Ukraine

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Thursday 18th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Luke Pollard]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the passion with which he puts the argument. We are increasing defence spending; there is £5 billion extra in the defence budget this year. We will have more money in our budget every year for the next 10 years. There is not a single person who has served in uniform and seen a decade of rising defence spending ahead of them. We need to spend that well, but we also need to recognise that, with increasing threats, it is not just Defence that needs to spend money well; it is the whole of Government and the whole of society that need to step up. It is not just an MOD pursuit, although we take the lead in many cases.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his thanks to the service personnel deployed around the world. For Members who have not seen it yet, the Royal Navy Christmas advert, which shows the real-life events of HMS Diamond when she was in the Red sea and what happens for our people at home and those deployed abroad, is well worth a watch.

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

For some Ukrainian children, this will be the fourth Christmas that they will spend in Russia, after being torn from their families by the Russian state. Others will spend their Christmas living under occupation, and many more will spend their Christmas in a military training camp, being taught to fight against their own country. Will my hon. Friend set out what recent work he has been doing with colleagues in the FCDO to make sure that those children do not find themselves on the battlefield and that they spend their next Christmas in their own home, in their own country and with their own families?

[Luke Pollard]

Children should never be pawns of war. May I place on record my thanks to my hon. Friend for championing this issue? There is not a Ukraine debate that goes by without her raising the issue of Ukrainian children. It is absolutely vital, and it is why, as a country, we have said that a lasting and just peace in Ukraine must include the return of all the Ukrainian children stolen by Russia. We have committed more than £2.8 million to support Ukrainian efforts to facilitate the return and reintegration of children deported by Russia. We will continue to support that effort and to make the case that stealing children is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak nation, and it is not something that we will support or that any decent nation around the world should back.