Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 1:56 pm on 7 December 2022.
Mark Francois
Conservative, Rayleigh and Wickford
1:56,
7 December 2022
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In “Game of Thrones”, it was famously said that, “Winter is coming”, and no one is more conscious of that than the Ukrainians. As a member of the Defence Committee, and having recently returned from Ukraine, I know that after as a cry for more weapons, their second greatest cry was for generators to help power things such as hospitals through the winter if they lose more power stations to Russian missile strikes.
I raise this issue now, Sir, because on the previous urgent question I, like a number of Members from across the House, made a plea to the Government to look at some kind of scheme to sponsor the delivery of generators to Ukraine. As the Business Secretary is at the Dispatch Box, I wanted him to hear this. My ask, through you, is whether the Government could come up with some kind of “Power for Ukraine” scheme, where British companies could either sponsor the cost of a generator or provide one if they had one of their own, perhaps in their warehouse or truck park, that is not really doing anything but could save lives in a hospital or other facility in Ukraine. Will the Secretary of State undertake to look at how we might do that and see whether he can come back to the House with some idea of how we could save lives?
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