War in Ukraine

James Cartlidge Excerpts

Thursday 4th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

May I begin by congratulating my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on securing this important debate, together with his co-signatories, the Chair of the Defence Committee, the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale)? All four are long-standing stalwarts and champions of the great cause of defending Ukraine. I congratulate them not only on securing this debate, but on their timing, enabling us to scrutinise the evolving situation amid a flurry of reports about the peace talks, frozen assets and continued wild rhetoric from Vladimir Putin.

When it comes to those talks, we all surely want peace in Ukraine. We all want an end to the fighting and the bloody slaughter of civilians and military personnel at a scale not seen in Europe since world war two. No one wants or deserves that more than the people of Ukraine. When we say that it must be a lasting peace, it is because the long-term security of Ukraine cannot be sacrificed for an illusory short-term cessation of hostilities on unacceptable terms, and certainly not for some kind of transactional economic gain for other nations, least of all Russia. We have constantly stood shoulder to shoulder with the Government, not just in supporting Ukraine as they did in opposition, but in being clear that the only tolerable peace is one secured on terms acceptable to the Government in Kyiv. We stand by that position, in total solidarity with Ukraine, for moral and practical reasons.

Morally, this war has a clear and flagrant aggressor—Putin’s Russia—which invaded a free and sovereign democracy. That is contrary to those who have echoed Putin’s own propaganda and blamed NATO for provoking this invasion. We are also clear that this invasion was wholly unprovoked and motivated by what my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex described in his excellent speech as the inherent nature of the Russian regime—its rejection of our democratic values and its desire to restore former glories by abolishing Ukraine’s independence.

On the practical side of the argument, supporting Ukraine is self-evidently an act that strengthens our defence, checking Russian expansionism. Indeed, I remain deeply proud of the last Government’s decision to rapidly arm Ukraine from the weeks prior to Russia’s invasion in February 2022, which helped Ukraine’s brave armed forces to avoid an early capitulation that would have left the Russian forces rampant, directly threatening ourselves and the rest of Europe.

The devil’s advocate might argue that if, morally, peace is the right way forward, and if we are also applying practical common sense, that speaks to seeking a compromise that may be painful for Ukraine but unavoidable if we are to see an end to the fighting, because surely Russia needs to be satisfied with the terms if there is to be a mutually agreed end to the war. To that, I would make the argument, as I have from the outset, that the most important moral and practical reason that as a nation we should all be cautious in welcoming any kind of uneasy peace deal, is that Russia gaining from its flagrant aggression would send a message that emboldens all our potential strategic adversaries, ultimately making the world less safe for us and all our allies.

With Putin unsurprisingly rejecting any compromise and showing the reality of his position by launching another massive drone attack on Ukraine, what exactly can be done? First, despite Putin’s cynicism, it is clearly important that all possible diplomatic efforts are made to support Ukraine, and we would be grateful if the Minister could update us on the latest developments. Secondly, we welcome the sanctioning of the GRU, which we heard about from the Security Minister, and support using all possible economic tools to pressure the Russian regime.

On the issue of economic tools, it has been reported that the European Commission is proposing the use of Russian assets to provide €90 billion to Ukraine in the form of a reparations loan. Further to the question from the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley, who made an excellent speech, can the Minister confirm whether the UK will pursue a similar or different approach? What legal solutions are the Government currently pursuing so that we can move beyond using just the profits from sovereign assets, and will we prioritise mobilising those assets for the immediate war effort?

Thirdly, echoing the comments of the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) and others—we are at war, as he said—and the reminder from the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) about Putin’s comments this week about his being ready for war with Europe, we must ask about our own readiness. On the crucial matter of defence spending in the UK, and given the concerns expressed yesterday by no less than Lord Robertson, the author of the strategic defence review, who questioned how seriously the Chancellor takes the need to increase defence spending, I have a specific question for the Minister: in what financial year will UK defence spending start to rise beyond the NATO-declared figure of 2.6% of GDP in 2027? That is a crucial question.

I turn to the other points in the many excellent speeches made in our debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke movingly about the atrocities in the war. Of course, he reminded us that one of the reasons we stand by Ukraine so strongly is because of the sheer brutality of the war, which was forced, unprovoked, on the people of Ukraine.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) made an excellent point when he said that surely it is in the economic domain that, in the long term, we can exert the greatest pressure on Russia, not least given the economic mismatch at play against the west.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) made a brilliant speech. She and the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) both compensated for the absence of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), who has led an amazing campaign, by reminding us about the terrible Russian war crime of child abduction. I join the hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South in welcoming any sanctions that target those involved, which is a very good point.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) asked an interesting question, which is entirely hypothetical, as to whether the invasion would have occurred had Ukraine still possessed nuclear weapons, which of course it gave up, in good trust, through the Budapest memorandum. I wonder whether he is aware that in July 2016, during an historic debate on the renewal of the nuclear deterrent, the first intervention on the then new Prime Minister, Theresa May, was from our former colleague Andrew Selous, who asked exactly the same question. He asked it after the annexation of Crimea, and it is a question that we must still ask. It was answered brilliantly today by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who has cared about these matters for a long time, when he reminded us that there was no third world war. There were conflicts elsewhere, but we did not have a repeat because of the deterrents that the two sides had. The conclusion we draw is that we must learn from that ourselves and always continue to invest to our own deterrent, despite the fact that it is extremely expensive.

Along those lines, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith) asked a very important question about security guarantees. I hope the Minister will respond to that and set out his thinking on the sorts of security guarantees that would be involved if there were to be a lasting peace.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) said that he feels that 2026 may be the decisive year of the war, and I am sure he is correct. It is going to be decisive, one way or the other. As such, it is quite clear that we must continue to provide all possible military support and so on.

The hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire), who was always a very good contributor on these matters from the Liberal Democrats Front Bench, made the very good point that unexploded ordnance poses a threat not just to civilians, but to farming and food production. Many Members made excellent speeches, and it is a real privilege to join them in speaking today.

To conclude, I know that, like me, the Minister believes passionately that the UK could be a leader in uncrewed warfare, and one way we can do that is by partnering with Ukrainian companies. As such, it was a real privilege recently to visit the new factory being set up in Suffolk by Ukrspecsystems, a cutting-edge Ukrainian drone company. It is committed to producing such equipment here in the UK and creating jobs in my county of Suffolk. It is a reminder that our two nations’ deepening co-operation covers everything from military capability to acting in concert with allies on the diplomatic front and looking to the future with the 100-year partnership first proposed under our Government.

However, the most important aspect of our partnership is our values. We are both democracies facing a shared threat from Putin’s despotism, and it is a shared threat. The Novichok inquiry has today described Putin as “morally responsible” for the death of a British citizen on our home soil as a result of a nerve agent. We also see Putin as unambiguously morally responsible for all the suffering he has inflicted, without provocation, on the people of Ukraine. As I say, it is a shared threat. We support the Government in seeking a lasting peace acceptable to the Ukrainians, and I hope that the shared message of cross-party support for Ukraine sent from this Chamber today will provide some comfort to its people amid the horrors of war.