Mark Francois MP: speeches

Speeches

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and it was great to have him as a colleague on that visit. He brought his great knowledge of defence and foreign affairs to our trip. I can also report to the House that my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness exchanged some humorous words with President Zelensky, but they are probably best left to posterity. We visited at a very difficult time. As well as being in Kyiv, we initially visited Odesa via Moldova, which was under drone and missile attack for part of the time we were there. We visited Chernobyl, which I am pleased to report was not under drone or missile attack, although it was attacked by Russian drones some months ago, incredibly irresponsibly. We then moved on to Kyiv, which again was under bombardment for part of our time there. We had burner phones—I do not think I am giving away any secrets by saying that—and they put an app on them that goes off if there is an air raid warning. When that happens, it is quite sobering, but there is also an all-clear, and with typical Ukrainian humour and defiance, when they play the all-clear, it is followed by the words, “May the Force be with you.” We had multiple meetings while we were there. As the House knows, people come and go on these delegations, but between us we were there for the best part of a week. We met senior staff from the Office of the President, who gave us an up-to-date briefing on the state of the ceasefire negotiations. We met a dozen Ukrainian MPs from the UK friendship group, and we had an intelligence briefing from the Ukrainian military. We visited several bombed-out residential apartments, including, I am sad to say, one on Kyiv’s left bank, which has suffered particularly heavily as it is an industrial area and a logistics centre where there is a large amount of working-class housing—a bit like the east end of London in some ways. We visited one apartment where, tragically, 23 innocent people were killed, including several children, in a Russian strike. We think that it was aimed at the railway marshalling yards nearby, but because this was a drone it was not as accurate as a hypersonic missile, and those people were tragically murdered. We also attended a veterans’ rehabilitation centre. As the Secretary of State, who is with us, will know, when I was the Veterans Minister I had a bit to do with that, and I am proud of the fact that we managed to provide the Genium prosthetic for our wounded. We saw the Ukrainian equivalent of a rehabilitation centre, and I understand that this is one area in which Britain has been able to provide some advice and expertise, which was clearly warmly welcomed during our visit. We attended the official opening of the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada. I am pleased to report to the House that its Speaker, who is a big man in every sense, acknowledged all the international delegations one by one, but the loudest applause was for the Polish delegation and the British delegation. It was probably impossible to tell between the two, but I think that the MPs in the Rada were under no illusion about who had backed them to the hilt. It was a difficult time, and at all those different meetings three themes emerged consistently. We were asked to report them to the House, so I will perform that solemn, duty now. First, our interlocutors were clear about the fact that although we were formally celebrating—or, I should say, commemorating—the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion, Ukraine was originally invaded by Russia in 2014. It has been at war with Russia not for four years but for 12, which, to put it into perspective, is longer than the first and the second world wars put together. I think that Ukraine’s resistance for over a decade, in the face of the most brutal attacks from a larger and more powerful neighbour, deserves the respect and admiration of every single Member of this House and every single citizen in this country. The Ukrainians are fighting for us. They are fighting for the same values: for freedom, democracy, and the right to decide their own destiny. Their fight is our fight. We spoke a great deal to people about morale, and I think it is realistic. There are many in Ukraine who long for peace, for very understandable reasons, but they were all clear on one thing, namely that they would not accept peace at any price. Too much blood has been shed by the youth of Ukraine for them to accept a purely unilateral solution proposed by Russia. That theme emerged many times. The second theme concerned sanctions. Most of the Ukrainians whom we spoke to in those meetings were understandably keen for an extension of sanctions by the western democracies, not least with regard to frozen Russian assets, a subject that we have debated in the House on numerous occasions. Many Ukrainians feel that now really is the time for the western democracies to bite the bullet and use those $300 billion or so of frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. However, they also made had a particular point about the shadow fleet, and here I ask for the Minister’s special attention. The sale of hydrocarbons, whether oil or gas, ultimately props up the Russian economy, which allows Putin to spend about 40% of Russia’s budget on its military and to recruit mercenaries to fight in the Russian armed forces. In some cases, mercenaries are being offered up to $38,000 as a signing-on fee to fight in the Russian armed forces, but according to Ukrainian intelligence officers—they said we could say this—the average life expectancy of those mercenaries is four months. The Ukrainians would like to see much greater sanctioning of the shadow fleet. The Minister knows that some of those vessels are uninsured, but many are insured and, moreover, many are insured by syndicates at Lloyd’s of London. Surely there is more that we could do to cramp the activities of the shadow fleet by working with Lloyd’s and other insurers to make sure that those ships cannot have insurance, which would make it difficult for them to visit at least some of their destination points. I make a particular point of that, because I am trying to do justice to the Ukrainians, who raised this issue with us again and again and again. They are really hard over on this, and I hope the Minister can say something in his summing up.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  We would all be intrigued to know who Reform’s defence spokesperson is, so if the Minister picks up any hints about that, perhaps he could give me a ring.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome), who always speaks knowledgably on defence matters—and not just because of his own service—as he has done again today. I must apologise to the House for missing the initial speeches in this debate, which I would not usually do. I offer the small excuse that I have been travelling for 17 hours and, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), have just returned—hotfoot, as it were—from Kyiv. Under those unusual circumstances, I am very grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker, for allowing me to sum up for the Conservatives and to report back to the House on what we learned from our trip to Ukraine. In my role as shadow Armed Forces Minister, I was one of around 20 UK MPs to visit Ukraine. This was, I believe, the largest delegation we have ever sent, and it included MPs from all the main parties in the House of Commons—although there was no MP from Reform. I regret in all sincerity that, yet again, when we are debating foreign policy and defence in this House, the Reform Benches are empty. As the son of a D-day veteran, I have always believed that the first duty of Government, above all others, is the defence of the realm, so those who aspire to form a Government should at least be bothered to turn up and talk about it. I also pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), who, while we were there, was presented with President Zelensky’s Order of Merit for the brilliant campaigning she has undertaken on behalf of Ukrainian children who have been captured and forcibly adopted by Russian families, or—in some cases, with older children—put into military training camps for the Russian army, which is totally and utterly contrary to the Geneva convention. We in this House know that she has been a stalwart campaigner on the issue, but so now does the President of Ukraine. We honour her for the honour that she has done us. I would also like to mention—because if I did not mention him, I will never hear the end of it—the former Member of Parliament for Filton and Bradley Stoke, Jack Lopresti, who served in Afghanistan as a reservist and who has recently joined the Ukrainian army. He is serving as a specialist in communications and information warfare. Good luck and Godspeed, Jack, in all that you do. Our main purpose in going to Ukraine was to attend the official ceremony of the fourth anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which we did in Maidan Square yesterday morning. The ceremony was also attended by President Zelensky and his wife; by Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Union; and by several other European Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers, including our own Foreign Secretary, who had a platoon of British MPs to support her in her duty. We all laid a small commemorative lamp and paid our respects. In some ways, it is the Ukrainian equivalent of our ceremony at the Cenotaph in November, and I can report to the House that it was carried out with equal solemnity and respect.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  rose—

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend is quite right. The Ukrainians were—and I use this word deliberately—warning us. They have been at war for 12 years, and they were warning us not to be complacent, but to learn from their suffering about the need never to take freedom for granted. The Secretary of State has heard me use these words before, so I crave his indulgence, but the Roman military strategist Vegetius said: “Si vis pacem, para bellum”— he who desires peace should prepare for war in order to deter it. We heard those words again in Ukraine. To conclude, on the Monday evening before the ceremony in Maidan Square the following day, we were entertained at a reception at the British embassy. I hope the Minister will understand the spirit in which this is said, but there was a slightly humorous moment when the chargé d’affaires thanked the British delegation for ignoring Foreign Office advice not to travel to Ukraine to be at the reception. I thank the Minister for his letter also advising us not to go. I am terribly sorry, but we exercised Nelson’s eye, and we went anyway. In all seriousness, it was a wonderful evening, and we were entertained by several people from what the Ukrainians call the cultural forces of Ukraine, including, very memorably, a group of Ukrainian soldiers singing a cappella. They were brilliant, and there were genuine shouts of “more” and “encore” at the end. They encored with Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. For those who know the song, there are the wonderful lines where Sinatra sings: To say the things he truly feels And not the words of one who kneels. The Ukrainians have not knelt. They have not knelt in the face of terrorism. They have not knelt in the face of barbarism, including the use of highly accurate cruise missiles to deliberately attack children’s hospitals. They have not knelt in the face of genocide at places such as Bucha. They have stood up, and this House—every man jack of us—stands with them. Slava Ukraini!

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I am sorry to hammer the nail on the point about insurance; I do not expect the Minister to make policy on the hoof, but so many of the Ukrainians we spoke to were so hard over on the point about insurance in London for the shadow fleet. Could the Minister at least give the House a commitment now that he will go away and work with ministerial colleagues to see what more can be done in this area? So many Ukrainians are asking for exactly that.

• 25 Feb 2026 · Ukraine · Hansard source

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  As ever, my hon. Friend is entirely right. The sale of hydrocarbons, including to China and India, is effectively Putin’s windpipe. Some people now refer to Russia as “China’s gas station”. If we could do more against those ships, it would be important for Ukrainian morale. We were told time and again that when the Ukrainians hear that a shadow fleet vessel has been impounded or captured, it raises their morale. This is something that we could do, in difficult circumstances, to raise their morale even further. Between us, my hon. Friend and I have made the point, and hopefully the Minister can follow up on it. The third theme that I want to stress before I finish is that we were thanked again and again for Britain’s support militarily, diplomatically and economically, and for our humanitarian aid. Wherever we went, people said, “Thank you.” I think it is true to say that the previous Government gave real leadership in Europe on this and I think it is true to say that the current Government have continued in the same vein, but the House should know that people from the Office of the President downwards went out of their way to thank us for everything that Britain, and indeed this House, has done. The Speaker of the Rada gave us a sombre warning. He said: “No one knows the Russians better than us. If we fall, you and your friends are next.” It is important that this House appreciates that. I do not want to spoil the non-partisan spirit of this debate, but there are lessons for us in the United Kingdom not just about the overall level of defence spending, but about the long-delayed defence investment plan. I say to the Secretary of State for Defence that we desperately need that document. We cannot wait much longer, and we have waited since the autumn, so the ball is in the Secretary of State’s court. It would be good for Ukrainian morale to see Britain committing to a long-term equipment programme.

• 12 Feb 2026 · Support for Road Users · Hansard source

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  Essex man and woman love their cars, but the A13 and the A217 in south Essex are at 99% capacity during the morning and evening peaks—they are maxed out. The proposed lower Thames crossing would help, and although Labour now says that the crossing will be 90% privately funded, it will not say by whom. For the fourth time of asking in this Chamber, which companies, banks or other financial institutions will now pay for the lower Thames crossing? Many people in Essex are beginning to believe that Labour will never, ever build it.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  Right hon.

• 2 Feb 2026 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  We had hoped to see the Minister for the Armed Forces today, but we accept that he is on manoeuvres. More seriously, we learned last week that the Prime Minister’s interest in British Army veterans once even stretched to working with disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner to help prosecute them. What is the Minister’s reply to the subsequent comment from General Sir Peter Wall, the former head of the British Army, who said of those actions: “If that’s the Prime Minister’s moral stance, then one has to ask questions about how compatible that is with his job of making decisions about putting soldiers in harm’s way in the national interest for the defence of the realm”? What is the answer to the former Chief of the General Staff?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Support for Veterans · Hansard source

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  Let us try this for detail. Why should any British soldier, past or present, or those who commanded them, owe loyalty to a Labour Government who contain an Attorney General who once willingly represented Gerry Adams, or to a Prime Minister who once wrote a legal treatise on how best to prosecute them under the European convention on human rights? Why, before he was elected to Parliament, did our Prime Minister agree to take formal legal instructions from Phil Shiner, a man hated throughout the British Army for his years of false claims against veterans, for which he was convicted as a fraudster and struck off? What kind of politicians support our soldiers by helping to sue them?

• 2 Feb 2026 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I fear that the Veterans Minister, who is still here, may have inadvertently misled the House earlier. According to House of Lords legal records, from 29 to 31 October 2007 in the al-Jedda case against British soldiers held before the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, the applicants were represented by several QCs, including the now Prime Minister, who were instructed—it is in the records—by Public Interest Lawyers, Phil Shiner’s law firm. Would the Minister or the Prime Minister care to correct the record?

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

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  He is an hon. and gallant Member.

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

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  Both the hon. Gentleman and I have visited the Falkland Islands, although on different occasions. There is a strategic runway and base there at RAF Mount Pleasant. Would he agree that what the Government are doing is analogous to paying Argentina £35 billion to rent back that base and the Falkland Islands, which also belong to us and wish to be British?

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

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  Frit.

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

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  My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and if he was not already sanctioned by the Chinese, he would be by the end of it. Does he recall that Disraeli said in opposition, “We may not win the vote tonight, but we can win the argument?” Does my right hon. Friend agree that not only are we winning the argument, but the Government are failing by not answering any questions or making any argument at all?

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

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  My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Will he confirm to the House that very shortly after the deal was announced, the Argentine Government announced that they wished to renew their claim to the Falkland Islands? That is a fact, is it not?

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

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  Will the hon. Member give way?

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

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  On that point, will the Minister give way?

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

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  Will the Minister give way on that point?

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

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  It’s a flesh wound!

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  As the Minister who oversaw Operation Gritrock, when RFA Argus was deployed to Freetown as part of Britain’s relief effort to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, may I endorse everything that the hon. Lady has said and pay a personal tribute to the wonderful work that the RFA did to help combat that wicked virus?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State agree that we have a good turnout in the House tonight to debate the Armed Forces Bill, which affects the quality of life and the service of the brave people who keep us safe? Yet again when we debate this vital subject, not a single Reform Member of Parliament is in the Chamber. Is it not wrong that these people wrap themselves in the flag, but never come along to defend the people who actually protect that flag?

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Essex MP, the hon. Member for Colchester (Pam Cox), not least as she has the privilege of representing Merville barracks, which I have visited a number of times down the years and which is the home of our elite unit, the 16 Air Assault Brigade. I have to be careful in saying that, because I have a former royal marine, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), sitting on the Benches behind me. I thank the Minister for the helpful briefing on the Bill that he arranged for me at the Ministry of Defence last week. I am prepared to admit to the House that there was a slight communications mix-up. When I was originally invited into the Department, I left my phone in my office, thinking I was going into a briefing about events in Iran. I was both surprised and delighted when I was ushered into one of the historical rooms at the MOD to be pleasantly confronted by the entire team of officials responsible for the Bill. I am grateful to them for their subsequent briefing, which was extremely helpful. The Armed Forces Bill is a very necessary piece of legislation that has to be passed by Parliament at least every five years. By tradition, this quinquennial Bill is relatively non-controversial. In that spirit, as the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), said, just as we did with the Armed Forces Commissioner Act 2025, the Opposition see our role as that of a critical friend to the Bill by engaging in debate with an aim to improving it where possible—although we do, of course, reserve the right to hold the Government to account on a variety of matters. I may take the liberty of returning to two such matters in particular. Although the Bill’s 55 clauses and seven schedules cover a variety of topics, with everything from drones—a particular hot button for the Minister, and indeed for my line manager—to powers of commanding officers, the Bill mainly encompasses four principal areas: reserves in clauses 31 to 37; defence housing and other property in a lengthy clause 3; the armed forces covenant in an equally lengthy clause 2; and potential changes to the service justice system, which is covered in several clauses, but principally clauses 5 to 16 and 20 to 26. I should like to say a little about each of those areas in turn. Before I do, though, I place on the record that in this debate on the Armed Forces Bill—a very important piece of legislation regarding the future and welfare of His Majesty’s armed forces—not a single Reform MP has been present in the Chamber, let alone made a speech. If these people want to wrap themselves in the flag, they should at least take the trouble to turn up to support those who actually defend it, both in this country and around the globe. Reform Members have been too busy today spreading misinformation about my party’s attitude to Northern Ireland veterans—another reason, I suspect, that they did not want to come into the Chamber and face the music.

• 26 Jan 2026 · Armed Forces Bill · Hansard source

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  No. Secondly, with regard to readiness, as the international skies darken, we fail to see how we can improve our deterrence posture through the Government’s imposing £2.6 billion of in-year spending cuts in the MOD’s operating budget this year, thus reducing training exercises, sea days and flying hours, all in the name of short-term cash control. The Government constantly claim that they are increasing defence spending while concurrently slashing our own armed forces’ operational spending and also stalling on the defence investment plan, which we were faithfully promised last autumn. Similarly, we have been promised a defence readiness Bill, which is not ready yet. It is like a serious defence strategy turning into “Waiting for Godot”. With those two important provisos, we welcome the Bill. I genuinely look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply, including on why he abstained last Wednesday.