, not by weakening data security, and not by shutting out the very people who need support. I cannot support a mandatory digital ID scheme. If it comes to a vote, which it should, I will vote against it.

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2. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   Dawn Sturgess Inquiry

   Have the Government formed a view as to why President Putin—the killer in the Kremlin—chose to target Sergei Skripal after he had been pardoned and exchanged? Nothing that I am saying now derives from my time chairing the Intelligence and Security Committee, but I recall speculation in the press that it was because Mr Skripal had been actively involved with either the British state or the military, or had in some way been, shall we say, active in opposing the Government of the country from which he had been exchanged. If that is the case, surely the conclusion in paragraph 8.18—that the only measures that could have prevented the attack “would have been such as to hide him completely with an entirely new identity”— should have been considered. It is rather surprising that it was not. Was Skripal engaged in anything that made him a target?

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3. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

   I agree entirely with the Chairman of the Committee that reconciliation depends upon uncovering the truth. Does her Committee’s report go into the incompatibility of that aim with the reinstatement of trials that the previous legacy Act would have prevented, given that when people face the prospect of being put on trial, they are less likely, rather than more likely, to say what actually happened?

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4. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   War in Ukraine

   One of the advantages of being called at a late stage of the debate is that I can put my hand on my heart and truthfully say that every single speech in this debate so far has been outstandingly good. I have agreed with virtually every word of every one of them, and looking at the calibre of the remaining people, including all three Front-Bench representatives, I have every confidence that the standard will be maintained till the end. A former occupant of your chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, used to give courses in good public speaking technique. He always said, “If you wish your speech to have any useful impact after the event, it should not contain more than one, or at most two—and that is stretching it—key points.” So here is my one key point, which, I am delighted to say, has been touched on very effectively by the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), among others: any settlement that does not have a military presence on the ground of unoccupied Ukraine from the country or countries offering a security guarantee will be a disaster. I ask the House to consider Europe at the end of the second world war, when the tripartite alliance had largely broken down, and Stalin was in occupation of eastern Europe and, of course, the eastern half of Germany, which his troops had conquered. The west was in occupation of the remainder of the European continent—literally, in the case of West Germany. What would have happened—knowing what we know now about the nature of Soviet communism—if, instead of the victorious western allies maintaining a very large military presence in occupied western Germany, they had said, “Right, we’ll demilitarise this and clear out, but we’re going to give the West German politicians who follow a security guarantee that if any trouble happens, we will stand by them”? The only thing that stopped a conflict breaking out between the Soviet occupying forces and the western world was the fact that, right up against the dividing line between Soviet-dominated East Germany and the rest of Germany, there were western allied troops, and it would have been impossible for the Soviet forces to move against West Germany without immediately triggering a major military counter-action. I have often said—and I make no apology for saying it again—that it is worth looking at the two halves of the 20th century. In the first half, we had two global conflicts—two world wars. In the second half, despite the intense ideological and military rivalry between the communist world and the democratic western world, we had no global conflicts—no third world war. I put that down to two factors. One was unprecedented: the nuclear balance of terror. But it was not enough to stop all forms of conflict, because it is possible for conventional conflicts to go ahead under the threshold of the nuclear balance without necessarily triggering Armageddon. That is why we have to have strong conventional deterrent forces, too. So, what was the other factor preventing the cold war from becoming the third world war? It is quite clear that it was the most successful alliance in history: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. It grieves me to say that because of some of the occupants of high office in the capital of our ally the United States, the future of the NATO alliance—and therefore the future of world peace, frankly—is hanging by a thread. It was the chief staff officer and representative on the war time chiefs of staff committee of Winston Churchill, General Sir Hastings Ismay, who became the first Secretary-General of NATO. He is credited with having made the rather pithy but nevertheless very accurate observation that the purpose of the alliance at the time it was founded was threefold: to keep the Americans in, to keep the Russians out, and to keep the Germans down. That third element fortunately became redundant as West Germany developed into a democracy—so quickly, in fact, that in May 1955, 10 years virtually to the day from the surrender on Lüneburg heath of the Nazis to General Montgomery, Germany itself was admitted to the NATO alliance. I ask people to take another counterfactual look at history. If the Kaiser had known in 1914 that if he invaded neutral Belgium, he would immediately be at war with the United States of America, would he have done it? I think the answer is no. If Hitler had known in 1939 that if he invaded Poland, he would immediately be at war with the United States of America, would he have done it? I think the answer very probably is no to that as well. Therefore, the secret to keeping the peace in the world is to keep America engaged with the security of Europe. America is going through a phase at the moment—which seems to hinge on a number of personalities who hold power in that great democracy, apparently with the approval of a majority of the electorate—in which its commitment to European and thus world security is in doubt. This is the chance for Europeans, whether inside the EU or, like us, outside it, to show that we can do our bit. We have to keep the show on the road until America once again stands up for the policy of the second half of the 20th century, which stopped the third world war, rather than it reverting to its policy of isolationism from the first half of the 20th century, and standing by, which caused two global conflicts that could have been prevented.

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5. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   War in Ukraine

   Has the hon. Gentleman noticed that point 26 of the 28-point Witkoff plan is a general amnesty for everyone? That would mean that whoever committed the most atrocious war crimes would never be held accountable at all.

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6. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Julian Lewis

   War in Ukraine

   One way in which we could continue to lead would be by giving a very firm commitment that if the frontlines are indeed frozen, a coalition of the willing would have military assets on the ground, at the invitation of unoccupied Ukraine, so that there could be no question but that a future attack would trigger a response from that coalition. Otherwise, any security guarantee is not worth the paper on which it is printed.

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7. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

   I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of a comprehensive acquired brain injury action plan. Dickens wrote, “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” There are few greater misfortunes than an acquired disability. Among those, a brain injury can challenge every aspect of life, whether people can walk, talk or think—or at least think straight. The effects are various: they can be mild or severe, and recovery will often take not just weeks or months, although the initial trauma can be treated in that timeframe, but many years. However, an improvement can be made over the long term. Most of us think, “This will never happen to me.” I guess that is true of most misfortunes, including ones of this severity. Brain injury is the leading cause of disability and death among people under 40 in the UK. It can happen at any time, in any place. The causes, again, are various. One thinks of sporting injuries, or perhaps an attack—a violent incident. Of course, the principal causes are things like road traffic accidents, motorcycle and car accidents. Acquired brain injury, for the reasons I have given, has long warranted more attention than it has received, both publicly and among policymakers. While the Department of Health and Social Care plays a central role in dealing with the immediate trauma caused by the sorts of accidents I have described, many other Government Departments have a relationship with the effects of brain injury. That is well illustrated by the work done by the all-party parliamentary group for acquired brain injury, which I am now proud to chair, and published in a report to which I will refer later in my speech. We made the case that a cross-departmental approach to brain injury is required, for exactly the reasons I have set out. Of course, it affects the Department of Health, but it also affects the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—I spoke about sporting injuries a moment or two ago. It affects the Ministry of Justice, because such a high proportion of the incarcerated have brain injuries. It affects almost all aspects of Government, on which I know other contributors to this debate will focus, so a lateral approach to the way that public policymakers consider brain injury and its effects is critical. As you will know, Dame Siobhain, as an extremely experienced and very wise Member of this House, might I say—

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8. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

   I was hoping it might. Lateral policymaking is not easy in Government, because of the way Government works and ministerial responsibilities are exercised. It is a challenge, therefore, to get that sort of approach adopted by a Government of any colour or persuasion.

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9. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

   Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

   I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s contribution. He makes a valuable point and an interesting suggestion that I will reflect on. He is certainly right that more can be done to affect brain injury in the first place. I have spoken a bit about its effects, but he is right to speak at greater length than I did about its causes. In the area of sport, of course, he is right that we now know that heading a football does all kinds of damage that no one imagined a generation or two ago. His suggestion is well made and worthy of further consideration. Around 350,000 people a year are admitted to hospital with acquired brain injury—that is one every 90 seconds. About 125,000 of those are admitted following a traumatic brain injury, around 43,000 with brain tumours and others following strokes. I pay tribute to Lincolnshire brain tumour support group, of which I am president, and to Headway, which I will say more about in due course. The end result of those admissions is that about 1.3 million people are living with the consequences of acquired brain injury every day. They and their families, loved ones and friends, and the communities of which they are part, are dealing with the effects. According to our all-party group’s latest report, the cost to the UK economy through healthcare, social care, lost productivity and wider public services is £43 billion annually, which equates to 1.3% of GDP. Of that, £20 billion is accounted for within the NHS and social care budget for acute long-term care, £21.5 billion is attributed to lost productivity, £1.5 billion is spent in the criminal justice system and the Department for Education—yet another Government Department that needs to be involved in the consideration of this issue in the lateral way I mentioned—and about £1.9 billion is spent on benefits. Leaving aside the human cost and the visceral effects brain injury can have on affected individuals and those who care for them, this has a considerable effect on Government, the Exchequer and the public purse. Those ramifications only scratch the surface of the wider social cost. The real cost is in lives disrupted, plans abandoned and ambitions jettisoned as a result of brain injury; in parents seeing a child’s personality change overnight and carers stretched to their limits, with little or no respite, because symptoms are dismissed as being mild or imperceptible or attributed to some other cause entirely. Although less obvious, those effects are just as devastating. When those costs are added to the ones I have described, the all-party group estimates that the real cost of acquired brain injury is £91.5 billion. That is about half of what the NHS spends every year. It is extraordinary that this issue is not given greater consideration. I am delighted that this debate gives us a chance to do so, at least for this short time. I thank all colleagues across the House who have been part of these efforts. We have argued for what we call a right to rehab. Putting aside the substantial financial cost, the physical and emotional costs are still higher. The estimates do not include many of the costs associated with homelessness, addiction, mental health services and psychiatric stays. The cost to the NHS and welfare of lengthy treatment and recovery is huge and rises quickly during spells in hospital before one even receives community support and longer-term social care provision. Much of this could be prevented, and many of the costs could be reduced, if we had the right to rehab. Much work has been done on this subject, including by Headway, which I mentioned earlier, and the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum. A report from earlier this year, commissioned by the APPG, urged the Government to invest in specialist neuro-rehabilitation to save long-term societal costs. The report called for brain injury to be treated on a par with cancer and dementia. A statutory right to rehab in every region means that specialist neuro-rehabilitation services after an acquired brain injury would be put in place. None of the failures that we see today in response to brain injuries is inevitable. The Ministry of Defence already guarantees the right to rehabilitation for military personnel, so we have a precedent. We want to build on that precedent, across Government, for those affected by brain injury. We know from the MOD the results of having that right for rehabilitation—shorter recovery times, better outcomes, restored lives and improved prospects. The same approach is being piloted by the National Rehabilitation Centre, where every £43,000 invested in rehab yields savings of up to £680,000. That is a remarkable 16:1 return on investment. Now is the time to extend the entitlement adopted by the MOD much more widely. We must establish a national neuro-rehabilitation framework that guarantees that access to specialist care is not a lottery, but a certain path to recovery. In doing so, money would certainly be saved, but life chances would be improved immeasurably, too. High-quality rehabilitation reduces the risk of homelessness, addiction and a drift into lawlessness. It allows people to contribute, return to work and rebuild lives and relationships—to begin to stand tall again. Now is the time for the Government to act. I have every confidence that the Minister will rise to her feet at the summation of this debate and tell us that she has not only thoroughly studied the all-party group’s report—daily, perhaps—but that she is ready to respond in the way that we invite. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), who chaired the APPG before I did—I was his vice-chairman for many years. He drove the original version of the report, which was republished more recently. It is an outstanding piece of work. We all know that APPGs vary, but this one is focused on the subject for which it is responsible and is determined to make its voice heard, because of the all-party support it attracts and because of the salience and significance of this subject. Given the number of people affected by brain injury, the comparatively low cost of effective interventions, such as rehabilitation and community support, and the ongoing lack of support services, there continues to be a strong need for a proper strategy to be put in place. I spoke earlier about a lateral approach. We are calling for a national strategy on brain injury. Around 60% of prisoners report having an acquired brain injury. We discussed that at a recent APPG meeting, where we heard from experts in the field. I have served as a Minister in multiple Departments—I will not list them all—and I know that cross-departmental working is tough, and the Minister will know that too, but it can be done. It requires structures to be created that facilitate Ministers to come together. The Cabinet Office might be able to play a part. I served in the Cabinet Office and its purpose, in a sense, is to deal with those issues that could otherwise fall between the cracks and departmental silos. However it is done, we need a national strategy. As far back as 2001, the Health Committee published a report on head injury, issuing 28 recommendations that included, as a matter of urgency, finding ways of improving methods of data collection on incidence, prevalence and severity. In 2005, the national service framework for long-term neurological conditions was launched; it contained many good ideas, but had no mandate and no funding. In 2010, the National Audit Office published a report, “Major Trauma Care in England”, which highlighted the need for improvement in major trauma care. That led to the establishment—you may remember it, Dame Siobhain—of trauma networks, with a centralised and specialised approach to trauma care and service across the country. The excellent work of the APPG for acquired brain injury, which was reformed in 2017, showed that there was a strong case for a cross-party commitment to action. I have already spoken about the 2018 report, which called for a national reconsideration of rehabilitation and the collation of reliable statistics, given the problems with data collection and analysis that prevail. To be fair to the previous Government, our report was well received by Ministers. Indeed, they responded to what we had called for by committing to publish a strategy on acquired head injury in 2021. The following year, there was a call for evidence to inform the development of such a strategy. The previous Government said that they were going to do it, committed to the principle and welcomed the work that we were doing. However, we then, of course, had the inconvenience of an election—one of the aspects of democracy that sometimes gets in the way of these sorts of things. Therefore, the work was not brought to a conclusion. Earlier this year, the current Government announced their intention to develop an “action-oriented, and accountable” ABI action plan “with input from NHS England and other Government departments”. It was due to be published “this year”—well, the year is running out, Minister. However, there are still a couple of sitting weeks left: a statement could be brought to the House and perhaps a document could be published that responds to the calls that we have made. We have the work that the previous Government and this Government have done. There has been no party politics; over time, Ministers have recognised the challenge—the scale of the problem—and the reasons for addressing it, which I have set out. We can hope that this Minister, who I know is dutiful and diligent, will rise to exactly that challenge. I do not know whether I am flattering her, Dame Siobhain—I am doing my best.

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10. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

    Following representations from myself and others, the Minister, who has responsibility for public health and prevention, kindly responded to say that the Government will publish an action plan in 2026. I hope that it will be published as early as possible—if not before Christmas, perhaps as an early new year’s resolution. After years of campaigning by charities and MPs, the excellent news is that there now seems to be momentum on this issue, which is what sufferers and their families deserve; it is what they warrant and certainly what they need. The plan needs to include a focus on better community rehabilitation and on how that will help to achieve real change for people with ABI. It could also include national training for local authority and integrated care board commissioners, and for social workers, on the complexities of ABI. I have talked about the subtlety of the effects that ABI can have, including the changed personality that many people experience as a result of a brain injury. Addressing such subtle changes requires a level of understanding and expertise, so national training could be really important and of immense value. I hope that the plan will also include funding for community-based specialist brain injury services. Staggeringly, the vital research by Dr Alyson Norman found that a third of serious case reviews in social services involved someone with a brain injury. Dr Norman lost her own brother to suicide after he suffered a lifetime of untreated brain injuries sustained in childhood. Given that brain injury is no less than a hidden epidemic, it is imperative that the Government take further action to collect statistics about it, so that we can accurately ascertain the numbers impacted. We need a UK-wide consensus on which conditions are classified and coded as brain injury, and to make that data freely available. Access to hospital admission data on brain injuries must be free; currently, charities face significant costs. The charity Headway, which has done so much in this field, is not an immensely wealthy organisation and so those costs are significant to it. I hope that we get some reassurance on that point. Research by Headway has shown that over three quarters of brain injury survivors encounter daily challenges due to the hidden nature of their injury, and that nine out of 10 people affected by a brain injury cite societal misunderstanding as a major obstacle in navigating life with a hidden disability. Collecting those facts and figures is important because of the nature of acquired brain injury. I will not say too much more about the costs to the sector, except that over the past three years several local Headway charities have permanently closed, including one in the last month. Three local volunteer branches have also shut down. That is because of rising costs of all kinds, which I do not need to list here. Closures really do risk brain injury survivors feeling lost. This is an area of work and a need that can go unrecognised and unseen. The feeling of isolation and loneliness—this is, as I described, a hidden epidemic—can place immense strain on families as survivors are no longer able to access, for example, the specialist daycare centres that they might otherwise enjoy. We need to find a way of granting exemptions for charities from things such as the employer national insurance charges. I hope that the Minister will look at that, or even speak about it in this debate. Some 57% of Headway charities say that they have experienced delays in receiving payments from local authorities and integrated care boards. Some charities have even had to employ additional staff members purely to chase the debts that they were owed. These are small organisations with limited budgets; they just need help. I know that other hon. Members want to contribute to the debate and can see their eagerness to do so, so I will draw my remarks to a close. For survivors, a head injury is just the beginning; the real challenge after survival lies in the days, months and years that follow. Individuals and their families struggle to navigate, with minimal support, a fragmented and underfunded system of rehabilitation. I know that because more than 40 years ago, like so many other young people, I suffered a serious head injury. But the key for me is that it did not stop me from doing what I wanted or being what I became. That is fundamental for anyone with an acquired disability. It is a matter of record that I decided to become a Conservative MP when I was seven—I was probably six, actually. That did not alter as a result of my head injury, but it might have done. I have seen those much more seriously affected by the traumatic injury they endured. As I looked at them I thought, “There but for the grace of God go I”, so I was determined thereafter to do all I could to fight for people with serious head injuries who struggle with their effects. I have been determined to champion their cause and to turn my hopes on their behalf, and their hopes too, into reality. I started with Dickens, one of our greatest writers, and I will end with Tolstoy, the great Russian writer. He wrote: “As long as there is life, there is happiness. There is a great deal, a great deal before us.” For everyone, regardless of what they suffer, to be able to glean that happiness, through the care and support that they receive, should be the ambition of every Government Minister and every Member of this House.

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11. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

    All the Minister has said so far is incredibly welcome. On ministerial engagement, given what she said about the cross-departmental working, which I called for earlier, is she engaged with the Ministers in those Departments in drawing up the plan and, if so, how?

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12. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Acquired Brain Injury Action Plan

    This has been an extremely good debate. Contributions from across the Chamber have illustrated how strongly Members feel about the need for exactly the kind of strategy that the Minister has confirmed the Government will introduce. It is welcome that the Minister has recommitted to that plan. I offer thanks and a warning. The thanks are because she clearly understands and takes this seriously. The warning is that if we do not see the plan, we will be back, and next time we will be altogether more fierce. While we have been debating these matters, tens of people, scores of people, have been admitted to hospital with an acquired brain injury—extraordinary. I can tell from all the contributions, including from my great friend on the Front Bench of my party, my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), and from Members across the House that the plight of those with ABI is our cause and their needs are our mission. Let us do all we can to ease their plight and meet their needs. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered the potential merits of a comprehensive acquired brain injury action plan.

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13. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir John Hayes

    Business of the House

    As the Leader of the House will know, I have long championed a cause supported by other Members of this House, notably the hon. Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey): nuclear test veterans. These were the young men who were sent to the other side of the world to witness the tests of Britain’s first nuclear weapons. In welcoming the engagement we have had with the Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Veterans and People, may I press the Leader of the House for a meeting with the Prime Minister? It has been promised. They did meet Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister. We have ongoing issues about access to their medical records. I understand that the meeting with the PM has been delayed. The PM has said he supports them. I simply want the Leader of the House to use his immense authority and power to make sure that meeting happens.

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14. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

    I apologise—I have only just seen this report. I was not aware that it was coming out in this statement, so forgive me if the hon. Lady has already covered this. Two questions have emerged. The first is that one of the biggest criticisms as the Bill went through the House of Commons and that still remains—I say this as somebody who served in Northern Ireland and is among the veterans—is what appears to be the treatment of veterans and of those who committed the atrocities in one and the same way. It is their real concern that they are getting mixed up now with the idea of those who started this process and committed the most awful atrocities. The second element is the role of Ireland. Its refusal to carry out parallel inquiries and to play a full part on topics like the Omagh bombing are big questions that have been asked. To what degree does the hon. Lady think the Government should address those questions seriously, because there was a distinct refusal on the Front Bench to deal with that last issue in any form?

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15. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    It is interesting that although we have all mounted pressure on the UK Government, and the Foreign Office in particular, to seize these assets and use their capital value—most of the assets are in cash now anyway—the answer has been a refusal. I understand the nervousness about resulting market instability, but the Government have said that the interest from the capital can be used, even though you cannot own the interest if you do not own the capital. We are dancing on the head of a pin. Would it not be better if the Government were clear, seized the capital once and for all, and regularised the use of that money, one way or another?

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16. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on his opening remarks, which were specific and precise; I will try not to repeat many of them, but to get into some of the other issues. My personal connection with Ukraine goes right back to a matter of months after the original invasion. I was involved with a Scottish charity called Siobhan’s Trust, which went out there to help those who were fleeing at the Polish border. When that had settled a little, the charity decided to cross the border and carry on feeding people who had been dispossessed behind the frontline. I see the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) in his place; I call him an hon. Friend in this, because he came out there with me to see the same remarkable charity. It is a wonderfully bonkers British charity. The team wear kilts, put the pipes in their mouths, and dance and entertain the Ukrainians only a few miles behind enemy lines, risking themselves at the same time. They show the remarkable bond that we in this country have forged with the Ukrainians in their hour of need. The charity is peculiarly British, and that is what we are about. We know what this is all about. We do not need this House to lead this debate. In truth, if we were to ask ordinary people on the high streets of this great country, they would immediately react, “We stand with Ukraine.” Why? Because they know what it is all about. History tells us what happens when countries fall: they do not rise again unless somebody else can rescue them. There is nobody to rescue countries like Ukraine if it is not us, after all our experiences of the second world war and our determination to ensure such a brutal war never takes place again. It is happening now. I have to remind the US that, even if it is not a guarantor, it certainly has an obligation to Ukraine under the Budapest memorandum. It cannot sweep that aside. The obligation came about mostly because Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. I wonder whether Putin would have invaded if it had kept its nuclear weapons. Ukraine was misled by the west. We said that we would stand by the Ukrainians, and away went their nuclear weapons Then, of course, Putin eventually decides to invade—at first piecemeal, invading part of the territory, and then fully later on. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is quite right that the Russians have been both singularly appalling in the way that they have behaved and incredibly poor in terms of their military activity. That notwithstanding, they would never have done this if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, which would have been its major line of defence. I have travelled many times to Ukraine to visit charities and others and have spoken to many Ministers in Kyiv about the difficulties and problems, including in Kharkiv, not long after Ukraine had driven the Russians back. Another Deputy Speaker, the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), was with me in Kharkiv, and we saw the devastation. How quickly the Ukrainians repair it is another marvel: I saw many buildings that had been shot at and blown apart—people had died—and by the next time I went to see them, which was a year later, they were back up and standing. That is a phenomenal testimony to the capability of the Ukrainians to recognise that, despite this terrible war, they have to keep on making efforts to live as natural and normal a life as they can. President Zelensky has rightly become the signal and the character of the defence. I know there has been a difficult relationship with the White House over his desire to wear fatigues—that strikes me as a rather petty point but, no matter how big they are, some people can be incredibly petty. His whole character, responsibility and defiance in staying in Kyiv, when Russia attacked and was determined to find and kill him, shows the courage of the Ukrainians embodied in one man. We need to support him in difficult times. We know that Ukraine is not perfect. Which country can put its hand on its heart and say it has never had corruption? Which countries have come out of the Soviet Union and not struggled with corruption? The only way people could exist in a Soviet country was through corruption, because that was how to get things done, because things were so bureaucratic and hopeless and people were not properly paid. The Ukranians are trying to get on top of that. They want to be a democracy, and they want to have freedom and human rights. Even if nothing else had happened, surely it should have been our responsibility to stand by Ukraine in its attempt to get that done. We only have to go back 150 years in this country, and we were riddled with corruption. We changed how we ran things, we changed the civil service code and we changed payments, and we got on top of it for the most part. When we talk about our lack of corruption, it came after a number of years of hardship many years ago in our history. Those who complain about corruption and point the finger should point the finger at themselves, because it is a misunderstanding of history and our obligation to a people who wish to be free. They will one day be utterly free, if we stand with them. Russia has engaged in appalling war crimes. If people go to the battlefield, they will see what the Russians have been doing. They deliberately target civilians, so that the military will come to try and help them, and then they get a bigger target. The whole nature of warfare has been turned on its head in Ukraine. A soldier who had had his leg blown off told me the other day, “There is no safe space behind the frontline, as there always was before. You have to go miles back before you can even begin to think of putting up some kind of hospital or first aid centre, because those drones fly all day and all night. What they do is hit one soldier and lay them out, dead or alive. Then, as the others run to him, they rain down on them with their explosives.” That is why more than 50,000 people in Ukraine today who have been serving on the frontline need prosthetics. Ukraine has the most advanced prosthetics laboratories that I have ever seen. They could teach us a thing or two. There is a whole problem with the tourniquet, because it cannot be released. Soldiers cannot get to the wounded soldier lying on the ground, because they know what will happen if they go to them, so the wounded soldier lies, often for an hour or more, with a tourniquet destroying their arm, even though it may be saving their life. They end up with terrible prosthetics requirements into their shoulder blades. Do they moan and complain about that? No, they do not. They sit down technically and work out how to solve it. We have a lot to learn from them, including on the battlefield and how they counter the drones. The Ukranians are way ahead of us, and I hope that the MOD realises that it is not us who can teach them a lesson, but they who can teach us. I spend time trying to bring companies over from Ukraine to give us that technology on drones and all these other areas where we should learn from them. The other point I want people to learn is that we seem to talk about Ukrainians as though they were capable of little themselves. They had no defence manufacturing capability worth talking about, but today they manufacture more than 50% of their own defence needs. They do it unbelievably efficiently and they do it under regular fire from Russia. I have visited companies in Ukraine where half of the place gets blown up and in about four days they are back manufacturing and fixing things. Those are things that we used to do when we were in the second world war being bombarded. The Ukranians show the same resilience, the same application and the same flexibility. We must stand with Ukraine. We stand with Ukranians because of what they want to be and because it is our responsibility to defend those who seek freedom and democracy as their cause. It is as simple as that. The UK has been the most united over this, and I applaud colleagues from all parts of the House, because we have all stood together. It is noticeable that when we talk to Ukrainians, they always raise that point. The UK is united, and that is the most important point. I will finish on sanctions. The problem for us is that we have failed to settle our sanctions responsibility to the degree that we should have. There are huge problems over the shadow fleet, as has been mentioned, and over individual sanctions, which we should have been using on a number of occasions. It is remarkable that with the one thing we had complete control over—the sale of Chelsea football club—£2.5 billion has sat there for three years, because we defined the ability to use it so poorly that there is now a dispute as to whether Abramovich’s own companies have a right to use the money, or whether we can seize it. We have to deal with this. If we cannot deal with that one issue, it shows how bad it will be for us in seeking reparations across the board.

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17. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    It is, of course, a fact that we stand by the rule of law and teach others to do so, but the reality is that this whole problem could be resolved if there was greater resolve—by the way, this is a criticism not just of the present Government but the previous one—in the Foreign Office and the Treasury to leave no stone unturned and resolve this matter by seizing the money.

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18. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    The will is non-existent. I will conclude by simply saying that Ukraine should not be written off. The issue is not whether Ukraine has to make a deal now because it cannot win. Winning, for the Ukrainians, is getting back their land, their rights and their country. It is written into the constitution of Ukraine that the land that Russia occupies is theirs. People talk glibly about handing over territory as a way of resolving the conflict, but this would only lead, as has been said previously, to Russia moving again within a matter of months or years and seizing the rest of Ukraine. Putin does not care about territory; he cares about Ukraine. He believes Ukraine should be part of Russia, and he will never stop. If we show weakness by agreeing to some stupid 28-point plan, which would sell the Ukrainians down the river, Putin would come back. We would walk away and say, “Well, we did our best.” That is not good enough. I urge the Minister to make it absolutely clear that we do not agree with any of the 28-point plan, which would sell territory for peace. But it would not be peace; it would be a short-term abdication of responsibility that would lead to the death of many millions.

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19. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    I want to raise a point that I have just been told about. There is a debate right now in the Bundestag about the sanctions regime, and the German Chancellor Herr Merz has given up other visits in the last 24 hours to go to Belgium to persuade the Belgians to agree to proposals on sanctions. There is pressure around this. I have just been asked to ask the Minister whether he would say that this is a very worth- while visit, and that the British Government support the intention of getting Belgium to enter into the scheme with the lion’s share of the Euroclear funds. That would make an enormous difference to support for Ukraine.

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20. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Iain Duncan Smith

    War in Ukraine

    On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You sit in the Chair and are not allowed to speak, so many in the House may not realise your role in all this. You have visited Ukraine with me and others, and you have been a stalwart champion of all that we have been debating today, so I wanted to make sure that the House recognised the incredible attention and support that you have given.

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21. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Edward Leigh

    Proposed Chinese Embassy

    5. Whether the Prime Minister has had discussions with the Chinese Government on the proposed Chinese embassy.

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22. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Edward Leigh

    Proposed Chinese Embassy

    Will the prayers of long-dead medieval monks save us from this hideous mega-embassy, right next to the most totemic building in the United Kingdom, the Tower of London? On 14 January, the then Secretaries of State for the Home Office and the Foreign Office wrote a letter insisting that a condition be made that there should be a wall and public access to the Cistercian medieval monastery on the site. The Chinese, in their arrogant way, are ignoring that. Will the Government stand firm and insist on public access—which, by the way, would be a good way of stopping this awful project?

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23. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Edward Leigh

    Local Elections

    But the Government could have done this right and come to Parliament with a statement today. Instead, once again we wake up to overnight briefings. Cancelling elections is always a bad idea, and there is a real suspicion that the Government are worried about being trounced in elections. May make a local point about Lincolnshire? It is now in complete chaos, because we do not know what is going to happen. The Government have already forced an unloved office of mayor on us, our friends in North East Lincolnshire have withdrawn from the whole process, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer) wants to carve West Lindsey—my district—in half by creating a greater Lincoln, and the county council under Reform leadership has a different proposal. Nobody knows what is going on. Just put local democracy first by allowing the people of Lincolnshire to have the district council system of local Government that they love and know, and stop throwing everything up in the air and wasting so much money.

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24. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Edward Leigh

    War in Ukraine

    Western societies are visibly divided over how to respond to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and those divisions play directly into Vladimir Putin’s strategic aims. Putin’s method has always been to widen fractures within democracies, and to exploit hesitation among allies. At one pole of the debate are those who believe that any compromise with Moscow would amount to a betrayal of Ukraine and a surrender on moral principle; at the opposite pole are soft apologists for Putin, who dismiss support for Ukraine as naive, or attribute it to sinister global conspiracies. Those extremes distort sensible discussion, and we must fight against both ends to strengthen the thoughtful, strategic centre ground of this debate. Giving in to either extreme just makes it more difficult to develop and deploy a coherent western policy. The responsible course is to steer between absolutism and appeasement, while protecting both Ukrainian sovereignty and our own national interest. The Ukrainian armed forces have performed very well, and have proved that they can defend their homeland. Ukraine continues to hold the line across hundreds of miles. There are those who claim that the Russians are winning, or that their victory is inevitable, but the history books are replete with examples of outcomes deemed inevitable that never happened. Experience on the ground shows that this war will not be a slam dunk for either side. Predictions of imminent Russian victory ignore the reality that Ukrainian defences remain resilient and adaptive. War is the mother of invention, and the Ukrainians have been extremely innovative in adapting their offensive means, as well as defending against Russian countermeasures. As long as Ukraine retains control of the territory it holds, claims that Russia is “winning” do not stand realistic scrutiny. Morale, ingenuity and international support have enabled Ukraine to deny Putin the strategic breakthrough he seeks. We in the United Kingdom have been one of Ukraine’s most consistent and substantial supporters, and we should be proud of that. We should be open to further support where prudent, while maintaining our clear position that the UK will not become an active combatant. Critics who deride President Trump’s peace efforts overlook the value of initiatives that at least attempt to move the conflict towards negotiation. Putin’s rejection of recent proposals underscores that the obstacle to peace lies in Moscow, not with Ukraine or among Ukraine’s friends. I hope people will forgive me for not being entirely rude about our closest ally, but let us be honest: many people are attacking Trump’s proposals just because they are Trump’s. If the proposals had come from Mr Biden or a prospective President Harris, critics may have been cautious, but they would not have attempted to stand in their way. We should not let political prejudice undermine our careful examination of substantial proposals for ending the active conflict. President Trump is putting forward constructive proposals, and we should understand them and be supportive, if necessary, while questioning them. It is easy to demand endless resistance from the comfort of our own homes, but it is our Ukrainian friends who are paying the price in blood, lives and the future of their country. There is no virtue in insisting on absolute maximalist goals while others must bear the human cost of achieving them. Ukraine and Russia once enjoyed deep cultural, social and economic ties, and Putin has singlehandedly killed all that. He alone is responsible for turning two neighbouring peoples against each other. It will take multiple generations before Ukraine and Russia can be friends again, but we can try to help them to at least stop making war, and at least try to end the killing. Of course, the ideal solution is for Russian forces to withdraw; if they did that today, everyone would rejoice. However, we must deal with the reality: they are not going to do that. Cessation of hostilities is therefore the necessary first step. Responsible policymakers must prepare for outcomes that fall short of our ideals, while still ending the bloodshed. President Trump’s efforts to encourage negotiation represent an attempt to find practical steps towards a ceasefire. I agree that no agreement can be legitimate without the free and sovereign consent of Ukraine, which cannot be dictated to by Washington or Moscow. We should be absolutely clear that we cannot advocate for any agreement—this is the important thing—that forces Ukraine to give up territory it currently holds. To pressure Ukraine into ceding land would be akin to surrendering the Sudetenland. We left Czechoslovakia absolutely defenceless in 1938—that must never happen again. There is more that we can do on our side in the west, not just when it comes to sending money and matériel to Ukraine, but by changing our behaviour. We need to increase economic pressure on Russia. Sanctions and financial constraints remain one of the few non-military tools that can meaningfully weaken the Kremlin’s capacity to wage a war. Germany, I am afraid, and some of our European allies continue to buy Russian energy in various forms, undermining our collective leverage. We must ask our partners whether they are actually making constructive attempts to secure alternative sources of energy; we hope they are. The slow pace at which some European countries have diversified their energy supply undercuts the effect of sanctions. Europe’s over-reliance on Russian hydrocarbons is yet another compelling reason for the United Kingdom to pursue nuclear energy with renewed determination. We must also learn the lessons of history. Russia’s economy, measured in nominal GDP, is roughly comparable to Italy’s, and it is therefore far from the superpower that people often talk about. I mean no insult to our wonderful Italian friends. The disparity between Russia’s global posture and the actual size of its economy highlights how vulnerable Moscow is to sustained economic isolation, and that is how we are going to win in the long term. Although the military dimension of the conflict is vital, it alone will not produce a decisive victory or a durable settlement for Ukraine. Economic pressure, diplomatic alignment and long-term energy resilience across Europe are equally important; they are vital to a successful strategy. The goal of diplomacy must be to find a workable, if imperfect, path to ending unnecessary killing. Ours should be a humane policy—to be strong, and to get a fair peace that stops the killing. The longer the war continues, the greater the damage to Ukraine’s economy, infrastructure and demographic future. The continuation of the conflict also damages Russia, although its citizens have little say in the matter. The United Kingdom has offered sanctuary to many thousands of Ukrainians, supporting their education, welfare and community integration. Public good will remains high, but history teaches us that political and social patience cannot be taken for granted indefinitely. I will end on this point. My fear is that there will come a day—it may still be years away—when the British Government and the British public feel that we have done enough, and that is that. The American Government may say the same. If a peace arrangement is not reached before fatigue sets in among Ukraine’s allies, Kyiv may find itself dangerously exposed. Allowing that to happen would serve no interest except Vladimir Putin’s and would hand him an undeserved strategic victory. The prudent course is to sustain and, if sensible, expand our support for Ukraine, while actively exploring diplomatic routes towards peace. Working constructively with our American allies gives us a chance, however modest, to help end the killing.

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25. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    Local Elections

    Does this latest and inconsistent decision underline that the whole of LGR and devolution is in a state of total chaos? The Government must be rueing the day that they bought the Department’s line that imposing a metropolitan concept on counties and the countryside was the right thing to do. Can the Minister explain, for example, why it was logical to cancel the district council elections last year, but not this year? Where is the logic in that? Is it not about time that she got together with her colleagues and cancelled this whole process, to save money, and so that people can get back to their jobs of running better social services, filling in potholes, and delivering for their local communities, as the excellent Tendring district council does?

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26. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    I beg to move, That this House again condemns President Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, which is nowin its fourth year of tragedy and destruction; condemns the atrocities committed by Russia in Ukraine, in particular the abduction of Ukrainian children; supports efforts to negotiate a durable and lasting peace agreement; asserts that this must reaffirm all Ukrainian sovereign territory as recognised in international law, including any occupied territories; believes that Ukraine’s sovereignty must be guaranteed by all parties including by all NATO nations and by the EU, to mirror Article V of the NATO Treaty; further believes that Ukraine must be free to sustain capability to deter a future Russian attack; also supports increased economic sanctions further to reduce Russian revenues from the export of oil and gas; and urges the Government and the UK’s allies to accelerate military support for Ukraine, and to release frozen Russian assets for the financing of increased military spending in Ukraine as soon as possible. The motion stands in my name and those of many right hon. and hon. Members from across the House. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for this debate—the first full debate on Ukraine since February. The motion can be summarised very simply: Ukraine must and can win. The Russia-Ukraine war was never some regional territorial dispute, as some would like to believe. It has now moved far beyond conventional geopolitics; it is not about territory and cannot be solved by Ukraine ceding territory to Russia. That is because it is an existential clash between competing visions of how global security should be organised, and indeed of the nature of our society. It is the result of a long-standing intellectual current within Russia: a mix of imperial nostalgia, nationalist theology, and a deliberate rejection of democracy and the Western rules-based order. Furthermore, that ideological framework is not fading but growing, adapting and continually finding new ways to justify the unjustifiable, both at home and abroad. Russia’s view of a desirable world order is one based on spheres of influence and the right of big countries to impose their will on smaller neighbours. Putin and his henchmen are not politicians as we understand the word. They are intelligence officers and soldiers who have turned the tradecraft of the KGB into the statecraft of the Russian state, in the pursuit of building their world order and destroying ours. For that gang of autocrats, an independent Ukraine is not just inconvenient; they cannot tolerate Ukraine’s independence because it threatens the very foundations of their own idea of Russian identity. Their war in Ukraine is only part of a much larger war in their minds—a war that involves the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, whether we like it or not. Yes, this war has come to us. I am reminded of the words of Leon Trotsky—and I use the word “you” advisedly as I quote him, Madam Deputy Speaker: “You might not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Putin and his henchmen have been saying for a long time that they are at war with us. In the past few weeks alone, expert commentators such as Fiona Hill, Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former director general of MI5, and Lord Robertson, the ex-Secretary-General of NATO, have all affirmed that Russia is at war with us—and yes, I mean Russia, not just Putin. This is because Putin’s gang of ideologues are skilled at exploiting the resentments of the Russian people in a highly controlled information environment, so that the people accept their lies and support what they have been told: that Russia is in some fight for its survival against the hostile west. Some western policymakers find this reality unpalatable. They prefer the illusion that Putin might accept some compromise—some deal whereby Ukraine might trade land for peace. But let there be no mistake: that is not just wishful thinking; it is dangerous, because it both ignores the motive for Russia to wage this war and denies that Russia has already unleashed war against Europe and the United Kingdom.

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27. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    Of course I agree with that, and I will come back to how we work with our allies later. The first thing we must understand is how the character of war has changed. In today’s war, everything is a weapon: disinformation, terrorism, sabotage, assassination, psychological manipulation, malign influence, cyber-attacks, economic warfare, menacing undersea cables—even energy, food and fertiliser are used as weapons. Let us also not forget that Russia has weaponised the abduction of Ukrainian children, which is just one of the atrocities that it inflicts on the occupied territories. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) cannot be here, but I hope that her cause will be taken up by someone else in the debate. Make no mistake: we are today already under a sustained assault through a co-ordinated campaign that merges all these weapons and others, and these attacks are steadily increasing in audacity and seriousness. They are sometimes reported in the press but often downplayed by wishful Governments who are unwilling to acknowledge these attacks for what they are. They can appear to be isolated acts of espionage, sabotage or diversion, but they are not. They are elements of a systematic, strategic offensive designed to undermine public trust in our Governments and our democratic systems, to fragment our societies, to establish groups that destabilise our countries from within, and above all, to probe our defences and to find weaknesses to exploit further. This is a test of the resilience of our entire society. This is hybrid warfare, or grey-zone warfare, but the term “total war” might be more accurate as a description. “The New Total War” is the apposite title of a recent book authored by the former Member for the Isle of Wight, Bob Seely. The Baltic and Nordic countries and Poland are currently the main targets, but so is the UK. Indeed, the UK is singled out by Russia as public enemy No. 1 because Russia sees the UK, quite rightly, as a bulwark against threats and coercion that intimidate some other countries. But grey-zone warfare is by no means the only threat the UK faces. Our critical national infrastructure is exposed, particularly offshore. NATO and the UK lack comprehensive air defence. Just this week, Putin said Russia is “ready” for war with NATO. We have to be honest when we answer this question: how ready are we? There is also a dangerous narrative taking hold that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia in Ukraine and that we must just accept this. That is wholly wrong. There are in fact detailed assessments, publicly available, which demonstrate that Russia cannot win militarily, so long as NATO countries continue to give military and financial support to Ukraine and economic sanctions against Russia are maintained and strengthened.

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28. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    I give way to the hon. Lady and thank her for her support.

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29. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    That is certainly true, but the Russians are also depending more and more on what they produce in their factories rather than their legacy stock, which is making the war more and more expensive for them. They are not in an ideal position. The initial Russian dash for Kyiv was disastrous for the Russian army. The Russians failed from day one to establish air superiority over Ukraine, which is effectively a no-fly zone for Russian military aircraft. Ukraine has succeeded in developing technology and tactics that make Russian attempts to advance extraordinarily costly. Ukraine’s ability to strike at Russian military and economic assets deep in Russia is increasing. There is absolutely nothing inevitable about a Russian victory over Ukraine. If we continue to sustain Ukraine and to undermine the Russian economy with sanctions, Russia will be forced to change its calculus for carrying on. Nevertheless, Putin is projecting confidence that he is winning, but let us be clear: this is not because of the military situation but because of a lack of political will in so many NATO countries. If Putin wins, it is only because we let Putin win, as we let him win in Georgia, the Crimea and the Russian oblasts of eastern Ukraine before he embarked on the attempt to take Kyiv. He proved that we are soft, and his confidence is based on his continued belief that nothing has changed. It has often been pointed out that the combined GDP of all NATO is vastly greater than Russia’s, so we should have nothing to fear, but that advantage only matters if we have the will to use this economic superiority to defeat Russia’s expansionist agenda. War is about nothing if it is not about willpower. Sadly, with a few notable exceptions such as the Baltic states and Poland, we have yet to demonstrate that willpower to win. That is particularly due to the United States. First, the vacillation of President Biden and his fear of fuelling escalation gave Russia time to build up its war machine and exploit wider alliances. Now, the despicable and disastrous attitude of President Trump seems to offer Putin the opportunity to achieve everything he wants: the subjugation of Ukraine, the humiliation of NATO and the enlargement of the Russian sphere of influence at the expense of European security. Ironically, the effect of the Trump Administration’s 28-point peace plan has been to encourage Putin to keep the war going. That is because Trump appears ready to give President Putin everything he wants—Ukraine as a Russian vassal state. There is no incentive for Putin to stop this war under these circumstances, while the US is seeking to force Ukraine and Europe to accept peace at any price. It sometimes looks as if European resolve might also crumble. Trump thinks he is the master of the universe, but he is in fact being psychologically manipulated by Putin with flattery and—I make no bones about it—with bribes. But something positive in Europe may finally be happening. Despite the tendency of European leaders to focus on the differences between them, Merz, Macron, our own Prime Minister and the leaders of NATO and the EU have shown remarkable unity. There is a realisation that a so-called peace agreed on Trump’s terms would not be peace at all. Putin would continue his campaign by other means. There would be little or no deterrence to discourage Putin from resuming military action on some bogus pretext at some future date. As Kaja Kallas, the European Union foreign policy chief, has explained: “Russia has never truly had to come to terms with its brutal past or bear the consequences of its actions”. She has argued that the nature of the Russian regime means that “rewarding aggression will bring more war, not less”. She is right: Putin will come back for more. The democratic world cannot forget the lessons of history. The attitude of some is an eerie parallel of what Chamberlain said about Hitler’s annexation of the Czech Sudetenland, which he described as “a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.” Let this House never forget that Russia signed the 2004 Budapest memorandum, which probits the use of military force in Ukraine. President Putin disregarded that undertaking when he annexed Crimea and then attacked eastern Ukraine. How many times do we need to learn this lesson? In Putin’s world, Russia recognises no international law, only its own absolute sovereignty, so a Russian signature on any treaty is not to be trusted, unless it can be externally guaranteed by people who have the necessary force. Putin is already taunting the UK and NATO with hybrid war attacks. A Russian ship firing lasers at UK military aircraft in neutral airspace would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. This cannot just be ignored. Russia is testing NATO responses and mocking our slow pace of re-arming. The consequences of remaining passive would be dire for the credibility of NATO as a deterrent force. Letting Russia have its agenda would also increase Russia’s credibility with neutral countries, at the expense of NATO and our allies. They will see the EU and NATO as representing waning powers, unable to contain Russia as we did during the cold war. The agreement on much tougher proposals at Geneva last week, while still engaging with Secretary of State Rubio, is a real achievement. The latest news that Putin has again refused to stop the war exposes him as the true aggressor. This is a war that he could instantly stop oh so easily. So long as Europe and NATO continue to support Ukraine, and Ukraine refuses to settle on Russian terms, then Putin will not agree to a ceasefire, until he realises that there is no diplomatic shortcut open to him. The biggest risk we face is that Trump loses interest in his peace effort and withdraws support for Ukraine. However, there is already evidence that Trump’s power over the Congress is waning. Abandoning Ukraine would split US politics. We must hope that the US will also continue with intelligence support, but we should be ready for that to stop. If necessary, Europe should offer to pay for that intelligence, if that enables that intelligence support to be continued. Settling for a fake peace on unsustainable Trump-Witkoff terms would be far worse. We in Europe have to accept that President Trump’s actions have demonstrated that he does not care about Ukraine, and his commitment to European security is, at best, ambiguous. The right plan is for European NATO to be ready to continue to support Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s demands whatever happens, to continue to support Ukraine’s military, and to help to finance Ukraine’s increasingly effective defence industries. That is why today’s motion refers to the release of the €140 billion Russian frozen assets in Europe, which is vital. Russia will then continue to suffer the astronomical attrition, on men and matériel, at vast financial cost. More intensive sanctions must also bite on their economy. In truth, we can kid ourselves about the Russian economy, but it remains pretty resilient. However, sanctions have reduced foreign exchange earnings by some 20%—they come only from the export of oil and gas—and Russia’s domestic banks are now the only buyers of Russian Government bonds. This is not a long-term sustainable position for Russia. Secondary sanctions applied to the Russian shadow fleet, and to countries that enable that shadow fleet to exist, have made and can continue to make the export of oil and gas less and less profitable, or even loss-making for Russia. Above all, we see the Russian army advancing so slowly in Ukraine, taking tiny areas of land at incredible human cost. We are seeing a land war that Russia cannot win. It has taken all of this year for Russia to take the small town of Pokrovsk, and at the cost of some 100,000 casualties.

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30. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    My right hon. Friend is right: the Russians have not already taken the town, although they say they have. The US ambassador to NATO pointed out recently that a snail crawling from the Russia border westwards would now be in the middle of Poland, had it left at the same time as the beginning of the invasion—that is how badly the Russians are doing militarily. There is no breakthrough that would give Russia strategic military success, so Putin escalates by ramping up hybrid warfare on NATO states. He wants to move the focus of the war on to fresh battlefields. He attacks Ukrainian energy infrastructure. He could launch a miliary attack on a NATO member country using a form of warfare for which that country, unlike Ukraine, is not prepared. Such an attack on an ally would necessitate a response by the UK, if deterrence is to remain credible. It might even involve UK troops in Estonia, for example. Our troops are not prepared for the kind of drone warfare that we are seeing in Ukraine. If Russia did that, what would we do? I leave that question hanging in the air. An attack could involve a missile attack on targets within the UK, for which we are equally unprepared, or on our offshore assets. Our allies in Germany, Poland and Finland take very seriously the real risk that Europe may be drawn into a more military confrontation with Russia, and a lot sooner than is comfortable to acknowledge. What must we do in the face of this now obvious threat to our security? We must acknowledge and explain to our population that we are indeed at war now, and we must explain the nature of the hybrid threat. We must call out Russian hybrid attacks for what they are and we must devise robust responses, as well as increasing our own defences. Are these interceptions, and no more, a sufficient response? We must constantly adapt the use of sanctions, realising that, like any weapon, Russia will devise countermeasures to evade them. We must, as a real priority, increase our military and economic support to Ukraine, however difficult that might be. We need to make it clear, by both our words and our actions, that Russia cannot win this war. I say to the Minister for the Armed Forces, who will respond to the debate, that it is not enough for us to repeat the mantra “for as long as it takes.” What does that mean? It has already taken far too long. We must commit to supporting Ukraine until Ukraine achieves victory, and soon, and that is possible. What does that victory look like? Ukraine must be able to sustain itself as a secure and independent sovereign state, as part of the family of free and democratic nations. Victory is no threat to Russian territory or sovereignty—there is no plan or objective to topple President Putin—but this victory is the only way to prevent Russia from discrediting NATO and corroding the confidence that we democracies can and must use to prevent despots from degrading the global international order. To help to achieve peace, we in the UK must accelerate our own war readiness, as the Defence Committee set out in its recent report. The noble Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who oversaw the Government’s strategic defence review, recently remarked: “We are under-prepared…we’re under attack and we’re not safe”. Changing that does not simply mean strengthening our armed forces, although that is essential; it also means adapting a lot of things in our country so that we can survive and fight a war. That will be difficult, even painful, so the sooner we start, the better, because it is weakness that encourages Putin—the stronger we are, the less likely we are to be attacked.

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31. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    Do we think for a moment that Russia would pause seizing any assets it could to fund the conflict? Is it not ironic that the Russians use the rule of law against us, despite the fact that they have no respect for it themselves?

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32. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way and for his response to the debate. I know his personal commitment to these issues is very strong indeed, but may I just take him back to the point he makes? He pulls back from the idea that we in the NATO countries are already in a kind of war with Russia. I have to tell him that there is a tendency to try to sanitise the severity of the threats we face. How effective does he think is the Government’s “conversation” with the British population about the threats we face? How successful does he think that is? A lot of us feel that we are not seeing it at all. The Government are not leading this conversation. Indeed, it is almost being shut down because of the pressures of domestic politics, and the lack of support from the public for having such a conversation makes it very difficult. Will he comment on that, because it was in the strategic defence review?

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33. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Bernard Jenkin

    War in Ukraine

    Within the last few minutes, I read that President Zelensky is on a state visit to Dublin, but his arriving plane was buzzed by four mysterious military-grade drones. That is what we are up against, and there is not sufficient awareness of that. The fact that this Chamber is sparsely populated this afternoon suggests that this whole debate is yet to get into the mainstream of our politics and our national discourse. I emphasise again that the Government have yet to deliver the national conversation that they promised in their strategic defence review. I recognise the efforts that people in the defence community are making, and that includes Ministers, but involving the whole of Government, the whole of the Opposition and the whole of politics is what is required. I hoped that this debate would demonstrate the unity across the House that has indeed been shown today. I thank every colleague, from every part of the House, for their contribution, and all those who signed the motion who could not be here today. The motion was intended to be a clear statement of our national intent. I imagine that it will go through without a vote, so that the signal will be sent to the world about what this country believes, and what it believes must be done. But I come back to the point that we need to underline our will and signal the force of our intent if we are to achieve what we want to achieve, and to lead our allies from the front. I believe that the United Kingdom is capable of doing that, and is to some extent doing its best to achieve it, but also that other countries are looking to us to take a stronger lead and set the best example, in line with the achievements of our history and our values. I am very grateful that this debate has taken place, and it has been an honour to lead it.

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34. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sir Alec Shelbrooke

    Local Elections

    The Minister keeps talking about the principle, and why this is being done, but we should not move away from the fundamental question: who misled the Minister by saying that this could be achieved in 2026, but then came back and said, “No, sorry, it has to be 2028”? It is 18 months until elections in 2027, and we are talking about 2028. Is she not concerned about finding out who is telling her false project timelines? How can she have any faith that 2028 will be delivered? We are told that the aim is to deliver better public services, but how can that be true when the Government cannot even get the organisation correct, and when there is a gap of two years?

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35. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sarah Bool

    Topical Questions

    T2. First, I want to echo the concerns of the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael): the Paymaster General really must meet with the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee to discuss the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement—meeting with the Chair in private is not enough. When it comes to Europe and negotiating deals, the devil is always in the detail. Looking at the fisheries negotiation, we can see that the Government struggle with this area. Given that Switzerland will be paying €375 million a year, and it seems as though we will have to pay for the privilege of being a rule taker once more, can the Minister clarify exactly what he considers to be an appropriate financial contribution to be paid to the EU?

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36. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Sarah Bool

    Dawn Sturgess Inquiry

    To the extent that he is able, can the Minister please explain what steps he is taking to secure UK commercial ports, given recent reports of individuals with links to the Russian military entering via those routes?

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37. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Nick Timothy

    Local Elections

    In Suffolk, people are asking what on earth the Government are playing at. We are being asked to have county elections in 2026, unitary elections in 2027 and a mayoral election in 2028. That said, elected politicians in a democracy should never be afraid of the voters. Can the Minister say to the House—incredibly clearly—that Suffolk’s county council elections, already postponed once, will not be cancelled next May?

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38. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

    We now come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. Tonia Antoniazzi will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which time no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions, not full speeches. I emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee Chair and not the relevant Minister. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.

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39. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    Northern Ireland: Legacy of the Past

    I have no doubt that the House will join me in backing the statement that we all value and respect the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).

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40. 4 Dec 2025·Parliament·Ms Nusrat Ghani

    War in Ukraine

    I call Sir Bernard Jenkin, who will speak for around 15 minutes.

    Hansard source