One Hundred Year Partnership Agreement between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Ukraine

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks and congratulations to the committee. I have said previously, when we have debated reports from the International Agreements Committee, that I believe it is the most significant of all the committees of this House. As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, said, no other committee in either House would have studied such an agreement and come up with a constructive report. That fact gives testimony to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, his colleagues on the committee and the committee staff, who managed to communicate in very clear language and to report on what can well be very detailed treaties. This is not one of them when it comes to detail but, nevertheless, the consequences are considerable.

I saw that the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, was to speak before me and knew that he would have looked back, with his diplomatic experience, at previous times when we have signed treaties of friendship or perpetual amity. I found ones with regard to our treaty of friendship with Tonga in the 1950s and a treaty of peace, friendship and commerce with Costa Rica in the 1850s; there have been others. Most of our treaties of friendship or perpetual relationship have the common characteristics of being one-sided friendships—in the interests of Britain—and of not having a duration of perpetuity. One of note is the Treaty of Perpetual Peace between England and Scotland of 1502; it fell short of perpetuity because 11 years later, in 1513, there was the bloodiest battle between England and Scotland not far from where I live in the Borders.

So, on one look at it, 100 years is a relatively modest period given what has been signed with regards to aims for perpetual relationships between countries, but, as my noble friend Lord Fox pointed out, the committee noted that

“the value of this Agreement appears to lie primarily in its signalling function”,

with little detail of substance. Given that, as my noble friend said, it can be ended with six months’ notice by each party, the century-long lasting partnership may be somewhat illusory. However, the question we have to face is whether the signalling is of importance in its own merit, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said; I will close with my own remarks about that.

The committee asked us to move on from the perhaps “meaningless” title and not to be distracted from the substance. We have had a good debate on the substance of it so far. It is also worth noting that, although this is a bilateral treaty, Ministers have been at pains to say to me at the Dispatch Box that we are working hand in glove with the United States on our Ukraine policy. It is worth considering that, as we debate a UK agreement for 100 years, our main and apparent ally, the United States, barely has a Ukraine policy that lasts 100 hours. Therefore, our ability to see through the unpredictable nature of the Trump Administration—to put it at its kindest—presents us with challenges. As members of the committee have noted, the political landscape has changed even from the time when it was agreed and when the committee took evidence on it. All that said, there is merit in the substance of what is included in the pillars and the articles of co-operation on defence, industrial capabilities, joint production, procurement and transferring technologies.

I will now ask the Minister my first question on transferring technologies. In principle, the UK-Ukrainian relationship could well be developed in a deep way where we have no qualms about the transfer of technologies from Ukraine to the UK and from the UK to Ukraine. However, given the fluidity of the situation—we are still in a conflict and we do not know, if there is a ceasefire, what the terms of peace may be—there is a degree of uncertainty when it comes to protecting UK intellectual property in some regards.

Just 10 years ago, I was in the Maidan in Kyiv, where the buildings were still charred after the peaceful Maidan revolution—the orange revolution. The previous Ukrainian president had fled to Russia with a lot of his people’s money and with the oligarchs who own much of the industrial complex of Ukraine around him. So, if we are to have a deep commercial relationship with much of the private sector in Ukraine, are there any guard-rails when it comes to how we monitor how that will be taken forward?

I am very pleased that we are committed to supporting the liberal democratic leadership of President Zelensky; he leads one of our sister parties in Kyiv. I hope that our defence industrial strategy will have more detail on how the operation and transparency of the relationship will go forward. We can only hope that there will be a sustainability of liberal democratic leadership in the country. That is why they are fighting, and they are sacrificing their lives for it. But given that this is a 100-year timeframe, more detail on how we can see this operating would be beneficial. I hope that, as we are anticipating the Government’s defence industrial strategy, we will have more details in that.

That said, I am in awe of the resilience of the members of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, a democratic parliament that is still functioning in incredibly difficult circumstances. They are still carrying out parliamentary functions long after they were due to be either assassinated or held hostage by Putin’s regime in the first 48 hours of the Russian attack. They are a testimony to every country in the world when it comes to how a parliamentary system should operate in incredibly difficult circumstances.

Therefore, I was repulsed by President Trump declaring that Ukraine started this conflict and repelled by JD Vance when he ignored the UK personnel, who have paid with many of their lives, alongside US allies in conflicts over the last 30 years. I will say to the Minister that I wish our Government had condemned the US envoy for Ukraine; he demeaned the work of our Prime Minister, who is working with a coalition of the willing and allies in support for Ukraine. Given the suspension and re-establishment of US military intelligence support—the kind of support that was used so deftly by President Biden and Secretary Blinken and which, probably more than anything else, thwarted the success of the Russian attack in the first few days—how reliable is the United States as a partner when we embark on our first elements of this 100-year partnership?

As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, indicated regarding the irreversible nature of NATO membership, in this agreement we are committed to the interoperability of capabilities with Ukraine. How valid will that be if the United States is a reluctant partner—not just a reluctant one, but potentially a blocking one? Will it be problematic for the defence co-operation partnership if the United States becomes an obstructive element to it? In this context, paragraphs 34 and 43 of the report have great significance; they ask for an update to be provided to Parliament if there is either a ceasefire or some form of agreement for peace. A full parliamentary debate on when we receive this would be welcome.

The committee was right to call for more practical information on the type of the economic and commercial relationship, which has also been raised in this debate. If the sum of the agreement is simply going to be the promotion of economic co-operation, we should see more information about what joint delivery vehicles there will be for that. Is it the Government’s intention that there will be shared capital investment? Will there be UK-Ukrainian entities to deliver some of the infrastructure, which the Government have said is one of their priorities? How do the Government anticipate these operating in practice?

Is it the Government’s intent that we will move from the continuity agreement that we already have with Ukraine, from 2020—which this Parliament approved as part of the legacy of the European Union relationship —towards a comprehensive deep and free trade agreement with Ukraine? One reason why I ask that is that, having looked again at the continuity agreement of 2020, I notice that there are some suspicious areas where the language is the same. If the purpose of this agreement was to build on the continuity agreement, take it to the next stage and develop it, then cutting and pasting is not the way to do it. I simply refer to Article 10, with regard to migration co-operation and support, which uses the same language as Article 15 of the continuity agreement of 2020. What does it mean if we are moving ahead in a more comprehensive way, if we are simply restating the continuity agreement that we had previously with the European Union?

This leads on to the second question on working with our European allies. Are there any parts of the agreement that are exclusive? I do not think that the UK alone will seek agreements for the reconstruction of Ukraine—for infrastructure, technology and research and development. The European Union and European partners are well developed in those relationships. Are any of these elements in any of these pillars anticipated to be uniquely UK-Ukrainian elements, or will they all be part of working with our allies? Unless there is a degree of exclusivity, I am not certain why this particular agreement for 100 years is any different from a commercial relationship where the UK could be part of consortia with other European partners.

Little is said about the situation that we may well face: the growing of trade that starts from an incredibly low base. With the greatest respect, if I had to choose between the perspectives of the noble Lords, Lord Marland and Lord Kerr, with regards to the investment opportunity, on balance I would settle with that of the noble Lord, Lord Kerr. But, in 2019, when building on trade in a peaceful situation, total UK exports were just £0.7 billion, or 0.1% of all exports; Ukraine was 71st in the list of our export partners. If we are to see rapid growth of UK economic partnership in reconstruction, rather than out of peace, there needs to be more detail about how it will be driven forward, rather than it being simply aspirational.

I wish to ask one further question and make an appeal to the Minister. The question relates to what the committee considered on the impunity and aggression of Russia. I commend the Government on continuing support for seeking justice for the crimes committed by the Putin regime, and I commend them on moving ahead on seeking penalties under the crime of aggression—but these are two areas where the United States is now a block. The United States believes that there was no aggression and has halted evidence-gathering for the very type of justice that we want to see. Is the UK committed to continuing to do this alone, if the United States is seeking to be a block?

Finally, we will most likely be in a situation where there will be an ongoing debate about whether Russia or Ukraine has lost or won. Indeed, there will be lots of academic debate about the definitions of not losing compared to not winning. We may well be in a situation of both sides not losing and not winning. However, what does a type of victory look like, when there is security but also sustainable reconstruction? Ukraine has reliable allies and many of the developing economies in the wider region, and the Middle East and Africa, see Ukraine as a success story for reconstruction to partner with—but they are also not drawn within the sphere of influence of the Putin regime.

My final appeal before I close is that it is not too late for the Government to reverse their decision to slash overseas development partnership dramatically. If there is any lesson from the war in Ukraine, it is that the consequences have been far wider than simply the territorial border of that country. Given the impact on developing economies in the wider region, including neighbouring countries such as Moldova, which continue to see Russian interference attempts, cutting back on UK technical assistance for resilience against Russia and development partnership unfortunately sets us in a narrative that makes us more like the Trump and Putin regimes rather than the Zelensky and Verkhovna Rada regime. Ultimately, I hope that this proposal will be a success, but more detail and more development partnership will be required.