Restoration and Renewal Programme Board

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Wednesday 22nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

£9 million is it now? You see, it has gone up £2 million since yesterday. We have been putting up scaffolding all around the place, spending millions and millions of pounds, but this building will never be satisfactory. It will never be good for people to get around and do a proper job.

I mean no disrespect to those who have been suggested as members. They are excellent. They are all younger than me, particularly my noble friend Lord Collins. Of course, the Clerk of the Parliaments is the youngest of all; he is the baby of the lot. The other two are only in their 70s. Will they still be around when we even get to the next stage of this hilarious—no, not hilarious: awful—exercise that we are undergoing at the moment? At some point, is someone going to say that this is all going in the wrong direction and we should not be doing it? In the 21st century, a modern and dynamic country, as the United Kingdom purports to be, ought to have a modern, dynamic parliament building and make this into a museum, which it could be appropriately.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I am not looking to join the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, in his garden shed across the way, but there is a very real issue of accountability. We are already talking about millions and millions of pounds. Nobody is quite clear how this has happened. I am delighted that we have a new commission. Who is making the decisions and when will they be made accountable to Parliament for this huge spending of public money that a lot of us disagree with?

Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, first, I sincerely thank the Government and the Opposition Whips for agreeing that there should be some extra time for this important debate, in light of the current situation. I also thank the Minister for his introduction and for the helpful conversations we have had informally. I hope that he will take the opportunity of listening to the debate—I know he always does—and then passing on some comments and suggestions to his colleagues in the FCDO and to the Prime Minister—and I hope he may be able to answer some questions without pre-judging what the Prime Minister might say later.

The situation is unpredictable. Today is a really dark day for Ukraine, and for Europe and the world as a whole, because the future is now terribly unpredictable. I know some Ukrainian MPs who are delegates to the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, as my noble friend does as well, and I fear for them. They will be among the targets if things go wrong in Ukraine, because they have stood up at the Council of Europe and elsewhere and fought the cause of Ukraine very valiantly.

It is clear that the current sanctions have not deterred Putin. The Foreign Secretary said—I think rather infelicitously—that some sanctions had to be “left in the locker”. It is now clear that, while they have been in the locker, they have had little or no effect. So we must now immediately extend our sanctions, and I am glad that the Minister has indicated that that is the intention. We must intensify our co-ordination with the United States, the European Union and other countries.

First, I suggest that we need to expand the list of Russian oligarchs subject to sanctions. The European Union unanimously agreed to target 27 individuals and entities who are playing a role in

“undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.

Yet, so far, we have sanctioned only five banks and three Russian billionaires. We must extend to at least the European Union’s 27—and beyond, I hope.

The Minister has indicated in a letter to us all that the Government are planning to introduce legislation to prevent the Russian Government from raising finance. This needs to be done urgently. I ask the Minister: can he confirm that this legislation will be brought before both Houses of Parliament at a very early opportunity, so that it is not allowed to drag on?

We should also introduce export controls on Russia, stopping shipments to Russia of microchips, computers, consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment and other items made anywhere in the world if they were produced using US, UK or EU technology. Most importantly of all, we must disconnect Russia from SWIFT. Russia is heavily reliant on SWIFT due to its multibillion exports of hydrocarbons denominated in US dollars. The cut-off would terminate all international transactions, trigger currency volatility and cause massive capital outflows. In my view, and the view of people far more expert than me, it would probably be the most effective action we could take—yet it has not even been mentioned by the Government so far.

We should also sanction luxury property in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

Hear, hear.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

I am grateful for that support from the other side. Russian businesspeople and officials accused of corruption or links to the Kremlin own at least 150 huge properties in the UK, worth £1.5 billion, according to Transparency International. I accept that there would be some difficulties in doing this, and it would require significantly more resources for our law enforcement agencies, but it should be looked at and I think it should be done.

I also agree that we should target the members of the Duma, the Senate and the Presidential Council. The Minister has indicated that they are compiling evidence, but I hope they will do it quickly because, unlike the oligarchs, they actually advise Putin. Sanctioning the western luxuries they all enjoy—I have seen them enjoy property, schooling and holidays in Europe and the US—will cause a groundswell of discontent. I see some of them as Russian delegates at the Council of Europe. They are parroting the words of Putin; they are his voices in the Council of Europe. I will come back to that in a minute. Mr Tolstoy and Mr Kalashnikov —strange names, but they are very familiar—are hardliners and people we should be dealing with. The only likely way that Putin can be replaced is by people in Russia, and I hope we can make sure that pressure is put on them to do that.

We should also look to provide further lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine and neighbouring nations such as Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. We could assist further with intelligence surveillance reports. I know from my time on the Intelligence and Security Committee how good our intelligence agencies are. We can do that without directly entering the conflict and sending troops.

Finally, the leader of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe, John Howell MP, has suggested that we should now expel Russia from the Council. That is a move I would support, as one of the UK delegates to the parliamentary assembly. I hope the Minister, who has the Council of Europe in one of his many and increasing responsibilities, will look at this, because it needs to be done in a co-ordinated way— not just by the parliamentary assembly but by the Governments of the 46 other countries.

Putin needs to know that we are going to take these strong actions and take them now to stop him in his tracks and prevent any further aggression and the inevitable bloodshed that will result. I move this amendment.

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly. I take comfort from what my noble friend the Minister has said and pay tribute to the resolve being shown by the Prime Minister and the Government—but they need to do more, as the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has said.

This is not new. Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 not a mile from here; Salisbury, Skripal, et cetera, took place in 2018; the invasion of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, took place in 2008, and Crimea in 2014. We must understand the pattern here. As the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I think my noble friend the Minister agree, we must take action now and it must be really dramatic.

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Lord Robathan and Lord Foulkes of Cumnock

Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan]

My Lords, I agree entirely with the noble Baroness that referendums are a bad idea, and I am surprised that everyone else in the Chamber does not agree, especially those on the Liberal Democrat Benches.

Nevertheless, we had a referendum and, as the most reverend Primate said, it was a binary choice: yes or no. People knew what they were voting for, and they voted to leave the EU. It is unbecoming and, if I may say so, patronising of people to attribute to the individuals of this nation the reasons for how they voted. Personally, in 1975 I voted to stay in and some 40 years later, with my experience of the EU, I voted to take back control of this country and put it in the hands of the British people. That is what I have done, and that is what I suspect that most people are expecting from us. It is patronising to suggest that people did not know what they were voting for.

The logic to which the noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred is this: what would happen if in a second referendum the people of this country rejected the Government’s negotiating position? No one has an answer to that, so I would say that there must be a third referendum, but I would not particularly want to get into that.

Finally, perhaps I may direct my friends on the Liberal Democrat Benches—I count them as friends and I hope that they count me as a friend from time to time—to an article published in the Times yesterday by a man called Edward Lucas, who outed himself as a Liberal Democrat—I did not realise he was until then—which suggested that this is part of reinvigorating the fortunes of the Liberal Democrats. I would say the contrary. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggested that there might be corrosive and justifiable anger, but the great British people have had their referendum and they do not want another one. So we should just ignore this amendment and carry on.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I came into this Chamber genuinely unsure about which way to vote and whether to support the amendment. My noble friend Lord Grocott may laugh, but it is a genuine feeling. He and I have known each other for a long time and I hope he will accept that, in relation to this particular amendment, it is a genuine feeling. I support Amendment 3 very strongly indeed.

I am not sure that the debate has helped me, because we have heard eloquent speeches on both sides, by my noble friend Lord Morgan and by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. I intervened on the noble Lord, Lord Newby, because of my reservations about the referendum itself: the fact that 16 and 17 year-olds were not allowed to vote; that EU citizens were not allowed to vote; that there was no threshold; and the uncertainty about whether it was advisory or mandatory. All of that created a huge problem.