James Naish

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I, too, pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) for securing this debate. It is on a harrowing subject—the systematic abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children—but it is absolutely one that we should be discussing in the House, so I thank her for her work. As has been outlined, by day 1,000 of the conflict, according to UK Government figures, at least 19,500 Ukrainian children had been unlawfully deported to Russia, and independent estimates put the figure much higher. Behind each number is a name, a family, a severed childhood. Children have been taken from foster care homes, boarding schools and hospitals, and even directly from their families. Many have been placed with Russian families, sent to so-called re-education camps or absorbed into military patriotic training programmes aimed at erasing their Ukrainian identity. The individual stories already outlined by Members are heartbreaking. They involve children being renamed, issued with Russian passports, told that their homeland no longer exists, separated from their siblings and told that their parents have never tried to find them. Some children have even been issued with military draft papers. These actions are not merely incidental violations of the rules of war; they are part of a co-ordinated state policy to erase Ukrainian culture. In my view, they represent war crimes and constitute crimes against humanity. It is important that we recognise and pay tribute to the resilience and courage of the many people working to bring the children home: the Ukrainian officials, non-governmental organisations, lawyers and, of course, families, who have refused to give up even in the face of enormous obstacles. The UK must support those efforts, not only with words but with practical assistance, by funding legal support, supporting reunification logistics and ensuring that international pressure remains focused and sustained.