Ukraine Update

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The simple answer is that we will do whatever is required as a UK contribution to the NATO alliance. I am proud of the leading role that the UK plays in NATO. I am also proud of the fact that NATO now is bigger, stronger and, with 32 nations, a better deterrent force than it was when Putin first launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. That demonstrates how Putin’s strategic aims in launching the invasion have come unstuck and so far he has failed to secure any of them. As my hon. Friend has said, Putin says he wants peace and an end to the fighting; now is the time, for the first time, for him to demonstrate that, to match his words with his actions and to negotiate seriously for that long-term, lasting peace.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for taking the first opportunity to make this important statement? I congratulate him on his work with the coalition of the willing. It will be important in that—building on the comments of the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge)—to understand the terms of engagement if that is to happen and peace is to be secured. We cannot permit woolly thinking, because that could allow another situation like Srebrenica to happen again. Will the Secretary of State assure me that he is working hard, that what any terms of engagement would be is on the agenda, and that people are crystal clear about what those terms could be to secure peace?