Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is a tremendous privilege to take part in this debate. It has to be clear to us on both sides of the House that this is the most critical debate that we will be involved with. This is the most critical thing that we face but it often escapes our notice, and I credit my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp) for centring on the very thing that is important. I say gently to those on the Government Benches that it is very easy to go around the whole time saying, “Well, of course, you did this and we didn’t.” The truth is, we can go right back and see how much previous Governments failed with regard to defence. I was serving in the late 1970s when the Labour Government were in terrible difficulty. They were slashing the budgets, and military personnel from the captain and senior sergeant ranks were leaving the Army in droves. I remember having one depressed conversation after another—helped by a certain amount of Scottish water. [ Laughter. ]

• 18 Jun 2026 · Human Rights: Supply Chains · Hansard source

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  It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you. I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern-day slavery. I remind Members that it was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, that first published the paper “It Happens Here”. We were then able to get the Government to initiate the Modern Slavery Act—the first legislation of its kind in the world. We were all very proud of that Act, but sadly it really has no enforcement. Government and suppliers have no obligation to check. They are supposed to make a declaration, but we know that many of those declarations are in fact deliberately false—they know they will not be checked, and therefore they do not have to worry about it—so while the Act is great, it is rather toothless. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate and making such a good opening speech. I will not repeat all he said, although I agree with so much of it. In the limited time I have, I want to focus on certain issues. First, the reality is that slave labour is not only a massive punishment and a human rights abuse on a scale, like genocide, wider than anything else; it is also commercial. Countries such as China use slave labour as a way to undercut markets, compete unfairly and drive businesses out of business—particularly here in the UK, as we have experienced. One of the big issues is the net zero determination and what we wish to do to clean up the environment because the biggest providers of solar arrays, wind farms and the technology are, in fact, based in China. The big problem is that the Government have two conflicting requirements. Quite rightly, they want to get on with cleaning up the environment; but they also know that if they cannot buy from China without a clear set of supply chains that are without slave labour, that will cost more money. That impacts the pace and the way in which they can provide a cleaner atmosphere. We have to say that one thing is more important than the other, and that is the human rights of those people being abused in places such as China. At the end of the day, we cannot go to bed at night with any grace if we say that we put up more solar arrays and wind farms but those were supplied by factories where people may have died, been abused, or had their lives and families destroyed. We know that China, in the case of Xinjiang, is committing a well-established genocide on such a scale that children are now in forced education camps. Millions of adult males are in forced labour, many producing the polysilicon that goes into arrays made in and around Xinjiang. The women, unbelievably, are being forcibly sterilised. The birth rate in Xinjiang has gone off the edge of a cliff. China is going to eradicate an ethnic group; it is very much the policy of the Chinese Communist party to have Han Chinese in charge of China, and nobody else. It also makes money from the fact that people in slave labour, as I said earlier, are producing goods much more cheaply than anyone else can. Look at what we are not doing: we are not checking supply chains. On this issue, I have been in opposition to whatever Government have been in power—neither the last Government nor this one have made a big effort to check those company declarations. I have had responses from this and the previous Government saying that they were doing their best and trying hard. It is not good enough to do one’s best or try hard; the question is: what is the best? Look at what is happening in other places. I point to the USA’s Act, which basically outlawed all use of slave labour anywhere in supply chains and put the means in place to check that. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States creates a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or partly in Xinjiang, and other places using slave labour, are made with forced labour unless importers can prove otherwise. That is how it is done—we tell importers, “You must now prove to us that you have avoided any slave labour in your products. Failure to do that has you banned and fined.” It is immediate. They do not simply sit there saying, “Well, other bits of Government are helping us”, because to be honest, the Government do not have the ability to check themselves. They do not have what it takes, but there are companies out there that do this regularly. I have met the representatives of one such company. Forensic companies such as Oritain, based in New Zealand, specialise in using forensic science to check where goods were made. From that, it knows the footprint and the likelihood of slave labour. It will immediately investigate a company’s declaration and can challenge it. If it challenges it, the US Government will ban and fine the company. That has led to a whole rerouting of supply chains across China for the US market. Sadly, it has also meant efforts have been redoubled to put slave labour products into markets such as the UK, because it is known that the UK is a soft option. When we look around the countryside of the east of England and elsewhere, we see a load of arrays. I would bet that the vast majority were made with slave labour because no checks were carried out. The reality is that we have to do more. The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I greatly supported, has now become toothless. Section 54 needs to be upgraded. There needs to be a punishment. Government need the ability to prosecute immediately, and supply-chain checks must take place. I end with this. The reality is that the legislation is a mess. With colleagues on both sides of the House, I successfully tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Act 2025, to ban the use of products made with slave labour. It was a classic rebellion, and we got it done. Yet when I checked, I saw that next to nothing had resulted from it. There is that offence in the legislation, but the Government have done nothing to call out any of the companies still selling those products. We put a similar obligation into the Health and Care Act 2022, but next to nothing has been done on that—no declarations and no speeches to Parliament about what the Government have done. We cannot go on addressing this issue in a piecemeal way: it has to be done across the board. That is why I support the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green in his call for the Modern Slavery Act to have teeth and for section 54 to be implemented. Any business that, having been checked properly, is found to have misdeclared itself and its supply chain should be punished—it should be banished from importing to the UK and face financial and even criminal penalties. That way, we will stop this practice.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady was very prescient then, and it has got worse since. There was lots of talk under the previous Administration about Downing Street cars being searched for IOTs. We know about the huge imports from bad actors, such as China and other countries—that is really what we should be worried about. Many of them contain kill switches, which would devastate some of our industry, such as energy. That would be a disaster. She is right to have raised the issue and to continue to raise it.

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). He will recall that I voted for him to hold his position, and I will come for payback later on. It is also very good to see my area neighbour, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), in the Chamber. I will listen with great interest to what he has to say, and I hope that the Labour party finds another use for him through its talent spotting, if I can put it like that. Before coming to the topic of defence in this debate on the Address, I want to touch on another issue that has arisen. My brilliant assistant, Alice Stuttaford, spotted yesterday something that tells me that we have a slight problem with the Government’s commitment to the legal position on the use of slave-made products by Great British Energy. In answer to a question from Politico about whether they were implementing what, thanks to many Labour Back Benchers and many Opposition Members, is the law—my amendment passed and became law—and applying it to the producers as well, a spokesman for the Government said: “We have strict procurement controls in place to ensure that any solar panels”— it is not just solar panels, but all elements to do with net zero— “are free from forced labour, as far as possible”. That is not the law. There is no caveat to the law. Everybody rebelled on the Labour Benches, and Opposition Members also voted for it, and we implemented an absolute, which is that it is not for Great British Energy to use any products that have been produced using any kind of forced labour. I know that this is not the speciality of the Ministers present, but I ask them to raise it, because I also saw that the Gracious Speech contained very peculiar commitments to using immigration as a way of tackling forced labour. That is not good enough. We need to reinforce the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and make it an offence for any company to import or use any items or goods that were made using forced or slave labour. That should be a unifying factor across this House, and I do not know why the Government have now watered down their intention. Madam Deputy Speaker will know this full well as she has been party to it: this cause goes to the root of one of the issues I will come on to, which is the threat that we face from places such as China. If we go on strengthening such places by buying their slave-made goods, then we do our own defence no good at all. What is needed is a wide-ranging commitment through the Modern Slavery Act to ban all products made by slave labour. This debate is on defence, and we are now facing the greatest threat to our freedom across the western world since the 1930s. I do not believe that the threat is less than it was during the cold war; in a way, it is a greater threat, because at least during the cold war we already knew and recognised what war was about, why we had to be prepared for it, and what we were defending. We have lost lots of that. Many people out there do not fully understand how the threat has changed and grown. The reality today is that one shipyard in China makes more naval ships than the whole of the United States in one year. China has over 130 times the capacity to build naval ships than Europe and America have at the moment. I say to people who do not think that this is a threat: do not necessarily listen to what those totalitarian states say; go and have a look at what they are doing. They are producing and preparing for war. I am not, I hope, scaremongering, as I believe this to be a reality. China is reinforcing and supporting Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Without China, Russia could not have continued this war. Russia was running out of ammunition, but China brokered an arrangement with North Korea, which now produces millions of rounds of ammunition for Russia, and even provides soldiers who, once used, abused and wounded on the battlefield, are then assassinated so that they are not a source of shame when they go back. This is about totalitarian states. The Government should not use the phrase authoritarian states. They are totalitarian states, and there is a difference. Authoritarian states are about dictators and others who have risen to power and at some stage have to be brought down. Totalitarian states are ones where every element of how people live their lives is controlled, run and spied on—with people arrested as a result—by the state organs, regardless of who is in charge. Communism is the key here; those states are communist. There are other extremist versions of such states. Iran is part of that alliance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is an extremist organisation, and I do not understand why the Government have failed to proscribe it. It really is high time, as it is present in our country stirring up violence and hatred. We should deal with that and say it is a criminal act for the IRGC to be here. To that extent, how the Government respond to this challenge in defence terms is critical. I am one of those people who has argued since the end of the cold war that we made a mistake in reducing defence. Nobody listened to me then, and there is no reason why they should listen to me today, but I tell the Minister that I am going to keep on saying it. I hope Members on the Government Benches and others will ask that question. I know what the restrictions are, and that the Treasury dictates to Departments and says, “We can’t afford this. We won’t do it.” People at the Treasury are the last people in the world to ever recognise a threat to anybody, at any time, from anything. The Treasury continues as if all was sweetness and light because it does not want to make any changes. It is for Defence Ministers to make the point about the threat. Why in heaven’s name have we not published the defence readiness Bill? It is the Ministry of Defence’s greatest weapon in the fight with the Treasury. Every other Department—Health or whatever—know what I am talking about. It is always a fight, but it has to be, because we are facing what is likely to be our greatest threat since the 1930s. To face that threat, Ministers need to make it clear to the Treasury that we cannot skirt around this any longer; we have to spend that money and commit. The Government have talked about being committed to 3% in due course, but that will not be enough. When I was serving, we were committed to 5% of GDP to face down the Soviet Union. We will need the same again, because I believe we are about to face an even greater threat. Ministers will know that the Conservatives will give them our full support if they are prepared to fight for that. Let us get the defence investment plan published right away—that is really important. Those totalitarian states do not face the restrictions that we do. We have those restrictions for a good reason: we believe in democracy. But freedom is the most expensive thing that we will ever try to own, and it can be taken away with just a wish. The Government’s job is to stand firm and say that the No. 1 priority is to defend the realm from threats, internal and external. If we do not do that, we will have failed in our obligations, failed the British people, and failed our allies and friends, who look to us for leadership. We can only lead, however, if we have the equipment to show our allies that we have the endeavour. When we took the Falkland Islands, we had 53 frigates and destroyers available to us. We could not do that today. That is the measure of how far we have gone under both Labour and Conservative Governments. The Ministry of Defence must tell the Government, “Enough is enough. We are going to publish this Bill and the defence investment plan—and, by the way, where is the China audit? Let’s publish that too”.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  Madam Chair, it is a great honour to speak to this packed Chamber on my amendments, and it was good of you to call me so soon—there are so many people ready to speak. I rise to speak in support of amendments 1 and 2 that appear in my name and those of my colleagues and friends, and it is my intention to press them when the time comes. Why is this necessary? In this particular area, I refer to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) as my hon. Friend, because she has been stalwart in campaigning against slave labour and forced labour. I bow to her because of her stalwart support. As she said of the amendments, it is vital to safeguard UK export finance and ensure it is legally protected from any exposure to forced labour and human trafficking. We have been through this issue again and again, and I just hope the Minister, who has been a stalwart supporter of this drive, can give me a very clear sign when he responds to the debate that the Government want to adopt the amendments, which are critical to cleaning up what has essentially become a supply chain too often full of the products of slave labour. I am in favour of the Bill, not against it. In principle, I think it is right basically to raise the limit to £20 billion and the aggregate limit to £160 billion to account for inflation. However, it is also absolutely right to ensure that this increased financial firepower is not used inadvertently to fund modern slavery. Together, the amendments would ensure that, if the Secretary of State has reason to believe that modern slavery is present in a recipient’s supply chain, the permitted financial assistance for that export drops to zero—in other words, no finance. For those who may not have followed what has been going on, we had to amend the original Health and Care Bill to stop slavery being used in relation to the NHS. Last year, as the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston said, we had to amend the Great British Energy Bill. The Government decided to vote down that amendment, but the Bill was amended in the Lords. Many Labour Members suddenly realised that they were going to be asked to vote in favour of slave labour in the supply chains of Great British Energy, and they said no. The Government then decided not to oppose the amendment, which was absolutely the right thing to do in the end. However, I wish we had not had to go through all of that. Surely there is a moral purpose in all this, which is that if we have any suspicion that a product or a supply chain has elements of forced labour—we know China does it endlessly, and Russia and other countries use it—we should not allow that. When we compare ourselves with the United States, the reality is that its Governments, no matter who is in power, have a very simple rule: it is the responsibility of companies importing to check their supply chains, and the excuse that they did not know or could not find out is simply not good enough, so they are prosecuted if there is slave labour in the supply chain. The amendments are all about trying to shut down another possible loophole, in this case on finance. We believe that UK Export Finance is currently exposed to forced labour. For instance, in 2022-23, it supported businesses involving a subsidiary of AVIC—Aviation Industry Corporation of China—a company sanctioned by the US as a People’s Liberation Army entity. This is something that nobody, if they really ask themselves, on either side of the House wants, and I am sure that the Government do not want it, so the question is: how do we shut this down? I want to quote a couple of really quite senior people in the Government who have spoken about this in the past. The Prime Minister has said: “We’re not going to raise human rights standards if we ignore it in trade.” He said: “It shouldn’t be up to the consumer…to research every product and work out every ethical aspect of it.” I say yes, because of course it is impossible to do so as an individual. When I had a row with Amazon and other companies, I said, “Why don’t you make it easy to find out what the route in your supply chain is? People don’t know where something was made until they actually have the product land on their desk. Why can’t they see that on their computers and be able to identify that?” However, those companies do not want to do that, because they think people may not buy the products. In May 2025, when he was the Trade Secretary, the right hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said: “We are very clear on our position regarding the abhorrent practice of modern slavery. It is a terrible crime which we are determined to eradicate. I assure you that this Government takes this issue seriously and is continuing to assess and monitor the policy tools available to ensure we can best tackle forced labour in supply chains.” The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), has also said that “our clean power mission should not come at the expense of human rights…This involves confronting human rights abuses, including modern slavery, in energy supply chains”. That is absolutely right, although I do not understand why it took so much for us to get those on his side of the fence to agree, finally, to take such abuses out of the supply chains for Great British Energy, given his stated views.

• 28 Jan 2026 · British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  I will come on to that, but my right hon. Friend is right. I just wanted to provide the background information on what the problem is. The problem is China. Remember that China supports Russia, so the very idea that a British citizen—Philippe Sands in this case, representing Mauritius—should actually negotiate with and talk to the Russians about how this would not make it difficult for them to hold on to Crimea strikes me as astounding. It is astonishing that a British citizen should even engage with them on this. That tells us that the nature of some of the people who are involved in this is questionable indeed. The background, then, is “What is the threat?” It could be argued, I think, that the threat is now greater than it has been at any time since the second world war, and certainly since the end of the cold war. We are in a new environment, and that new environment requires us to understand the nature of our assets and how we would maximise those assets, not minimise them. My argument here is slightly different: we have taken the wrong decision over Chagos for the wrong reasons. If we had stepped back and then asked ourselves about this in 10, five or even two years’ time, when China is estimated to have a more powerful fleet in the Pacific than the United States can muster at any stage, would we really say that we ought to let the Chagos islands go and put them in the hands of Mauritius, which China lauds in almost every announcement that it makes and with which it has a very good relationship?

• 8 Jan 2026 · Human Rights Abuses: Magnitsky Sanctions · Hansard source

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  I will indeed be very quick, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank the hon. Members for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed), for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell), for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) and for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), who all made speeches, for their support in this debate. In winding up, I have some points on which I want to press the Government. First, why not have an annual report? I simply raise that as a question, because it would stop us having to bid for a Backbench Business debate, and—who knows—we may even mean we get more Members to attend. I would raise questions about Sudan and the UAE, because the fact is that they are now complicit in the most brutal of murders, rapes and everything else. I would couple that with the holding of Ryan Cornelius as a hostage—and I call him a hostage—whose family have been without him for 17 years and are in penury as a result. Surely this gives us the opportunity to say that, unless he is released, we will put sanctions on individuals at the bank and elsewhere, which would certainly be very helpful. It is the same with Jimmy Lai. It is now time for us to say that the country that used to administer Hong Kong can no longer put up with the trashing of the Sino-British agreement, the terrible behaviour over legal systems and, basically, the ending of English common law in the territory. Those are some of the issues, but many others were raised. I must say that I have the highest regard for the Minister, as he knows. We have spoken endlessly about different aspects of this, and I take him as a very honest individual. I hope he will take these points back to the Foreign Office and say that we have done well, but we could do an awful lot more. Question put and agreed to. Resolved , That this House is concerned that serious human rights abuses, including crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, together with widespread grand corruption, continue to escalate in an increasingly unstable global environment; notes that global human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, commonly known as Magnitsky sanctions, remain an essential mechanism for accountability and redress, yet their implementation by the United Kingdom is inconsistent and insufficient, and lacks oversight; regrets that numerous individuals credibly implicated in serious abuses and corruption remain unsanctioned, that enforcement and transparency around decision-making remains inadequate, and that sanctioned individuals continue to exploit evasion methods while victims receive limited support; further notes the absence of a long-term strategy for the management of frozen assets and a lack of clear criteria for delisting, alongside growing concerns that sanctions are becoming politicised internationally; urges the Government to strengthen the credibility of the Magnitsky sanctions regime through consistent and impartial application, enhanced enforcement, and by ensuring greater Parliamentary oversight and expanded measures to support victims, including developing pathways for compensation; and holds that, relevant to this, those involved in the arbitrary detention of British nationals should face Magnitsky sanctions, including those involved in the detention of Ryan Cornelius, Jagtar Singh Johal and Jimmy Lai.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Human Rights Abuses: Magnitsky Sanctions · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House is concerned that serious human rights abuses, including crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, together with widespread grand corruption, continue to escalate in an increasingly unstable global environment; notes that global human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, commonly known as Magnitsky sanctions, remain an essential mechanism for accountability and redress, yet their implementation by the United Kingdom is inconsistent and insufficient, and lacks oversight; regrets that numerous individuals credibly implicated in serious abuses and corruption remain unsanctioned, that enforcement and transparency around decision-making remains inadequate, and that sanctioned individuals continue to exploit evasion methods while victims receive limited support; further notes the absence of a long-term strategy for the management of frozen assets and a lack of clear criteria for delisting, alongside growing concerns that sanctions are becoming politicised internationally; urges the Government to strengthen the credibility of the Magnitsky sanctions regime through consistent and impartial application, enhanced enforcement, and by ensuring greater Parliamentary oversight and expanded measures to support victims, including developing pathways for compensation; and holds that, relevant to this, those involved in the arbitrary detention of British nationals should face Magnitsky sanctions, including those involved in the detention of Ryan Cornelius, Jagtar Singh Johal and Jimmy Lai. I rise to speak to the motion in my name, which is supported by 17 hon. and right hon. Members from across the House. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions and reparation, I welcome the advent of the growing use of Magnitsky sanctions as a major development in accountability for human rights abuse and corruption. These sanctions are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a tax adviser killed in a Russian prison after exposing fraud by Russian Government officials. Magnitsky sanctions freeze perpetrators’ assets and stop them travelling internationally, and they are now used by the UK, the US, the EU and Canada, which together represent over one third of global GDP. In the UK, Magnitsky sanctions stop perpetrators accessing London, the world’s second largest financial centre and the world’s largest luxury property market. Sanctions are most effective when the various jurisdictions work together to close perpetrators off from, and drive them away from, financial markets. Looking at the comparative picture, the US has sanctioned 608 individuals and entities under its Magnitsky-style regime, though 20 have been delisted. Of those designations, 17 relate to Russia, with one since delisted, and 34 are against China and six against the United Arab Emirates for corruption. By contrast—and this is the point I really want to make—since introducing Magnitsky sanctions in the legislation passed in 2020, the UK has imposed 164 designations under its global human rights regime and 65 under the global anti-corruption regime. That makes a total of 229 Magnitsky-style designations, of which 60 relate to Russia, eight to China and none to the UAE.

• 4 Nov 2025 · Supporting High Streets · Hansard source

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  I instinctively agree with my hon. Friend’s constituent, even though I have never met him, but I wish him well—I was worried that I should have remembered meeting him, but I realise now that I have not, so there is no early onset. If the Government really wanted to raise national insurance, surely they should have made a major change by not imposing it on small retail outfits, and certainly not small shops and shopkeepers. It has been a disaster, frankly, and it has added massively to the bills. Another huge problem for these businesses is the rise in electricity costs, which is not necessarily to do with the strike price of gas but is massively down to the fact that we are now charged huge amounts on our bills simply to subsidise the unbelievably high-paced drive to get to net zero, which will affect many of them. I recommend that the Government look again at the hospitality sector, which has lost 100,000 jobs. As has been said, 100,000 jobs lost in any other industry would have been a major issue debated on the Floor of the House. It is a huge number. This is an industry where many people start their businesses, and these pubs, restaurants and so on are high points on our high streets. Added to all this, Labour councils seem incapable of understanding why parking charges are a real problem for these businesses. The council in my area now levies very restrictive parking charges on high streets. The trouble is that many high street businesses rely on passing trade—somebody who wants to get one thing pulls in for 15 minutes of free parking, goes over to another shop and buys something there before getting back into their car. Free parking encourages people to do that. My high streets—particularly Station Road—have seen a significant fall-off in trade simply because of those parking charges being imposed. It is not helpful.

• 10 Sept 2025 · Russian Drones: Violation of Polish Airspace · Hansard source

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  I commend the hon. Gentleman’s statement on our support for Poland. Of course we have to support Poland; it is quite right that we should do so. May I return the hon. Gentleman to the main issue here, which is Russia’s intense bombing attacks on Ukraine? I recently came back from Ukraine. Every night in Kyiv, Lviv and other towns, people are being killed by this brute. This is just an example of what is going on across the border on a greater scale. This question remains for us. Have the Government really made overtures to the US President to say that the time is over for constant statements that say that we may do something, we will do something and we will have sanctions? Surely, we now have to get the US to massively up the level of sanctions. That is what Russia fears. Also, European nations must be told that they cannot buy any more oil or gas that has been run through India or wherever. That has to stop. We have to make that work. And we have to make sure that, at the end of it all, Russia pays a penalty right now and understands that. Will the British Government please take the opportunity, when the US President comes over, to say, “Enough is enough. Please act and get this thing done”?

• 1 Sept 2025 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  A few weeks ago I returned from Ukraine with some others who had been delivering trucks and medical aid to the Ukrainians for use on the frontline. I have made a number of such trips alongside other Members whom I can see across the Floor, united, as the Government are united, with the Opposition and the other parties. However, having watched the brutality stepped up by President Putin in recent weeks, and following the Alaskan conference in Anchorage, I must say that I am fundamentally still very disappointed. Yes, the Government are right that they are bringing together a coalition of the willing, but the least willing of all at the moment seems to be the White House, and my concern is that without the White House’s commitment to showing Putin that his actions have consequences, this will continue to drag on. The United States is the one country that can really impress upon him that if the Russians carry on with these attacks, they will be sanctioned dramatically and the weapons that the Ukrainians desperately need will flow to them like water. I wonder whether the Government could say to the President, behind closed doors, “It is time to follow your words with actions and not keep on prevaricating.”