Richard Foord

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I wish to add to the tributes that others have paid to Lieutenant Rhodri Leyshon. He served with the Commando Helicopter Force in 846 Naval Air Squadron at Yeovilton. The Royal Navy said that Rhodri was one of their “most trusted and highly capable aircraft captains and instructors”. Our thoughts are with his family. I am reminded of the saying “train hard, fight easy”. It is attributed to the 18th-century Russian commander Field Marshal Suvorov, but the Russians are not practising that today, sending to the front Russians who have had as little as two weeks’ training. By contrast, the training that has been provided under Operation Interflex has enabled Ukrainian troops to hold ground and exploit Russian weaknesses. The Liberal Democrats welcome the announcement last week at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group that Operation Interflex will continue until the end of 2025. Indeed, we have welcomed announcements on Ukraine from the current Government and the previous Government, and we would not want to see any party political capital sought from the solid British support for Ukraine. We have seen some failures by the British state in recent years to plan for contingencies, whether post-invasion planning for Iraq or for a non-flu pandemic. We have discovered that sometimes in the British state there is a little bit of “hope for the best”. On support for Ukraine by the United States, what contingency planning is being undertaken for an uplift in our support for Ukraine—and by other states in the Ukraine Defence Contact Group—in the event that a gap opens up with a US Administration under Trump and Vance?