Baroness Smith of Newnham
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Ukraine
Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I agree, which is why my right honourable friend the Defence Secretary announced on Saturday that the UK will spend a further £245 million throughout the next year to procure and invigorate supply chains to produce urgently needed artillery ammunition for Ukraine.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, I associate these Benches with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about supporting the Government’s position on Ukraine. However, we and Ukraine appear to be in this for the long haul, and we will need to spend a lot of money on defence and diplomacy to get this right and ensure that not only Ukraine but the Baltic states are secure. Given that, what are the Government doing to ensure that the citizens of the United Kingdom are wholly behind this as well? We do not want people to start thinking that support somehow is not here in this country. I regret to say that we want the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, to be proved wrong.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned defence and diplomacy. I referred to the additional funding for munitions. I underline the fact that every diplomatic engagement that we are undertaking gives that reassurance directly to the Ukrainians. I was in India last week, and I made sure that I met the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, who was there. My noble friend the Foreign Secretary has been extensively engaged. He attended the UN Security Council meeting in New York marking the second anniversary of Russia’s illegal invasion, and addressed it. Only yesterday I returned from Geneva, where a key part of my address to the UN Human Rights Council was on Ukraine, and I met its ambassador, together with all our colleagues from the UK mission. It is very clear that this Parliament, the Diplomatic Service departments, government and indeed our people stand with Ukraine, and we are proud of the 140,000-odd Ukrainians who have now made Britain their temporary home—I use “temporary” definitively, because they themselves yearn for a return back home to Ukraine.