CHOGM, G7 and NATO Summits
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(2 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
We have said before—I certainly have at the Dispatch Box—that we have no quarrel with the Russian people. I am happy to restate that. We will support our Ukrainian friends so that they do not have to suffer in the way that they have, and we will work with President Zelensky to achieve the outcome he wants.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, President Putin has more than once suggested that he stands ready, if he thinks it necessary, to use nuclear weapons in pursuit of the Ukrainian war. Has it been made clear to him that the first use of any such weapons, whether tactical or strategic, is out of bounds, and that any nation taking that step would meet retribution—which in the case of Russia could be terminal?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, we are already in a very fraught situation and I do not think that speculating on such things helps at this point. What we want to do is work with our allies to support the Ukrainians and continue to point out the fallacy and wrongness of what President Putin is currently doing.
Afghanistan
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]
My Lords, whatever history’s verdict on the wisdom, conduct or shambolic conclusion of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, it is hard to overstate the consequences of the victory of the Taliban over the modern military might of the West.
The lightning speed of the Taliban advance may have had two causes. The first is the failure of the West to win the hearts and minds of the rural communities of Afghanistan. This was apparent 12 years ago, in July 2009, when the coalition launched Operation Panther’s Claw to clear the Taliban from Helmand province. Although by that time the coalition claimed to have trained over 90,000 Afghan troops, only some 600 Afghans could be persuaded to join the coalition force of some 15,000. Many of the others just melted away.
Secondly, once President Trump had done his February 2020 deal with the Taliban, the Taliban used the next 17 months for secret negotiations with many provinces to surrender without contest.
During our debate on the Queen’s Speech in May, I suggested that political Islam was one of the most far-reaching threats to global political stability and economic prosperity. Political Islam is that assembly of entities ranging from IS and al-Qaeda to the Taliban, largely schooled in the madrassas of Pakistan, which, in the shade of the Muslim Brotherhood, has hijacked the great Abrahamic religion of Islam to promote and justify jihad for a world caliphate with theocratic government under sharia law. Another Islamist Government in Afghanistan will surely be seen as a further step towards a global caliphate. Britain is now in a much greater danger.
Finally, may I say that I view with concern the proposal of the National Muslim War Memorial Trust to erect in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum a memorial to the Muslims who fell in both world wars? Both were wars between nations, not religions or races. That is why such care was taken to make the Cenotaph in Whitehall so secular and so neutral. There may be separate memorials to the fallen from different nations, regions or even villages; that is different from one to the fallen of one religion. Surely this is not the time to erect on an important publicly owned site a potential shrine to Muslims who have died fighting. Can we risk something which could become a shrine to jihadists?
House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]
My Lords, when asked what the House of Lords is for, I explain that we are a diverse group with an amalgam of knowledge, skill, experience, achievement, imagination, altruism and compassion, which can—with the support of our brilliant staff—come together to contribute wise judgment in the analysis and discussion of public policy and legislation.
One of the most ill-conceived changes during the Covid period slipped through with barely 30 minutes of discussion on 3 November last year. It was to make it compulsory for all Peers to attend two-hour Valuing Everyone training. After talking to many colleagues, I believe that it has been a humiliating and expensive failure. To ask the taxpayer to pay over £1,000 for each of us to be subjected to a syllabus more suited to a secondary school is a rip-off. For example, to try to teach a former Foreign Secretary or Cabinet Secretary how to draft an email is a bad joke. The decree that the failure of any Peer to take the course by 1 April this year would be a breach of conduct, with the threat of expulsion from the House of Lords as a penalty for non-compliance, is a presumptuous absurdity, comparable to Prince Harry telling the Americans that their constitution is “bonkers”. The House was brought into public ridicule, and indeed contempt, when it was revealed that the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd—perhaps our most widely revered colleague—was being investigated for not having taken the course. She had in fact been recovering from heart surgery.
My main concern is the composition of the Conduct Committee that produces this nonsense. Our Select Committees are one of the most valuable features of the House—many people have referred to them today. Their reports are highly respected. Thirty of the 31 committees are composed only of Members of Parliament. Committees are brilliantly serviced by our very able clerks and, where necessary, they will employ specialist advisers to provide expertise. The Conduct Committee has nine members, of whom only five are Members of the House; four are outsiders. I understand that the committee advertised for candidates to fill this role of supervising the personal behaviour of your Lordships. I see little that qualifies those four to be advisers in such a role and nothing that justifies their having the great privilege of membership of a Select Committee. I hope that the Commission, or whoever it may be, will review and reverse that innovation. I fear that, along with Covid, the virus of woke has infiltrated Westminster. I call its arrogant intolerance social fascism.
Brexit: Negotiations
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(5 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I can certainly take the noble Lord’s comments back. As I say, we are working very hard with the Irish Government. One of the first people the Prime Minister spoke to yesterday was the Taoiseach and there will be further discussions. We are very cognisant of the unique circumstances of Northern Ireland. I have tried to reiterate to noble Lords the importance we place on the Good Friday agreement and all the benefits that have flowed from that. I am very happy to reiterate that to my colleagues and the Prime Minister.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I have spent quite a lot of my life observing and taking the temperature of the House of Commons. Does my noble friend agree that the change today was quite remarkable? I would not be at all surprised if there was consensus to at least support the new approach the Government have taken. That approach has several alternatives within it and, at any rate, is a base which did not seem to exist before. Would it have been helpful, if it had been obtainable, to have had a debate and a vote in the other place in which there could have been some endorsement of the Government’s approach before the meeting of the Council of Ministers?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Watching the exchanges in the House of Commons, it certainly felt like there was a more constructive tone than we perhaps saw last week. This is an extremely difficult situation. As I said, we are bringing forward these new proposals because we want a deal. We want to try to ensure that we have an agreement that can be passed by the House of Commons and that can mean we have a strong relationship with the EU going forward. I think that was recognised in quite a few of the contributions from across the House of Commons today. I very much hope we can build on that going forward. I hope we can build on it with our EU colleagues as we begin this next round of very intensive talks to hopefully break this deadlock, get a deal and move on to talking about the constructive relationship that we want going forward.
Business of the House
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord True
Our proceedings are filmed. He moved the closure on a fundamental question of procedure in this House without any opportunity for anybody to respond when it was clear that other noble Lords, including one noble Lord with extensive experience of presiding over the House of Commons, wished to contribute. I will not talk about repentance, because I saw four or five right reverend Prelates move in to support the principle of a guillotine—they clearly do not like dissent in their pews; they are not quite in the Anglican tradition—but I believe we might see some repentance from the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip and that he will not on this amendment, which allows the House—
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My noble friend referred to the Lords Spiritual. That is quite interesting, because I noted this morning that the learned judge in Scotland in dismissing the case said that this question was not one for the judiciary, but a matter of high politics. I am a little surprised that the Lords Spiritual want to engage so actively in high politics.
Lord True
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his intervention. However, returning to the fundamental point, are we really going to allow the acceptance of the principle of a guillotine to go forward without any dissenting voice being allowed? What the Liberal Democrat—democrat—Chief Whip offered the House was a guillotine of a guillotine. We started off today with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, saying that there will be no developments, no further guillotines and that nothing will happen. We have moved from the presentation of the most draconian guillotine Motion ever seen in this House to a Cross-Bencher who wished to put some points about the principle of the matter being closed down from a sedentary position by the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip—a guillotine of a guillotine. In the long proceedings I anticipate on this there may well be many occasions when it might be apt to intervene. I do not like to see the closure used, but it might be understandable. For my part as a parliamentarian—
Lord Marlesford
After first “Commons” to insert “, and in recognition of the fact that the vote of 17.4 million people in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union is no longer relevant and may be ignored or further deferred”.
Lord Marlesford
My Lords, my noble friend Lord True asked me to speak to this amendment; it is an interesting amendment to speak to. The amendment relates particularly to the 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit and the effect of this guillotine on them. I point out that fact because, in the past, noble Lords have not always read the amendment. As the amendment says, it comes,
“in recognition of the fact that the vote of 17.4 million people in the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union is no longer relevant and may be ignored or further deferred”.
That is a very depressing situation for those people. They are not following the intricacies of what is happening in your Lordships’ House today. They will be as mystified as some of us are. None the less, all I can say is that a dangerous impression is being given by today’s proceedings and, to some extent, by yesterday’s proceedings in another place: that the view of the people is being ignored through Parliament’s hijacking of what they said. I suggest that that will have an interesting ripple effect if and when an election takes place, not least because the terms of an election have changed—in recent hours, almost.
Not long ago, the movement was for a fresh referendum. At that stage, the discussion was all about what the question in the referendum should be. In fact, the Brexit side worried considerably about whether the question would divide the Brexit vote. This morning, of course, Sir Keir Starmer, on behalf of the Labour Party, gave a clear, unequivocal and, I hope, binding view that, in a general election, the Labour Party would campaign to remain. By doing so, he has succeeded in dividing the remain vote because, in that situation, the remain vote will be divided between the Liberal Democrats, who have always believed in remain, and the Labour Party, which has not always believed in remain. In fact, it has been very difficult to know what it does believe in. Perhaps we ought to look at the backdrop to all this. Why on earth are we in this position at all? I had better declare my own position very clearly, in case it is of interest to anyone: in the referendum I voted, marginally, to leave. If there were to be another vote or referendum, I would vote enthusiastically to leave because of what I believe has been happening in Europe. I would like to remind noble Lords of the backdrop to all our discussions.
In my view, the EU project is proving a tragic example of weakness through strength. The original purpose of bringing peace to a war-torn Europe in the treaty of Rome 1957 was achieved long ago. The successor objective of bringing together for free trade and economic collaboration an enthusiastic group of like-minded democratic European countries to enhance their mutual stability and prosperity was a success for many years. As President de Gaulle famously described it in 1962, the year in which the common agricultural policy was launched, it was meant to be a group of nation states retaining their cultures and their legal, political and national identities and traditions: a “Europe des patries” or “Europe des nations”—I think he used both phrases.
Lord Marlesford
I am afraid I do not agree at all. If the noble and learned Lord is proposing to move the closure of my speech, let him go ahead and do so. I wish to make my own speech, and I do not wish to be told by him what or what not to say. Is that clear? I thank him very much.
At any rate, it was not until Maastricht that we attempted to have in Europe a policy similar to the rights of states; it was spelled out in many pages of Brussels jargon that the EU should not assume powers better exercised at national level. By then it was too late, but since then the Eurocrats have had many happy hours finding exceptions to limit the impact of subsidiarity. The introduction of a single currency without central economic government was always a challenge. The European Central Bank, established in June 1998, has done a fine job, with distinguished and successful presidents who have resisted the pressure to accommodate political priorities of individual euro states. The introduction of European monetary union, with fixed exchange rates in January 1999, paved the way for a smooth final arrival, three years later, of a single currency—the euro—for 300 million people. Since then, the ECB has successfully coped with the difficulties.
The problem of the EU—the problem that has caused all this to happen, from 2016 up to and including today—is that the EU Commission, based in Brussels, has one nationally appointed Commissioner for every country, and every Commissioner is expected to subordinate their national interest to the collective good. The Commission has the sole right to propose new European legislation. It has sought to aggregate to itself more and more power. In theory, the Commission is answerable to the European Council of Ministers representing the national Governments at the head or departmental level. In practice, everything is sorted out behind the scenes by Commission officials in consultation. Many states have been unhappy for a very long time at the way in which the Commission has been behaving. I believe that is the main reason why there has been such an enfeebling of the European Union.
Lord True
I declare an interest as a part-time resident of Italy, as my noble friend knows and the House will know. Does he agree that the points he is making are exemplified by what we have seen lately in Italy, where unelected Commissioners descend and lecture elected Governments about what budget they might be allowed to present? Even more recently, an effective parliamentary coup—something we may get used to this country shortly—has taken place to install an unelected Government.
Lord Marlesford
Yes, indeed. Of course, all that is what caused David Cameron to call a referendum in the first place. One must realise that when we voted to leave the EU, the Commission was outraged. It was also fearful. Once one country had taken such a step, others might follow and the whole edifice could come crashing down. Methodically and skilfully, it set about making the UK’s departure either impossible or too difficult and expensive to pursue. In this it had the collaboration of senior British civil servants, who had been equally shocked by the referendum result. The Commission has repeatedly made it clear that there are no circumstances in which the withdrawal agreement offered to Mrs May in November 2018 and subsequently, as we all know, rejected three times by the House of Commons—by the British Parliament—will be reopened for further negotiation.
The main sticking point has been the land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The EU Commission has insisted on a so-called backstop clause in the withdrawal agreement, which—this has been said and cannot be said too often—could mean that the UK would have to remain indefinitely in the EU customs union to avoid a hard border. Absurdly, it is felt by both sides that a hard border of any sort could cause the fighting between the two sides to start again. I simply do not believe that is true. The traumatic effect of the fighting was far too great. The Good Friday agreement, which took place with the help of the Americans, is much safer than people think.
The obvious example is an invisible sea border. It is interesting that only today—this is all happening now and is relevant to the legislation—it is suggested that it might be possible to have one island for the purpose of agricultural trade. If we were to have one island for agricultural trade, in my view, and presumably in the view of those who put forward this idea, this does not break the concept or idea of having a Northern Ireland which is part of the UK. I therefore hope very much that this could be extended to all sides. That would be very much better.
Mrs May, who was respected for her fortitude but not admired for her lack of flexibility in negotiating, has landed us in a state where we have to discuss this emergency legislation today. The Conservatives suffered a crushing defeat in the May elections for the European Parliament—the Labour Party even more so. That is why we have had a change of Prime Minister. The Labour Party is in even greater difficulties, largely because its leader, Mr Corbyn—this is totally relevant to the legislation that the House of Commons is in the process of passing—has been unable to make it clear whether he believes in staying or leaving.
I happen to know why that is the case. I read the Morning Star rather regularly. On 18 January this year, an article headed “Communists slam plots to halt Brexit” quoted the Communist Party’s political committee. The general secretary of the Communist Party, Mr Robert Griffiths—in case noble Lords did not know his name—said,
“We may well see Article 50 extended, allowing extra time either to renovate Prime Minister May’s ‘bogus Brexit’ deal or to hold a second referendum in the hope that almost three years of hysterical anti-Brexit scaremongering will reverse the results of the first … In any event, the aim will be the same: to maintain Britain’s subjection to pro-big business EU rules that would obstruct the policies of a future left-led Labour Government”.
Below, there is a lovely advertisement, “Corbyn and the Star”, offering a T-shirt which bears,
“the two great left symbols of our era—Jeremy Corbyn and the Morning Star”.
Lord Marlesford
I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, would have realised that we were trying to make clear the implications of the guillotine Motion which we are discussing, which is an extremely arrogant Motion.
Lord Willoughby de Broke
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, for clarifying the issue for the noble Lord, Lord Harris.
The fact is that this House too often forgets the result of the referendum. I must correct the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, on one very small point. David Cameron did indeed legislate for the referendum, but only because of the electoral pressure he was under from UKIP. I am delighted that my noble friend Lord Pearson is here tonight. We had the referendum because the then Conservative leadership was frightened of losing even more voters and MPs to UKIP.
Passing on from that, the Brexit voters in the referendum have continually been misrepresented as a lot of ignorant backwoodsmen. Of course, that is not the case at all. A huge number of people voted to leave. We have heard the cries from noble Lords who are not here now—the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, and others—for a people’s vote. I thought that the referendum was probably the biggest people’s vote we have ever had. I remember sitting in the Chamber in April when it was said that we needed another people’s vote and all the banners outside said: “Let’s have a people’s vote”. Well, in June, we did have another people’s vote. We had the European elections, when the Brexit Party smashed every other party to smithereens. It got twice the number of votes of the Conservative and Labour parties put together. I congratulate the Liberal Democrats, who got 17% of the vote, just under half the Brexit Party vote.
The idea that leaving the EU is some oddball movement and that Brexiteers are deranged is far from the truth. I hope the Government will understand that. I hope the Prime Minister understands that and continues the course that he has set so far. I believe it is important that the House accepts the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, because it makes it quite clear what this is all about. It is about Brexit. In the end, this whole arrangement and this debate today are about Brexit. It is about why people voted to leave and not letting them down. I support the amendment.
Lord Marlesford
I very much echo what my noble friend says. It is a disgrace that the closure Motion is constantly moved, and on one occasion—after the brilliant speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech—before anybody else had any chance of commenting. The Liberal Benches did it; they have not apologised and they should. Then, to make it all worse, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Goldsmith, took it upon himself to tell me what I should and should not say in my speech.
Lord Goldsmith
I may have given the noble Lord advice, but I did not expect him to take it.
Leaving the European Union
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(5 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I think the noble Baroness did hear it wrongly. I am happy to write to her.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that, on Sunday, we may have a clearer view of the British people’s opinion on whether we should leave after the European elections, which I suspect are being treated by very many voters as a referendum?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I suspect that each side will interpret the European election results as they wish, as we saw with the local election results, so I am not sure that I can agree entirely with my noble friend.
Business of the House
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Hamilton of Epsom
Quite clearly they are different sorts of Bills: either private Bills or public Bills. That is pretty obvious. This one seems to be a private Bill, which, as my noble friend Lord Forsyth pointed out, did not even have anybody’s name on it when it appeared here because it had not had its First Reading. We are breaking all our rules to try to introduce this Bill, in a vain attempt to try to change the price of fish over these negotiations. What the Bill actually does is make life more difficult for my right honourable friend the Prime Minister, rather than easier. Why we would want to meddle around in this way, and mess about with our constitutional arrangements, I cannot understand. However, if the one good thing to come out of this is that the usual channels are at last starting to work again in your Lordships’ House, then we have something to be thankful for.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly, following up the words of my noble friend Lord Lawson about the impact on public opinion of the procedures in Parliament in relation to this Bill, which could be very serious. The example I give to noble Lords is that of France, once our hereditary enemy, now our great friend. Why is it that France is so much harder to manage and govern than Britain? Let me give the obvious example. If public protests in Britain turn into violent riots, the public do not like it. Even if they agree with the original cause, they tend to tell Parliament to sort it out. When that happens in France, the French Government normally have two choices: send in the CRS to break their heads, or give in. They usually give in. It is extremely difficult for the French. This all dates back to 1789—
Lord Marlesford
It dates back to the French Revolution, and the failure of the then very inefficient monarchical Government, the Estates General. They met on 5 May and split, and the Third Estate—the people —went off to the tennis court and objected. The result was that, a few days later, the Bastille was stormed. The King was executed in February 1792, then came a year of terror between July 1793 and July 1794, which ended when Robespierre was guillotined. The French, therefore, are very conscious of the inadequacies of their form of government and of their Parliament.
Recently, seeking an outsider to run the show, they elected President Macron. They did not know very much about him, but they have now woken up to the fact that, far from being an outsider, he is actually the archetypal insider. They have shown their annoyance and rage through the gilets jaunes. We should consider the impact of this legislation—or rather, of the way it is being handled—on public opinion, because we do not want gilets jaunes here.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the Constitution Committee. I would like to make a brief intervention. Thanks to the sterling efforts of the committee, our learned clerk and our legal adviser, Professor Mark Elliott, overnight we were able to produce a brief report, which I want to refer to, because it is mentioned in this amendment.
The report was very much a rushed attempt. In the early hours of this morning I sought to rewrite parts of it, but the clerk explained to me that, sadly, my rewriting had been blocked by the spam filter on his machine. Therefore, I thought I better just add a couple of words to explain. The Constitution Committee has always sought to advise the House on fast-track legislation. Indeed, there are one or two Members of the House who served on the committee when it produced the 15th report in the 2008-09 session, Fast-track Legislation: Constitutional Implications and Safeguards. I would like to see a little more reference during the course of this debate to the fact that we warned people that fast-tracking should take place only in exceptional circumstances. It behoves everyone in this place to demonstrate that these are exceptional circumstances.
We also sought to emphasise the need for effective parliamentary scrutiny. We set this out in our report. However, as a member of the Select Committee, I would have preferred far more time to get into more detail. I therefore refer the House to a brilliant analysis of this Bill by Professor Mark Elliott, Public Law for Everyone. Before we proceed any further, we should be aware that this is, in a number of respects, a defective Bill, and we have to be very careful how we proceed.
It was acknowledged in the other place by Oliver Letwin—the previous acting Prime Minister, before the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, took on the role—that there were drafting difficulties. He explained that it did not really matter very much because these would be dealt with and considered,
“in the Lords stages of the Bill”—[Official Report, Commons, 3/4/19; col. 1064]
Therefore, we must ensure that we have enough time to look into those defects. Trying to take all the stages of this Bill in one day, which is what the noble Baroness would have us do, may lead to us enacting defective legislation.
I am very grateful to the Printed Paper Office for making available our report, Fast-track Legislation: Constitutional Implications and Safeguards. I hope noble Lords will look at it before we proceed very much further with the Bill. It is necessary reading if we are to undertake this unusual attempt to fast-track a Private Member’s Bill.
We identified a key constitutional principle, as set out on page 8:
“The need to ensure that effective parliamentary scrutiny is maintained in all situations. Can effective scrutiny still be undertaken when the progress of bills is fast-tracked, even to the extent of taking multiple stages in one day?”
We went on to say that another fundamental constitutional principle was:
“The need to maintain ‘good law’—i.e. to ensure that the technical quality of all legislation is maintained and improved”.
We then asked:
“Is there any evidence that the fast-tracking of legislation has led to ‘bad law’”?
We as a House have to ensure that we do not enact bad law as a result of fast-tracking. That is all I wanted to say.
As I explained in a previous debate, I object to the idea that there should be a second referendum when it was the second referendum that created this problem in the first place. I do not want to stray too much, but I was the chairman of the Conservative Group for Europe in 1975, and I fought hard in the first referendum and fought hard again in the second referendum. I say to every Member of the House, whatever their strong feelings on this issue, for heaven’s sake, please do not let us have a third referendum. Let us get this sorted out. Let us respect the result of the second referendum but make sure that we do so by passing good legislation.
G20 Summit
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, although we can indeed strike new trade deals when we leave the EU on 31 March, is not the bitter truth that they remain no-deals until they can be implemented, and that they will not be able to be implemented until the implementation period ends and we have not joined the backstop?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
As I have said, during the implementation period we will be able to negotiate, sign and ratify trade deals, and we will be able to bring these into effect after the implementation period. If the backstop were ever to come into effect—which of course no one on either side wants—we would be able to enact those aspects of trade agreements that do not affect the functioning of the backstop, such as services, investment, financial services and digital.
European Council
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, do the Government recognise that, on Russia, we probably face the same challenge this March as we did 72 years ago? In February 1946, the great Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, denounced the Soviet system and all its works and a few days later George Kennan sent the famous “long telegram” to America to say that the choice was either to contain the Soviet Union or to confront it. The decision two years later, setting up NATO, was of course to contain. Do the Government favour containing or confronting Mr Putin?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I think the actions today of our European partners and friends, in addition to those that we have taken, show that we will stand firm in the face of what has happened and Russia’s reckless behaviour. Unfortunately, the Salisbury incident is part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive Russian behaviour and represents a new and dangerous phase in its activity. That is why measures have been taken now and why the Council has agreed further measures and to come back to this at the next meeting in June, with Foreign Ministers being tasked to report back ahead of the next Council. Once again, we are very grateful for the support, not just of our European partners but the United States, Canada and Ukraine, who have also taken action today.
Salisbury Incident
Lord Marlesford Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank the noble Lord for his very constructive comments, and I agree with them. The noble Lord sitting in front of him asked earlier in the week about Russia Today. As I said then, any revoking of a broadcasting licence is a matter for Ofcom, which obviously has stringent rules relating to ensuring that news is reported accurately and impartially. The noble Lord is right, however: Russia enjoys a near monopoly over Russian-language media across the post-Soviet space and uses it to spread disinformation. It is as important as ever that Russian speakers have a choice in the media that they consume and are able to access reliable and objective information. So, in addition to BBC Russia, we will be investing about £8 million next year in supporting public service and independent media operating in the Russian language.
Lord Marlesford (Con)
My Lords, I must wonder how this incredibly dangerous substance got into the UK. Given the Government’s conclusions overall, one cannot but speculate that the Russian Government may have abused the Vienna conventions on the immunity of diplomatic bags to bring it in. It is not the sort of thing that you bring in on an aeroplane and hope will not be detected at customs. Are there any provisions by which the immunities for Russian diplomatic bags could be suspended?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Obviously this is an ongoing investigation, and I am afraid I cannot comment on those particular issues.