Sir Roger Gale

May I first join the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), in thanking the Secretary of State for Defence for the power of his words, and for the manner in which he has spoken for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and not just for the Government? I do not think there is a Member of the House who would quarrel with anything he said, and the message that has to go out from this place is that we stand united with Ukraine. There is a danger. In 2014 the Russians annexed Crimea. At the time, Russia was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and it was compelled to withdraw. In 2018 the Parliamentary Assembly, of which the Father of the House and I were both members at the time, voted almost overwhelmingly to re-admit the Russian Federation. The Baltic states, Georgia, Moldova and the United Kingdom fought that through the night—literally—in an unprecedented display of parliamentary unity, but we lost. We were beaten hands down. The following day, the Russian delegation was back in the Hemicycle in Strasbourg. I do not think it is stretching it too far to say that the message that we sent out was profoundly wrong and almost certainly influenced Putin’s belief that he could probably invade Ukraine with impunity. It has been said over and over again, and absolutely rightly, that Ukraine is fighting for our democracy. If Putin were allowed to win, it would not stop there. Next would be Georgia, Moldova and then possibly the Baltic states. If that were to happen, NATO would be involved and we would probably have world war three, so the stakes are rather high. It behoves all of us to stand as firmly as we can, and to send out the message that “for as long as it takes” means for as long as it takes. I want to follow on from the remarks made by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Bellshill (Frank McNally), and to concentrate a bit of time on the diaspora—the expat Ukrainians living throughout Europe, and particularly in the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State said in his opening remarks that thousands of Ukrainians are yearning for the opportunity to return home. I am sure that is true, and he also went on to say that he hopes that there will be peace this year. Again, I do not suppose that anybody in the House or across the United Kingdom does not want the bloodshed to stop. Ukraine has already sacrificed the largest part of a generation of its finest young men and women in armed conflict, as well as all the civilians who have suffered. Again, that includes the thousands of children, who have been referred to many times in this House, who have been abducted and are now being indoctrinated somewhere within the neo-Soviet Union. They have to be repatriated. The Father of the House made the point, absolutely rightly, that peace cannot mean peace at any price if we are to honour the dead and those who have sacrificed so much in Ukraine in fighting for their democracy and their country, as well as for ours. Although the Secretary of State was right to say that there are thousands of Ukrainians yearning for the opportunity to return home, when that will actually be possible is a moot point. If there is a peace—and, please God, there will be soon—and on a sound basis, there will still be a phenomenal amount of reconstruction, in the centre and the east of Ukraine in particular, to be carried out before anybody has homes to return to. Depending on the nature of the deal, there will be people who either will not be able to return home because it is still occupied, or whose homes will have been so destroyed that physically there will be nowhere for them to go.