Electoral Commission Investigation: Vote Leave

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady has felt the need to get quite so personal. I am not complacent. If she had been listening carefully, she would have heard me say that these issues are very, very serious. I am also saying that the Government respect the work of an independent regulator and do not comment on its ongoing investigations, but will wish to look in the round at the results of all the ongoing investigations.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Have the Government received any representations from the Labour Front Bench to rerun the referendum?

[Chloe Smith]

Not at the last count. I believe that there were 60-odd individuals who did want to do so, but I am not sure whether they are on or off the Front Bench at this time.

Leaving the EU

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am speaking to elected leaders across Europe. The incoming Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), will also be out and around in Europe, talking not just to leaders, but to politicians across Europe and in the European Parliament about the plan that we propose.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The EU says that it will not tolerate cherry picking, but what I fear is that we have picked the wrong cherry. By accepting a common rulebook in goods, we are locking ourselves into a sclerotic structure in which the EU has an overwhelming trading surplus. Will that not severely constrain our ability to make our business more competitive and to undertake free trade deals, which means that Brexit will no longer mean Brexit, and the Commission, where we will have no vote, regulating our business forever?

[The Prime Minister]

No. The position that my hon. Friend sets out is not the position for the future. I have been very clear that Parliament will be able to take these decisions about rules in the future. The reality and practicality of Brexit—somebody said earlier that I am dealing not with the theory, but with the reality and practicality of Brexit—is that our businesses which want to export to the European Union will continue to operate to the European Union’s rulebook in industrial goods, just as when we sign trade deals with other parts of the world, we will need to ensure that both sides can operate to the rules that are appropriate there. Businesses will continue to apply these rules regardless. By operating in this way, we are able to ensure that frictionless border between the UK and the EU, which is important to delivering on our commitments for Northern Ireland while maintaining the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, and to ensuring that we maintain the jobs that rely on the integrated supply chains that have grown up over decades.

Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 4th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady raises a very serious issue. The terrorist attack that she refers to was indeed appalling. As she said, too many victims lost their lives as a result of that attack that took place in Afghanistan. It is important that we ensure that we are providing support, as we do through our contribution in Afghanistan. That is a contribution to security in the Kabul area specifically from our forces, but it is also about working with others to ensure that the Afghan security forces are able to provide security and safety for all communities living in Afghanistan. Tremendous achievements have been made in Afghanistan today, compared with the situation before these efforts, but sadly, as the hon. Lady highlights, too many terrorist attacks are still taking place in Afghanistan. We will continue to work with our allies and the Afghan Government to prevent these in future and to ensure that people can go about their daily lives in safety and security and with confidence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

In agreeing with the Prime Minister, as I always do, that Brexit means Brexit, and that that generally means taking back control, may I ask her to confirm not only that after we leave the EU we will be leaving the single market and customs union, but that it is her personal position, and the settled negotiating position of Her Majesty’s Government, that we will have full and unfettered control of migration into this country, full and unfettered control in our ability to make new trade deals with the rest of the world and, above all, full and unfettered control of how we regulate our own business?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to say to my hon. Friend that after we leave the EU, we will indeed be operating our own independent trade policy. Parliament will be determining our laws and we will bring an end to free movement.

G7

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 11th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to be wary of any seeming approaches taken around the world that increase protectionism or that increase the likelihood of protectionism being adopted. When people talk about trade, there tends always to be a focus on tariffs, but of course free trade depends on a great deal more than tariffs. It depends on having similar systems that ensure that there is not unfair competition and that abilities to reduce tariffs are not simply replaced by the sort of barriers to trade that he talks about. As an independent member of the WTO, we will of course be able to play our part in trying to ensure that we row back any attempt at protectionism.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I am sorry to break the cosy consensus, but has not President Trump got a point to the extent that free trade, like all these theories, depends on some level of equivalence and fair dealing, yet China, with its unlimited population, is rapidly building massive trade surpluses with the rest of the world and draining other economies dry? Given that its secretive Government have proved utterly impervious to previous pressure, perhaps history will prove that there is some method in President Trump’s madness.

[The Prime Minister]

We have absolutely no doubt that there is a need to ensure that everybody is playing within the rules-based international order. Obviously, we have spoken in this House and elsewhere in particular about the overcapacity in steel and the role that China has played in that. That is why I was pleased, at the first G20 I went to, that the global forum on steel excess capacity was set up, with China as a member of that forum. As we committed to in the communiqué, we have called on the members of that forum to implement its recommendations fully and promptly, and we need to say that we must bring those countries that are emerging and perhaps not playing fully by the rules of the international rules-based order, into that order. I am pleased to say that we also in the communiqué committed to continue to fight protectionism.

Leaving the EU: Customs

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ross Thomson]

No, thank you.

To return to the Brexit prize of being able to set our own trade policy, it was on 9 March 1776 that a great Scot, Adam Smith, published “The Wealth of Nations”, in which he outlined a vision of how trade produced prosperity and opportunity. Post Brexit, we can revitalise that vision. After we leave the EU, we can become a global leader in free trade, using trade to spread prosperity and political stability. I was pleased to welcome the Secretary of State for International Trade to my constituency last week, where he heard about the opportunities for fish processing and for oil and gas in trade across the world to increase exports and promote prosperity not just at home, but abroad.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

To cut through all this debate about whether we should stay in the customs union, I seem to remember that our manifesto was quite clear that we were leaving the EU, the single market and the customs union, and that we were going to negotiate a free trade agreement. Surely the whole party and the whole House can unite around that. That is why we are having the implementation Bill and ensuring that all these existing laws are in our law. What could be more simple than a free trade deal? Let us stick to it.

[Ross Thomson]

I could not agree more with my colleague. Not only was that in our manifesto, but I believe it was in those of other parties so that we would enact the wishes of the British people. I am not surprised that the only party not listening to those wishes is the SNP, because it puts its fingers in its ears to the results of all and any referendums.

I am delighted that the new Department for International trade has undertaken 167 visits overseas. It is clear from the trips that Ministers have taken that a British label on goods is regarded as a sign of quality, as it is for services, and the demand for British is huge. International demand for British goods is growing, and Aberdeen, which I represent—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Simon Clarke (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Con)]

Today’s motion shows definitively that the Opposition are unfit to be a party of Government. It is quite simply the height of irresponsibility for the Labour party to demand that the Government should publish confidential Cabinet papers about our future customs arrangements at a time of such crucial negotiations. That would inevitably expose every detail to our negotiating partners in Europe and destroy every inch of leverage that we have with them. No Government could assent to that, and no Opposition worthy of being a Government should ask for it.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard the historical analogy from the hon. Member for Streatham (Chuka Umunna), but it was entirely false, because the Labour party then was not trying to get Cabinet papers revealed—that would have been ridiculous, either in wartime or now. What it was trying to do was bring down the Prime Minister. That suggests that this motion and this debate are not about the truth; they are about trying to bring down the Prime Minister.

[Mr Clarke]

I agree, and I would draw another historical analogy: it is 60 years ago this year that Nye Bevan issued his famous warning to the Labour party not to send a British Foreign Secretary into the negotiating chamber naked, and that is precisely what this motion would do. It runs directly contrary to our national interest, and the whole country will see how profoundly misguided it is. There is no way of overstating this: every Member who votes for this motion—every one—will be damaging the principles of Cabinet government in the hope of inflicting partisan advantage. It is unforgivable. Coming a week after north-east Labour MPs called for a second referendum—or, as they now euphemistically call it, a people’s vote, as if a referendum were not exactly that—this shows the Opposition in the worst possible light.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emma Reynolds]

I sometimes agree with the right hon. Lady but on this occasion I do not. The paper I am holding up now is the kind of ludicrous document we have before us: the “Future customs arrangements” paper. It is the only thing written by this Government on the customs union, and it contains just five flimsy paragraphs on the Prime Minister’s supposedly preferred option. That is not acceptable. Members of this House have a right to scrutinise the Government’s proposals, and this document is for the moment all we have to go on.

At the crux of this debate is the fact that membership of the customs union is crucial for two reasons. It is crucial because it is the only way to protect jobs and investment in my region of the west midlands and across the country. The EU is the UK’s biggest export market and our manufacturers, such as those in the automotive sector like Jaguar Land Rover and in the aerospace sector, rely on a frictionless border with that market. Any delays on the border, any extra cost and any added bureaucracy will put jobs and investment at risk.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Has the hon. Lady no higher ambition than to be like Turkey?

[Emma Reynolds]

Turkey’s arrangement with the EU was agreed when Turkey was on the path to membership; that is not the arrangement the Labour party is seeking with the EU, and to suggest otherwise is, frankly, ludicrous. We are proposing that we remain in the customs union and have a say over trade agreements done with the rest of the world. That is a more responsible policy than the hard Brexit that Conservative Members are preaching.

The other crucial issue in this debate is the border on the island of Ireland. The Prime Minister has made two contradictory promises: she has promised that there will continue to be an invisible border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, but she has also promised that we will leave the customs union. Anybody who has rationally considered this in the round will come to the same conclusion as I have: it is clearly not possible to do both of those things. That is why both the models being considered by the Government have been rejected by the EU. The Prime Minister can have as many meetings of the Cabinet and the Cabinet Sub-Committee and with Tory Back Benchers as she likes, but that does not change the fact that the EU opposes both of these models and neither of them is tried and tested. If she spent a little less time negotiating with her party and a little more time negotiating with our EU partners, she might have made more progress in the negotiations to date.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I believe that the Government’s argument about the legality of last week’s action is technically correct: the use of military force is part of the royal prerogative; her Majesty invests the Government with that power; the Queen is commander in chief; and this is an important power, which is vital to the effectiveness of our armed forces. So I have no constitutional disagreement with what the Government have done. However, there is a word of warning here. As Chesterton put it:

“To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.”

There is a risk here and a moral to be learned. I do commend the Prime Minister for the limited scope of the intervention. Although it is true that the Government can intervene technically and militarily without consulting Parliament, I believe that the power should be used on as few occasions as possible, if at all. That is where I echo what the Father of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), has said.

I do not accept that we need a war powers Act, because it would be justiciable. I do not believe in referring everything to the UN, where, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) has said, one power has a permanent right of veto. But I think we should proclaim this afternoon the right of Parliament to debate and vote on military action in the future, unless, as was probably the case here, there is an urgent humanitarian case to be made.

I want to say a word about some of the problems we face in the middle east, one of which is that we are seen to be parti pris in this conflict. We are seen by many people not to be primarily engaged in humanitarian concern for the people of Douma, but to be engaged in a proxy war. I know that that is not a fair point of view but, unfortunately, we have in the past proclaimed our desire to replace the Assad regime. The conflict began in 2011; Assad is still President of the Syrian Arab Republic. The idea that the Americans achieved a great deal by backing the Free Syrian Army—a kind of Lib Dems with guns—has proven to be a complete and total fantasy.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I thank you for allowing me to intervene, Mr Speaker; I was late for this debate, for which I apologise.

I cannot resist rising to that challenge. We heard the line of questioning from constituents about whether Parliament was going to be recalled—“Are you going to have a vote on it?” My answer that I did not know led to puzzlement and confusion. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that in itself is corrosive to the electorate’s democratic confidence in their elected Members and what we do in this place?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I have just said that I agree with the Father of the House that in general Parliament should have its say before action is taken.

I believe that there is so much opposition to what we are doing in the middle east because from the beginning western Governments have not really been cognisant of the sheer complexity of the situation. The Americans are against Assad and the Russians, and for the Kurds, many of whom are against Assad, but the Americans are also allied to the Turks, who are against the American-backed Kurds, and the Turks will do anything to stop the Kurds, even though both are friends of the Americans. That shows the sheer complexity of the situation.

I must quote the patriarchs of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Melkite Catholic Church. They are based in Syria and rely on the Assad regime for protection and their continual survival. This can perhaps be dismissed, as they are subject to pressure from the regime, but their beatitudes say:

“It causes us great pain that this assault comes from powerful countries to which Syria did not cause any harm in any way.”

They are Christian leaders speaking in Syria. We should be very careful.

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

Did any of those Christian leaders in Syria comment on the atrocities visited on innocent children that we have seen in the past week?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I have just said that these Christian leaders are under great pressure from the Assad regime to toe the party line, as it were, but the fact is that their responsibility is to protect their own communities, which are under unprecedented pressure. We have to take some account of the pressure on Christian communities.

Last week, when the Vatican all-party group was in Rome, we had a meeting on persecuted Christians in Syria. We met every single expert from the refugee services and from all around the world who look into this issue, and they all told us that bombing was a dangerous thing to do with regard to opinion in the middle east and pressure from Muslims on the remaining Christian communities. I was struck when the representative of the Catholic Church in Pakistan said that the Catholic communities there would get it in the neck even more because, unfairly, so many Muslims do not differentiate between Russian bombs, American bombs, French bombs and British bombs. They say that the misery in Syria has been caused by foreign Christian powers raining bombs on their communities. That might be an unfair point of view, but it is generally held in the middle east.

This point has not been made by anybody else in the debate so far: I accept that the Government were right to act, and that they have powers under the royal prerogative to act, but I do not believe that we should pursue any more our objective of trying to change the Assad regime. If we then do act for humanitarian reasons—if we intervene to deter a possible chemical attack—we will have much more credibility in the middle east, because we would not be seen to be taking sides. That is the way forward.

[Mr Grieve]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Unfortunately I cannot give way because I am running out of time.

I have agreed with my right hon. and learned Friend, but I hope that when we debate these matters in future, we will remember this and avoid all hypocrisy. The fact is that as much as we detest Assad and as much as he is a dictator, none of us, as Christians, would want to live in an area of Syria that was outside Assad’s control, because he would protect us. That is a difficult thing to say in Parliament and not everybody will agree with it, but I have to say what I have to say.

Syria

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to refer to the proven and repeated use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. As I said earlier in response to a number of other questions, nobody should be in any doubt about our resolve to ensure that we alleviate human suffering by dealing with the use of chemical weapons and to ensure that their use is not normalised.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister was indeed heard in respectful silence because her moderate, determined and sensible attitude deserves respect from this House. May I ask her a question on behalf of the persecuted Christians of the middle east who will face further persecution if it is believed that their sponsors in the west are taking sides in the civil war? Will she assure us that, not just in terms of this airstrike, but generally, we are no longer in favour of regime change, that we do not take sides and that we are only on the side of peace? While we Back Benchers can of course not have access to intelligence, she does, and having had that access, can she look me in the eye and say that she is absolutely clear in her own mind that, beyond reasonable doubt, the regime was responsible for this attack?

[The Prime Minister]

On the first point, I recognise my hon. Friend’s concerns about persecuted Christians in the region. Indeed, we are discussing with the Foreign Office how we can look at this issue of Christians and other religious groups who find themselves persecuted in wherever they might be, including in this region. I can give him the absolute assurance that, from the intelligence that I have seen, from the analysis that I have seen and from the assessments that I have heard, I am in absolutely no doubt that the Syrian regime was responsible for this attack in Douma.

EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

May I start by congratulating the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) on securing this debate and on the way in which he opened our deliberations? May I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)? He suggested that when he first started raising these issues in Parliament some people perceived him to be something of a crank, but I think he is one of the finest politicians of our generation, and I am proud to sit on these Benches alongside him.

So many things need to be said in this debate that it is hard to know where to start. The three contributions we have heard so far all referred to the recent revelations about the close relationship between Vote Leave and BeLeave, and what that might mean for the ongoing debate about Brexit and the referendum. I agree with all that has been said: there are serious questions that need to be fully investigated by the Electoral Commission, and no stone should be left unturned in understanding who knew what and when.

Having said that, I want to make some different observations about what recent events suggest about our politics and our democracy. At heart, I fear there have been appalling and repeated abuses of power. What seems to have gone on within the various different elements of the leave campaigns just does not sound right. We are talking about people with years of experience dealing with campaign volunteers, some barely out of university, and advising them on setting up a separate legal entity, through which serious funds end up being channelled, at a time when some of the individuals in question are having a campaign fling, only for that relationship to be outed 18 months or so later in a statement from No. 10—the whole thing stinks.

I do not know whether criminal offences have been committed or whether electoral law has been broken, but I am pretty sure that people have abused their power. I may be naive, but I am a firm believer in decency in public life: doing the right thing, even if it may not be to your own immediate personal interest or to your party’s or your campaign’s electoral advantage. Some people would say that I am not cut out to be a politician, and perhaps I am not, but this insidious, cynical, arrogant, perpetual game playing has to stop. It has real consequences for real people’s lives. It will also kill our democracy, and I am sick of it. Perhaps it was my upbringing, but I have some pretty basic values. You do not lie. If you do something wrong, you admit it. You treat people the way you would want to be treated. You respect the law—the letter of it as well as the spirit of it. You play fair; you do not play dirty. In having power, your primary duty is to exercise it responsibly.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Heidi Alexander]

I am afraid I will not. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a speech and contribute to the debate—contributions from the Conservative Benches have been so sadly lacking—he will have time to do so.

I have read the reports over the past few days and looked at some of the emails that were exchanged between some of the key players, and I am worried that what I see is a corrosive abuse of power. If we want the British people to have faith in us, we need to find a way to conduct our politics with decency. I fear that the opposite is currently the case. It has to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Geraint Davies]

Yes, as a point of information—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Geraint Davies]

One moment. I am still dealing with the previous intervention.

For the record, the Government Benches are virtually empty. They may be 1% full—I do not know—but, frankly, it is pathetic. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to point out that the Government do not seem to care about the integrity of democracy and the law.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

When it comes to the question of fairness, does the hon. Gentleman think that it was entirely fair that, while the remain camps and the Vote Leave camps were allowed to spend £7 million each, the Government spent £9 million of taxpayers’ money to convince people to vote remain. Whether or not he thinks that that is fair, it obviously made no, or very little, difference and, therefore, all these arguments are grossly exaggerated. The British people have the good sense to make up their own minds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Davey]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the efforts and expertise that the Chair of the Select Committee is bringing to that inquiry, which is important to the whole debate. I also agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the need for us to try to cross party divisions, and the divisions that we saw both during and after the referendum campaign.

I have been contacted by leave voters who are disturbed by these allegations. Many leave voters are very patriotic people who believe that one of the key traditions and values of this country is that we respect the rule of law and do not allow cheats to prosper. This issue can bring Parliament and both sides of the debate together. Whoever cheated during the referendum—if anyone cheated—needs to be held to account.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

With respect, the right hon. Gentleman has not answered the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare). Of course he is entitled to give his speech, and Parliament is entitled to debate this, but the question we want him to answer is: who should decide whether to take action? Is it the Government, who were parti pris and took one side of the debate in the referendum, or should it be an independent body, namely the Electoral Commission? Who should make the final decision?

[Sir Edward Davey]

A number of bodies could ultimately look at the different accusations. We have a live investigation by the Electoral Commission, and we await the result of that. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington spoke very much about the Electoral Commission in his speech. We also have the investigations by the Information Commissioner’s Office into the related allegations with respect to Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ. Many of us feel that the evidence so far suggests that the police should be investigating these organisations, because there could be a criminal act. Let me absolutely clear: I certainly am not suggesting that Ministers are responsible for any investigation. That would not meet my requirements for an inquiry.

National Security and Russia

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I begin by paying tribute to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. They have met the challenge of Salisbury clearly, firmly and deliberately. The response of the international community today simply underpins the resolution they have shown in dealing with this crisis.

The strength of our response, however, only underlines how our policy towards Russia has not worked. Yes, it was well intentioned, yes it was rational—we wanted to see Russia as a partner and a part of the rules-based international system—but it has not worked like that. Our actions have not deterred Russia from repeated misbehaviour. After Georgia came Crimea. There were sanctions. After those sanctions, thousands of Russian troops were deployed in the Donbass, and we had the shooting down of MH17, including the murder of 10 of our own citizens. Our response to the murder of Litvinenko clearly did not deter the attempted Salisbury murders. So we have to do more.

I note and welcome that the Government have reserved the right to deploy other measures beyond the expulsions—measures that must surely include making it more difficult for those close to the presidential Administration to do business, raise funds or buy property here in London.

Let me offer the House four thoughts, none of them particularly original. First, we must rise to the challenge of fake news: the ability of sophisticated enemies like Russia to obfuscate what should be clear, to foster conspiracy where none exists, and to tell blatant lies when they are pushed into a corner. It is the speed with which Russia is able to do that, using propaganda, social media, the “bots” and all the rest of it, that requires our response to be so much quicker. We need to deploy faster truth. I appreciate the difficulties of revealing or sharing intelligence, but when we have photographs of a mobile launcher that brought down an aircraft, and when we know that an agent as powerful as Novichok could only be developed in the highest-grade, most technically advanced state laboratory, we need to get those facts out far, far more quickly.

Secondly, this was an armed attack on a member of NATO. Under article 3 of the North Atlantic treaty, which is not quoted in the Chamber as often as article 5, NATO members agree

“to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”.

NATO must now renew its focus on the Russian threat. It must use the July summit to modernise its decision making, to make possible much more rapid deployment of troops and planes across NATO’s internal border, and, above all, to beef up its strategic communications, which are so often much less than the sum of their parts. We need a faster and more coherent response from NATO.

Thirdly, whether we in the House are remainers or Brexiteers, we need to come together now to support the security partnership that the Prime Minister described so well in her Munich speech. One obvious way in which to reinforce the security of what continues to be our continent is to help to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, which means—even as we leave the European Union—supporting the fledgling European energy market. I was delighted to note a reference to that in the Prime Minister’s earlier Mansion House speech. It means helping to increase diversity of supply across our continent, encouraging dual flows and shared coding, promoting more interconnection, and using our technology and our regulatory experience to continue to play a leading part in making the European energy market much more resilient.

Finally, we need to strengthen our defences. Yes, the Prime Minister was right to remind the House that we have had a rising defence budget since April 2016, and yes, we do meet the 2% target, but Russia is not spending 2% of its GDP on defence; it is spending more than 5% of its GDP on defence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Does the former Secretary of State for Defence consider that spending 2% of our GDP on defence is not enough?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

That is precisely the point that I am about to address. Russia is spending 5% of its GDP on conventional weapons, nuclear weapons, cyber and hybrids, and, as we now know, on a completely illegal chemical weapons programme. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the NATO 2% is a minimum and not a ceiling. I think the House should consider this—and I do not make the point in a party political way. In the last year of the last century, the Blair Government were spending 2.7% of GDP on defence. That was before 9/11, before Daesh terrorism, before Kim had his nuclear weapons, before cyber-attacks on our own Parliament, and before Russia became more malignant again. I was in the House in 1999, and I do not recall anyone suggesting that our armed forces were overfunded then.

If we want to continue to lead in NATO, on the ground in the Baltics, in the air over the Black sea, and in the North sea and the north Atlantic in anti-submarine warfare, if we want to go on playing our part in the counter-Daesh coalition, if we want to prop up fragile democracies in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nigeria, if we want to go on contributing to United Nations peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa, and if we want to maintain a presence in the Gulf and recommit ourselves to protecting international trade routes in Asia-Pacific, we must will the means to do so. That means that, along with the modernisation programme that I know my right hon. Friends are now considering, we must now set our minds—and this is the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—to a higher defence target. I have said publicly that I think we should commit ourselves, under the next spending review, to meeting a target of at least 2.5% of GDP by the end of the current Parliament.

If there is one thing that Salisbury has taught us and we have learnt all over again, it is that what Russia really understands is weakness—countries that will not stand up for themselves, will not protect their people, and will not protect their values and the freedoms that they enjoy. We have never been such a country, and Salisbury should remind us all that we never should be.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Near the end of the second world war, the joint intelligence sub-committee of the British Chiefs of Staff, as it was then, produced a report entitled “Relations with the Russians”. From years of experience of working with Russia against the Nazis, the JIC concluded that Russia would respect only strength as the basis for any future relationship. That mirrored Lord Palmerston’s view of almost a century earlier:

“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity.”

Not much has changed. Alexander Litvinenko died in London on 23 November 2006. Four days later, the BBC News website published an article headed “Russia law on killing ‘extremists’ abroad”. It is worth quoting it for the record:

“A new Russian law, adopted earlier in the year, formally permits the extrajudicial killings abroad of those Moscow accuses of ‘extremism’...In July, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament—the Federation Council—approved a law which permits the Russian president to use the country’s armed forces and special services outside Russia’s borders to combat terrorism and extremism.

At the same time, amendments to several other laws, governing the security services, mass media and communications, were adopted.

The overall result was to dramatically expand those defined as terrorist or extremist.

Along with those seeking to overthrow the Russian government, the term is also applied to ‘those causing mass disturbances, committing hooliganism or acts of vandalism’.

Much more controversially, the law also defines ‘those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian federation’ as extremists”,

so those who insult the President of Russia can legally be killed overseas according to this law. The BBC report concluded that

“the Russian law is very specific in that it permits the president—alone, and apparently without consultation—to take such a decision”,

so at least one hon. Member will not be on Vladimir Putin’s Christmas card list after his speech today.

If anyone had doubts about Russia’s responsibility for the Salisbury poisonings, its contemptuous failure to respond to the Prime Minister’s 24-hour deadline should swiftly have dispelled them. An innocent regime would have rushed to explain how a nerve agent that only it produced could have been acquired and employed by anyone else. We should also have been spared sarcastic suggestions in the Russian media that the United Kingdom was an unsafe place for “traitors” to settle, as well as the ludicrous claim that we ourselves were behind the attack. That was a charge straight from the playbook of those who blame the Jews for 9/11 and US intelligence for the Kennedy assassination.

Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB schooled in the suppression of captive countries, steeped in the culture of communist domination and filled with regret that the Soviet empire imploded. According to him, its break-up was the greatest disaster of the 20th century—a revealing and curious choice when compared with the millions killed in two world wars, the Russian civil war, the forced collectivisations, the mass deportations and the hell of the gulag.

Until the Bolshevik revolution, there was some chance of Russia evolving along democratic lines, but then the cancer of Marxism-Leninism gave psychopaths and dictators their ideological excuse to seize total control. Their opponents were denounced as enemies of the people and put, or worked, to death with no semblance of due process. Now the ideology has gone, but the ruthless mindset remains. Russian leaders no longer claim to be building a workers’ paradise, but they still believe that western capitalists will sell them the rope with which to be hanged.

For 40 years from 1949, two factors ensured the containment of Russia and the maintenance of peace: the deterrent power of western nuclear weapons; and the collective security provided by article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty. No longer could an aggressor attack small European states without the Americans immediately entering the war. Yet such preparedness did not come cheaply. In the early 1960s, UK defence spending accounted for 6% of our GDP—the same percentage as welfare. The current welfare budget is six times the size of the defence budget. In the mid-1980s, defence constituted 5% of our GDP—the same percentage as education and health. The current education and health budgets are respectively two and a half and four times the size of the defence budget. In the changed strategic situation, this downgrading of defence cannot be allowed to continue.

Since 2016, the Defence Committee has been making the case for a defence budget target of 3% of GDP, which is what it used to be in the mid-1990s, even after the cuts following the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war. The former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), has called for a 2.5% target by the end of this parliamentary term. His successor is squaring up for a battle with the Treasury, and that fight has to be won for the safety of us all and for the security of our country.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Does my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Defence Committee think that the way to defeat a modern Russia is the same as the way in which we defeated the USSR? Reagan crushed the USSR’s economy through what was in effect an arms race between a strong and vibrant American economy and a weak Russian one. Does my right hon. Friend think that that could be a way forward?

[Dr Lewis]

I would certainly say that it is part of a way forward.

I will use the generous extra minute that I have been given to say that I am a little concerned about the fact that while the Government are right to recognise the existence of new threats, such as cyber threats, digital threats and intensified propaganda threats, including through the abuse of social media, and that we will need to devote resources to meet those new threats, that does not mean that the old threats or the old remedies to them have gone away. I do not like the conflation of national security budgets with defence budgets because that means that if we add more to the national security budget, we have to take more away from the defence budget, unless we listen to the warning from my right hon. Friend the former Defence Secretary, among others, that spending 2% of GDP on defence is not enough.

In my last few seconds, I cannot resist appealing once again to the Foreign Secretary—I am pleased to see him back on the Front Bench to hear my speech—to save the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, which we are supposed to be going to visit. It costs £25 million a year to keep it going, but it is going to be decimated and absorbed into a wider system that will not be as effective as the dedicated teams at Caversham. If it was true before that we need to save it, it is even more true now, after all that has happened in recent days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Since marrying my half-Russian wife 34 years ago in the Russian orthodox cathedral in Gunnersbury, I have made it my business to try to understand Russian culture and Russian people. They certainly respect strength and people standing up to them.

It is a bit of a mystery why this murder was carried out in the way that it was. I think that it was carried out as it was to make it obvious that Russia had carried it out. There has been speculation that it was designed around the Russian election; I think that it was designed to make it absolutely clear that traitors will not be tolerated.

Let me talk a bit about the Russian mindset. When we think of people like Philby and Maclean, we look at them with amused contempt. The Russian views traitors with absolute hatred, because they have betrayed the motherland. I pay tribute to the Russian people, Russian culture and Russian literature. In Russia, there is a deep sense of victimhood, which arises from the second world war and its losses in that war. Our losses pale into insignificance compared with the losses suffered by the Russian people. That sense of victimhood is still there.

When I was last a delegate to the Council of Europe, I attended the previous Russian elections. There was no doubt that those elections were deeply flawed—Russian elections are deeply flawed—but also no doubt about the popularity of Mr Putin. Had he allowed a fair election, he almost certainly would have been elected, because the ordinary Russian felt that he was restoring some sort of pride to Russia.

There is a deep sense of despair and victimhood about how we treated Russia during the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I do not for a moment condone, defend or accept the annexation of Crimea, but the ordinary Russian remembers that there was an independence referendum in 1992 in which Ukraine voted more than 90% for independence and that there was an independence referendum in Crimea in which more than 90% voted for independence from Ukraine. In their view, Ukraine has always been part of Russia and is largely Russian, although they overlook the suffering of the Tatar people. All those facts are very strong in the Russian psyche, as is the attempt to detach Ukraine—which means borderland in Russian—from mother Russia.

[Mr Seely]

My hon. Friend makes a series of important points and I am glad that he is making them. There are counter-arguments to them that I shall not go over now, but does he believe that one problem is that the Russians simply cannot imagine an independent Ukrainian identity that is separate from Russia? That is one of the driving factors behind the issue.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

No, they cannot imagine that because Kiev is the source of the Rus’ people and the thousand-year-old history of the Russian Orthodox Church, to which Kiev is as much an integral part as Canterbury is to the Anglican communion. They cannot understand Ukraine as an independent entity.

None of this is to condone or in any way defend Russia. What are we going to do about this situation? First, as I said to the Prime Minister, we need to create a coalition of peace through security. Russia would not have been too concerned about the expulsion of 23 diplomats —that is tit for tat—but it would have been very concerned about the fact that the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister have made alliances throughout Europe, that we have been listened to and that these expulsions have been going on today. Russia will be extremely concerned about that.

Secondly, we should not seek to copy Russia’s methods or attack it in the way that it attacks. We should be careful. I know that some Members want to close down RT. I do not defend RT in any shape or form, but we should leave it to Ofcom. We should leave it to due process, not political interference from this place. We should also be careful about what we do in respect of the City of London. It has a reputation throughout the world for fair dealing. We act on evidence. If there is evidence of criminality and dirty money, we must act on it, but we cannot attack Russians who invest in our country and in the City of London simply because they are Russian. That would be a mistake.

What do we do? We make alliances, which we have done, and we expel the diplomats. The point I have been making again and again, with the Chair of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who went way back and quoted Palmerston, is that Russians historically respect strength. We currently have just 800 men in the Baltic states. We have 150 in Poland. It is simply not enough. Surely, history proves to us that in dealing with Russia, words are not enough. Russians want to see action on the ground.

Why did we defeat the USSR in the cold war? It was not with words, but with solid determination to spend what needed to be spent on defence. We have heard the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), and we know the stresses on the defence budget. The Foreign Secretary should echo the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who said in the estimates debate not three weeks ago that spending 2% on defence was not enough. We should make a solid and real commitment to the Baltic states. That is what will concern Mr Putin: the determination to put troops on the ground. I know about all the pressures on the Government that are arising from health and many other things, but unless we are prepared to make that commitment—to do what Mrs Thatcher and President Reagan were prepared to do to bring down the Soviet Union—we will never counter the Russian threat.

Russia is not a natural enemy of our country. It is sometimes difficult to say that in this Chamber. We have had speech after speech condemning Russia. We are two powers at either end of Europe. From the days of Queen Elizabeth I, we have traded together. Russia is not and should not be an existential threat to this country. There has been a lot of talk about cyber-warfare. I have no doubt that Russia is attempting and engaging in cyber-warfare, but I do not believe that it could seriously affect our democracy. We should be proud of our democracy and determined that it is resilient. We must not indulge in Russophobia. We must be proportionate and determined, and we must be prepared to spend on defence what we need to spend.

[Mr Grieve]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I was going to conclude, but I shall take my right hon. and learned Friend’s intervention before I sit down.

[Mr Grieve]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend and think I share many of his sentiments, but the evidence of Russia’s behaviour in cyber-space is of the most extreme recklessness. It is totally outside the international rule of law and raises some very difficult challenges about how we deal with it.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Of course, I would not want for a moment to disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. He knows what is going on and I echo what he says: the Russians are indulging in some attempt to destabilise our values. I make no defence of what they are doing; I just think that we are a sufficiently robust economy and democracy that we can weather it and that they will not change things fundamentally in our country. We should be aware of it, but we should have confidence in our self-reliance.

It is terribly important that we are serious about this subject. There is absolutely no point in our having this debate and attacking President Putin, only for all our attacks to completely wash off the Russian people, who do not want to be an extension of western Europe in their values, economy or anything else. What will have an effect on them? Is it words in this Chamber, or actions on the ground? Are actions on the ground enough? There may be no absolute real and present danger to our country, but there is to the Baltic states, not least because of their very sizable Russian minority.

[Mr Seely]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I must finish now.

There is a very sizable minority of people in those states who are not that well treated. Many Russians believe fervently in their soul that those minorities are not well treated and that President Putin has the right to interfere. We have NATO. The Baltic states are not Ukraine. We must not allow what happened in 1940 to happen to the Baltic states. Therefore, words are not enough. We must will the means. We must spend more on defence and put the troops into the Baltic states.

European Council

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Russia respects strength, and one of the lessons of the 1930s is that it is dangerous to give commitments to eastern Europe unless we back up such commitments with military hardware. Our commitment to the Baltic states is relatively modest; I think we have 800 men in the Baltic states. Will the Prime Minister consider increasing our military commitment and our support for the Baltic states, so that we can build European solidarity on the basis of a coalition of peace through security?

[The Prime Minister]

We do look constantly at the contribution that we are making. My hon. Friend is right that we have several hundred troops in Estonia as part of the enhanced forward presence. We are also contributing in other parts of Europe—to the work that is being done, for example, in Poland. However, we will obviously continue to look at this.