UK Democratic System: Interference by Russia

Lord Garel-Jones Excerpts

Monday 2nd July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Baroness raises a series of important issues. On the general theme, perhaps I may remind noble Lords of what the Prime Minister said in her post-Salisbury Commons speech. She said that,

“led by the National Crime Agency, we will continue to bring all the capabilities of UK law enforcement to bear against serious criminals and corrupt elites. There is no place for these people or their money in our country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/3/18; col. 859.]

More specifically on Magnitsky, the noble Baroness will recall that the House recently debated the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act, which gives us powers to sanction individuals or entities to promote compliance with international human rights laws. That will allow us to take a range of actions against those suspected of gross human rights abuse such as that committed against Sergei Magnitsky. She will also know that we introduced unexplained wealth orders from the beginning of this year, some of which I understand have already been used where individuals have a standard of living which cannot on the face of it be explained by their declared income. This is an issue that we take seriously. We have introduced a number of other measures, including action taken under other legislation, to bring to justice those who have committed any offence.

[Lord Garel-Jones (Con)]

My Lords, given the open society in which we live, can my noble friend the Minister tell the House which areas of that society are particularly vulnerable to attacks of this kind and what, if anything, we can do to diminish that danger?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, outlined a few moments ago the sorts of dangers that are run. Vulnerabilities could include the covert funding of political parties or movements in another country, the hacking or leaking of emails in order to discredit particular individuals or their parties, and the distribution of fake news. After the Salisbury incident the Kremlin put out 30 different stories about how it happened. Fortunately, the Government’s response, explaining that Russia had the means and the motivation, commanded international credibility, as we saw from the diplomatic response to that incident.