Russian Annexation of Crimea

Debate between Chris Bryant and Madeleine Moon

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Thank you very much, Mr Davies. I warmly commend the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) for introducing the debate, which is both timely and important. I gather that a joke is going round in Moscow these days: President Putin is asking General Secretary Stalin for advice on what he should do politically, and Stalin says, “You should execute all members of the Government and paint the Kremlin blue.” Putin replies, “Why blue?” and Stalin says, “I thought that was the only part you would query.” Perhaps there is some exaggeration in the joke, but perhaps there is some truth as well.

The point that the hon. Member for Henley, and others who have been on the delegation with him, made very clearly, and which I am sure the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who is a known expert on the subject of Ukraine, will make as well, is that the annexation was illegal, full stop—end of story, in a sense. That is, of course, contested by the Russian Federation, but under any judgment of international law, it is clear that the annexation of Crimea was illegal.

As the hon. Member for Henley said, it followed on from other annexations, attempted annexations or invasions that were also illegal. I warmly commended David Cameron for going to Georgia, as one of his first acts as Conservative leader, to stand with the Georgian people and say that the invasions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were illegal acts. Unfortunately, the agreement that was subsequently signed with President Sarkozy has still not been implemented. There are still Russian troops in Georgia and, as has been laid out today, the problems in relation to Crimea grow day by day.

The truth of the matter is that the annexation would not have happened had the Russian Federation not signed up to the Budapest memorandum, because Ukraine would have had nuclear weapons. In that accord, the Russian Federation guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine, including Crimea as part of Ukraine, so there is understandable cynicism and scepticism. I do not know what the highest level of cynicism and scepticism that one can have is, but that is what the international community shares regarding any international treaties signed by the Russian Federation under President Putin.

Many have drawn comparisons with the situation in the 1930s. Such comparisons are important to bear in mind, though it would be wrong to make a direct comparison between Putin and Hitler, because their ideologies were fundamentally different. However, their nationalism and deliberate attempts to use violence to secure their aims probably amounted to the same.

In 1938, the German Chancellor was determined to persuade the international community that he would seize only the Sudetenland—the part of Czechoslovakia that, in his words, was dominated by German-speaking German nationals. In fact, by seizing the Sudetenland he undermined the whole of the rest of Czechoslovakia and made it impossible for it to survive as a nation state. I think that is exactly the intention of the Russian Federation in relation to Ukraine. In the 1930s, British politicians did not really care; they thought that Hitler sort of had a point. Politicians in the UK have also said that President Putin sort of has a point about Crimea, because a lot of the people in Crimea are Russian and identify as Russian speakers. However, that is wholly to miss the point that there has been a deliberate process of political destabilisation in Ukraine that went on for a considerable number of years. As the hon. Member for Henley said, it included a fake referendum that was deliberately engineered. The results were falsely counted, and an incorrect version of them was given out.

[Mrs Moon]

One of the most important things that we must focus on is the softening-up period before invasion takes place. There is a deliberate disinformation campaign targeted at the Russian-speaking populations, not just in Georgia and Ukraine but on a daily basis in the Baltic states. Such disinformation prepares an expectation among the Russian-speaking population that change is coming, and that they should support it. Is that something to which we should also pay attention?

[Chris Bryant]

I commend my hon. Friend. She is right, and that is one of the reasons why I am particularly anxious that we, as a political class in this country, have seemingly decided that we are not all that interested in Russian interference in our elections and electoral processes. I think that we will rue the day in the end. We need to be extremely careful, because we have seen what the Russian Federation has managed to do through cyber-warfare in other countries around the world, and continues to do in Ukraine, because it wants to soften up the rest of the country.

The process of misinformation continues. The latest version of that is the Russian Federation maintaining that Crimea lost 1.5 trillion roubles during the 25 years that it was part of Ukraine. Many would argue that the loss to Crimea is from being taken out of Ukraine. Russian spokespeople do not half have a cheek sometimes.

There is another clear aspect to the annexation. In 1938, Hitler wanted to seize the Skoda factory, which was one of the most productive factories in Europe, and turn it into an arms manufacturer; it was soon making Panzers for the Wehrmacht. Just so, Putin has had his eye for a considerable period on not only the natural resources in Crimea but the ports, which are vital to any future military intentions that he may have. It is all part of a pattern; President Putin always has a tendency to resort to violent options when they are available to him.

Putin was, of course, in political trouble in his own country when the annexation commenced, and it was extremely popular, re-enhancing that nationalist sense in Russian politics. In large measure, one can see the reinvention of Putin as a nationalist hero, in Russian terms, on the back of the annexation of Crimea. There is a sense of political doldrums in the Russian Federation, because Putin clearly has no idea who his successor should be or where the future should lie. He is kind of bored with governing Russia, which potentially makes for a very dangerous time for the international community.

The Government need to be careful about key issues of UK policy. We have referred already to sanctions policy. As I have said to the Minister many times, I fear that the Government are still dragging their heels—he will say that they are not—on implementing a full set of secure sanctions in relation to individuals who have committed human rights abuses in the Russian Federation and Crimea. I think that the Russians have noticed that that has not yet happened, and that other countries have moved faster. It is time that we proceeded faster. I am sure that the Minister will say that the Government are doing their best, and that it will all happen in the fullness of time, but I am not convinced.

Secondly, there was a time when the UK led within the European Union on trying to bind Ukraine into the international community, and on standing up for it in international affairs. That will be more difficult in the future when/if we are no longer a member of the European Union. I wish to know how we will achieve that in the future. I hope that the UK has made strong representations to the United States of America that one cannot oppose annexation in Crimea and support it in the Golan Heights. Annexation is annexation. One cannot simply turn a blind eye because it involves a big ally on one side of the Atlantic, rather than a country that one wants to criticise on the other.

Finally, we of course wish Mr Zelensky, who has been elected, well. It is difficult to see exactly how things will play out. I very much hope that the UK will want to extend a warm hand, to ensure that he ends up on the right side of the argument.

Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Madeleine Moon

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I will speak to amendment 1 and the three other amendments in my name and the names of several colleagues.

I want to start with enormous praise for the national health service, which in many cases makes the key decisions on everything that we will talk about today. Sometimes those are very difficult decisions, including for families, and they need to be managed with care and sensitivity. Ensuring that we have the right law in place to enable clinicians to make the right decisions is vital. I was on the Public Bill Committee for the Mental Health Act 2007 under the Labour Government, and I remember many of the rows and difficulties then. Ensuring that legislation fits the complicated circumstances of real life is not all that easy, and in particular, the definition of what might be proper treatment is not readily come by.

Often lobbyists get a really bad press. My experience of lobbyists in this field is entirely positive, including those working for the pharmaceutical industry, who do an amazing job in providing new drugs that can save people’s lives and manage their conditions much better, and the many charities in this field. When lobbyists are decried, I sometimes want to point out that they play an important part in ensuring that Members of Parliament know exactly what they are doing when it comes to legislation.

All the amendments that I have tabled relate to acquired brain injury. I am aware that several other colleagues who are members of the all-party parliamentary group on acquired brain injury are here today. I do not want to make an apology for that, but I want to explain why I have tabled these amendments. It is partly because I believe that acquired brain injury, though recognised and understood by some, is something of a hidden epidemic in Britain.

Something like 1.4 million people in this country are living with an acquired brain injury. A new person presents at accident and emergency with a brain injury every 90 seconds. Many of these injuries have lasting effects that are completely invisible to an ordinary member of the public. For instance, the person standing in front of us in a queue who is being difficult might look as if they are drunk or just being difficult, but they may have a brain injury. We would have no idea, and the person feels trapped and finds the situation as difficult as we do. The more we come to an understanding of acquired brain injury in this country, the better.

There are many different causes of brain injury, including road traffic accidents, accidents about the home and stroke. One cause that has been brought home to me recently is carbon monoxide poisoning. Not only the high level of carbon monoxide poisoning that follows an incident, but a sustained low level of carbon monoxide due to poor central heating systems or facilities or something like a Calor gas burner in a home, can end up causing a long-term brain injury. This particularly affects some of those who live in the worst housing in the land, and who are the poorest and least able to afford, for instance, to have their boiler mended or assessed every year.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the problem that some members of the armed forces face with acquired brain injury? It may be because they were involved in or close to the explosion of an improvised explosive device, or because they had a gunshot wound, when the head covering was hit but not penetrated, and the shock can lead to acquired brain injury.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I know the role she has played, in particular in the all-party group on the armed forces, and of course in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. She is absolutely right, and there are sometimes coup and contrecoup elements of damage to the brain. There is also some evidence to suggest that some people diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder have actually been suffering from a brain injury.

Interestingly, the Ministry of Defence has done some of the most innovative work in relation to brain injuries—physical brain injuries, as it were—and it has been able to transfer some of the skills and research involved in that work to the wider population, which is all to the good. However, I think that the way in which the mind sits inside the brain and the brain sits inside the skull is one of the areas of research that is still underdeveloped, and we still need to do a great deal more about it.

Other causes include brain tumours and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, where somebody may have had a series of relatively minor concussions. There is a complete misunderstanding of what concussion actually involves, particularly in sport. This might be leading to some of the long-term sustained problems of, for example, people in my own constituency who played rugby for many years and had repeated concussions. They may suffer from dementia, depression and anxiety in later life, but have no understanding that that may relate to a brain injury, rather than to anything else.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Moon]

My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way. One of the things that concern me most is that it is easy to label someone with any form of brain injury—whether dementia, Parkinson’s or anything else—when they also have an infection. What can be seen as difficult behaviour can be misunderstood when it is caused by the infection rather than by any acquired injury or illness.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes. People will also attribute bad intention to the person when what is happening is that the short-term memory is simply not functioning properly. For instance, someone with very little short-term memory may find it difficult to turn up on time, as I mentioned earlier. That may be not because they are being lazy, truculent or difficult but simply because their brain does not work in that way. It may mean that their capacity is so diminished that, according to the Bill, they cannot make decisions. Alternatively, it might just be one of the elements that needs to be dealt with—they need to find tricks to circumvent the problem, and medical and clinical professionals can help.

This is why I tabled my amendments. Neurorehabilitation, when done well and on a sustained basis, can take an individual from being low functioning and high dependency, perhaps needing three or four people just to be able to wash themselves, clothe themselves and provide for themselves physically, to a much higher level of personal functionality and much greater independence. I have made that argument from a different place, in the sense that taking someone from needing four people to look after them to just one person coming in once a day for an hour or so could be an enormous financial saving to the taxpayer. That is why neurorehabilitation and the work that has been done in many cases can be so important.

Neurorehabilitation is really important in relation to the Bill. We might be able to take somebody from a place where they are not truly able to make a decision about what treatment they should be undergoing and, according the Bill, deprive them of their liberty, to a place where that would no longer be appropriate. My anxiety is that if there is no incentive in the system to ensure that neurorehabilitation is provided to people, there is a danger that we just discard them and leave them by the side, particularly as we are now talking about a three-year term rather than a one-year term. I think the clauses at the end of the Bill militate in favour of renewal, rather than providing a clear option not to renew at that point.

I have an anxiety that perhaps in some care homes and other places there just might be an incentive to think, “Well, this person isn’t going to get better so we’re not going to do anything to try to help them to get better.” I do not want to give up on so many people. Thanks to what the Government have done with the major trauma centres, we now save about 800 or 1,000 more lives every year following road traffic accidents and the like, but we need to give people quality of life. We do not have enough people working in this field. We need to recruit many more people. If 20 people were inspired by what we are talking about today to go and work in that field—there are so many high rewards for people working to take people from high dependency to low dependency—that would be a success in itself.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Madeleine Moon

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why, incidentally, to those who say, “If we ever move out, they’ll never let us back,” I say, “Who is this magical ‘they’ who’s going to prevent us from coming back in?” The truth is that whether we choose to come back will always be a decision for Parliament. If future generations decide that things should be done differently, good luck to them, but we should not make a decision now that makes it impossible for us to protect this building, because—this is precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman made—the most certain way for us to be permanently excluded is to have a catastrophic failure in the building, such as a fire or a flood.

[Mrs Moon]

Before casting their votes tonight, those Members who want to remain should nip into the Library and read sections of “Mr Barry’s War”, in which they will see the absolute chaos when Parliament refused to decant the last time. It was horrendous. It drove Pugin almost mad. We must leave.

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; that is a great book and it, too, is available in all good bookshops, although it is not by me.