Sir Keir Starmer says the ceasefire deal agreed between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday "will be a huge relief to hostages and their families". The prime minister adds the UK "must never let up" on support for Ukraine, as he visits Kyiv to sign a new long-term partnership deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00The ceasefire is very welcome. It'll be a huge relief to hostages and their families
00:07who've been through most awful, awful of times. It's really important they're
00:13released just as quickly as possible. It'll be a release for the very many
00:17Palestinians who've suffered hugely as well and this must be used to get
00:21desperately needed aid in at scale and at speed but it must also, and I've been
00:27talking to regional leaders about this, be used obviously to get through the
00:32various stages but also as a path to a lasting peace which has to be a
00:38two-state solution, a viable Palestinian state and a safe and secure Israel. So
00:43we're working with those in the region and our allies to make sure that this
00:49welcome news is enduring news and we'll be putting all of our efforts into that.
00:54It's very important that we ensure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible
00:59position. That's something I've been arguing for since I've been Prime
01:03Minister. This is my seventh meeting with President Zelensky. I'm here at the
01:09burns unit of one of the Kiev hospitals which is a grim reminder of the heavy
01:14price that Ukraine is paying here. So we must put in the necessary support. So
01:19that's what I'm discussing with President Zelensky today. We must never
01:23let up on that and we've been leading the way. At the same time we're signing a
01:28hundred-year partnership between UK and Ukraine. This is a real statement of our
01:34intent for the long term in relation to our commitment to Ukraine. So I'm here
01:39for both of those purposes but the main one is to make sure that Ukraine is in
01:43the strongest possible position during 2025. One of the consequences of this
01:48conflict has been to draw NATO more strongly together. It's bigger and
01:53stronger than it has been and we must stand behind Ukraine for as long as it
01:58takes. But when we say Ukraine must be in the strongest possible position that
02:01can't be just words and that's why I've had such intense discussions with
02:06President Zelensky now over the months that I've been Prime Minister and will
02:09again here in Ukraine because that is very very important as we go into 2025.
02:16We're now a long way into this conflict. We mustn't let up. It was always going to
02:21take time to turn around 14 years of economic failure under the last
02:26government. That was always going to take time. The figures out today are a step in
02:32the right direction but there's much much more that we've got to do and that
02:36we will do. We're going to be unrelenting when it comes to driving our economy
02:40forward, changing the planning rules, changing regulation. The Chancellor is
02:44having a session today with the regulators. We're unrelenting on this
02:47because we intend to turn this around to get that economic growth and the reason
02:52for that is not a line on a graph but so that your viewers, everybody listening to
02:58this and hearing this will feel better off and so we're a hundred percent
03:03working on this. We're going to be unrelenting. It's a step in the right
03:08direction. There's a lot more that we will be doing.