Meeting of the Parliament 05 March 2025
I thank Colin Beattie for bringing the debate to the chamber. As the deputy leader of my party, I am proud that more than 40 of his colleagues have joined him for the debate, which, to my recollection, is a record for a members’ business debate. That shows the interest in and the gravity of what we are discussing.
It is also very good to see the consul once again. As Clare Adamson mentioned, we met the consul last week at committee, when he revealed that he is a Hibs fan. That is not because it is a fantastic football team or because of Sunday’s result, but because he is aware of Hibs fans having visited Ukraine in about 2004 and of their work with orphans in Ukraine since then, as well as the work that was done for Dnipro Kids. Hibs also has a very good Ukrainian player playing for the team just now, which helps.
I am not going to deliver the speech that I had intended to deliver, because much of it has been said already. I will just pick out a few points, perhaps a little bit at random. First of all, in relation to the Ukrainians who have come to this country, members will know that I hosted a Ukrainian family for a number of months. We must acknowledge that their presence here has enriched our country in many ways.
It is important to Ukraine that many of those people go back when, hopefully, we get the just peace that we all want. Many Ukrainians will want to go back, but anybody who wants to stay should be allowed to. They add to our country—their country has added to our country. I would hope that that would happen and that they are not forced to have to apply for visas continually as time goes on, because that can be very disruptive. The family that I had had school-age children, and trying to plan a future while waiting for the next tranche of visas is not sensible.
We have talked about the armed forces in Ukraine, but we must remember that many in its armed forces were nurses, doctors and plumbers shortly before they were forced to take up arms. What they have done is utterly remarkable given that they were not trained soldiers.
As for helping Ukraine, we have to look at what the EU and Ursula von der Leyen have said. They are talking about a potential £600 billion of borrowing being brought to bear on rearmament and other defence aspects. I should say that I am not necessarily speaking for either the Government or my party when I say that, before we get into all the stuff about budgets, borrowing is perfectly legitimate when the security of one’s country is at stake. Whether it be for production lines for armaments or whatever, it is perfectly legitimate for Governments to borrow for those purposes.
We cannot access those funds, because they are EU funds, but I hope that we will do something similar in the UK to ensure that we can bring the maximum possible support and the maximum possible deterrence to bear. It should be about deterring Russian aggression.
What we are seeing from the United States is something akin to a protection racket. It is saying, “We will defend you from a bully if you give us money.” It is absolutely appalling. There has not been a counterpart to that in international relations that I can remember.
This, too, is true: given all the stuff that has been demanded of the Ukrainians, where is the demand on the Russians—that is, the aggressors? The US has told Russia that it will no longer be subject to cyber activity from the US. It has been rewarded for its behaviour. It is unbelievable how the world has changed.