My Lords, I too thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for securing this crucial debate. On Tuesday, like the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, I was privileged to listen to Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine, when she addressed parliamentarians and then when she spoke at the exhibition on Russian war crimes in Portcullis House. Like the noble Baroness and my noble friend Lord Cormack, I was horrified by what I
heard and saw. Her courage was matched only by the unfathomable tragedy of the current situation, which she captured so poignantly in her words. For the exhibition is not just about the past nine or so months, or even the present; it is also about the future—the future suffering of her people until the barbarity of the Russians’ criminal regime is brought to a halt and they have left the territory of Ukraine.
The images in the exhibition will one day comprise an historical record, but not yet. The war crimes being perpetrated by the Russians, who, as the First Lady told us, are individuals with faces and lives of their own, but no soul—all of it is happening in real time. The awful truth is that the exhibition on display in Portcullis House will grow to accommodate the images of horrors yet to be unearthed, perhaps yet to be committed. That is why it is so important that her appeal to us as the mother of Parliaments and the primary defender of democracy does not go unheeded. All she asked for is justice and the means, in the form of a tribunal, by which to secure it so that those who commit war crimes can be held to account—and that, critically, others can be deterred from doing so.
Madam Zelenska has presented us with a clear choice: either we bear witness to the truth that we have a common interest in challenging and arresting this regressive slide into depraved barbarity, which threatens the very foundations of free and civilised societies, or we wring our hands as if there is nothing we can do and no price to pay for inaction. Of course, no one could lay that charge at His Majesty’s Government’s door. It is to the immense credit of Boris Johnson that, as Prime Minister, he grasped both the enormity of the threat posed by Russia’s illegal invasion and the scale of responsibility and self-interest we have in countering it. Rishi Sunak is absolutely right to continue his policy; he would also be absolutely right to give the First Lady’s call for a tribunal his full support.
It is crucial that we consider the consequences were Madam Zelenska’s cry for justice to go unheeded and such war crimes and even genocide to go unpunished. For as a species, we have a curious propensity to unlearn the lessons of history. But we cannot afford to forget Munich or be cowed into appeasement by the threat of nuclear weapons, whether tactical or strategic. We must hold our nerve.
I ask my noble friend the Minister to reassure the House that Madam Zelenska’s visit will not have been in vain and that His Majesty’s Government are already acting on her request for the UK to take the lead in establishing a tribunal for justice for Ukraine and for all those countries that believe in democracy and the self-determination of nations.
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