European Union Referendum: Alleged Russian Interference

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the first question, the noble Lord will know that it is for the Electoral Commission to investigate any alleged irregularities concerning the referendum. It has already published a decision on Leave.EU and fined that body £70,000. Investigations continue into allegations that Vote Leave avoided the cap on election expenditure on the referendum by channelling resources into another, linked organisation, and that is a matter for the Electoral Commission to resolve. As far as the outcome is concerned, 1.3 million more people voted to leave than to remain, and I am not sure that one can attribute that fairly substantial margin to the activities of the Russian bots or, indeed, any other outside agencies.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, there is absolutely no doubt that the Russians are behaving in a dangerous and threatening way in cyberspace: we know that and it is a real threat to Europe. The noble Lord was no doubt celebrating yesterday the victory of 203 years ago, when we thrashed the French, in conjunction with the Prussians, at Waterloo; and the victory of 100 years ago this week, when, with the French, we thrashed the Germans at the second Battle of the Marne. We have expended a huge amount of blood and treasure on European security. Does the Minister not believe, in view of that, that the decision on Galileo is quite extraordinary?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If I may focus on the first part of the noble Lord’s question, which is about Russian involvement in covert activities, he may know that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which two noble Lords sit, is currently investigating Russian involvement in the 2016 referendum and the 2017 general election. It makes sense to allow that important inquiry to be completed, and then we will have a clearer view of the impact, if any, of Russian involvement in the election, which is the subject of this Question. So far as Galileo is concerned, I commend the noble Lord’s ingenuity but I have listened to fellow Ministers give very adequate answers on Galileo and I will not attempt to rise to that level.

Government Vehicles: Procurement

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 1st May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord raises a valid point. The Government’s industrial strategy, which was published a few months ago, says that the Government are providing industry with visibility in terms of potential procurement opportunities across 19 sectors, of which this is one. Improving pre-procurement dialogue is a key part of that process. I know that my noble friend the Minister at the Department for Transport and her colleagues are in touch with the automotive industry to make sure that it can respond to the challenges that are behind many of the questions that I have been asked this afternoon.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister spotted that the word “fleet” got me rather excited, but my question relates to procurement. I have concerns, after my time in government, that departments play shops. For a particular department, it might make sense to go for a cheaper option, but the totality of the real cost for the country is never properly calculated by the Treasury. For example, not giving work to a certain factory means that it will go bust and we will have to pay money for unemployment and retraining, but these things are never taken into the calculation. We are very bad, sometimes, about making an overall decision about what is the best value for money for the nation, rather than a shortcut for a particular department. Is the Minister happy that the Treasury takes those factors into account when fleet—I am talking about car fleets, sadly—decisions are made?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The Government try to use their purchasing power to get the best value for money when it comes to investing in these vehicles. The Crown Commercial Service aggregates, through the vehicle purchase e-auction programme, the requirements across all government departments. It then has what is called a reverse auction three or four times a year to get the best bids for the vehicles that it needs. When it commissions the vehicles, it looks at the overall cost, not just the upfront cost. The contracts quite often go further than just the purchase and include servicing and repairs throughout the life of the vehicle.

Terrorism: Public Alert Technology

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I hate to disappoint the noble Lord but the introduction of ID cards is not on the Government’s agenda at the moment, nor do I think it will be in the near future.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, what advice does the Civil Contingencies Secretariat now give to households in case of emergencies? Until about 10 years ago quite detailed advice was given. Has this been updated recently and what provisions, et cetera, should households have in place should there be a crisis, particularly something affecting cyber and delivery, for example?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I may need to write to the noble Lord on that and how it relates to the civil contingencies unit. In some parts of the country there are arrangements whereby if there is an emergency, the landlines of those who live in the immediate vicinity are automatically contacted and they are given a message. But I would like to do some more work on the specific question the noble Lord asked and then write to him.

Meetings with Ministers

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, behind this, there is a serious issue. Democracy in this country depends on political parties. If there is to be a choice at a general election, we need a range of financially viable, credible political parties which train and nurture the people who lead this country and which provide an opportunity for engagement and debate at a national and local level. Given the limited taxpayer appetite to fund those activities and that political parties need to be resourced, we should be cautious about denigrating those who support political parties. We should encourage more people to join and financially support the political party that most closely reflects their values.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, is there not a fantastic opportunity here for a cross-party competition with listed politicians, to see who would pay most money not to have a meal with those politicians?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

In the past, when I put up as a prize a meal with myself, my wife made absolutely certain that she bought it.

Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2018

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I speak from an intelligence background. Does the Minister agree that when one looks at patterns of operation, the way in which this whole affair has been dealt with by Russia is exactly the same way as it dealt with similar things when it was the Soviet Union—particularly its normal, KGB-type way of reacting and acting when these sorts of things happen?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with the noble Lord. It is very disappointing that these practices have reappeared in the Soviet Union and have damaged our relationship with that country.

My noble friend Lord Robathan asked what we were doing to stop Russian criminals from exploiting the UK financial system. He may know that we passed the Criminal Finances Act 2017, which introduced criminal offences relating to companies that failed to prevent tax evasion. We made a commitment at the 2016 Anti-Corruption Summit to publish an anti-corruption strategy, setting out a work plan through to 2022. We have created a new National Economic Crime Centre within the National Crime Agency to bring together all our capabilities to fight economic crime, including the specific instances mentioned by my noble friend.

My noble friend may also know that we recently introduced unexplained wealth orders, so in addition to the action we have taken to deal with money laundering—such as the register of beneficial owners—we have taken powers to require people who own property that would ordinarily be beyond their obvious means to prove how they lawfully acquired it. On 31 January this year, the regulations that introduced UWOs came into force. A UWO requires a person who is reasonably suspected of involvement in—or connection to someone involved in—serious crime to explain the nature and extent of their interests in a particular property and to explain how the property was obtained where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the respondent’s known, lawfully obtained income would be insufficient to allow the respondent to obtain the property.

The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked whether cryptocurrency was included. In Schedule 2 of the order, “funds” is fairly embracing, meaning,

“including (but not limited to) … gold, cash, cheques, claims on money”,

et cetera, and Schedule 4, which deals with freezing prohibitions, refers to,

“making available the proceeds of realisation of property belonging to a specified person, and … making a payment to or for the benefit of a specified person”.

So my advice is that the order includes cryptocurrency. I agree with the noble Baroness that it is unlikely that these individuals will come to the UK or indeed that they have any assets in the UK.

The freezing order applies to overseas banks. The noble Baroness asked a more specific question about shell companies. I would like to write to her about that, but if the money from a shell company went through a bank, it would be caught by the order. She also asked about the delay in introducing the freezing order. She will know that there was a sequence of events—the inquiry that culminated, eventually, in the Sir Robert Owen inquiry. It was some time before we knew who to go for after the tragic death of Litvinenko. I agree with what she and other noble Lords said about the widow, Mrs Litvinenko.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, has had to wait two years for an answer to the question that he asked last time. The Government decided not to implement asset-freezing orders against those individuals mentioned in the letter under this legislation with the exception of Lugovoy and Kovtun but, as was indicated in 2016, a number of individuals on the list provided by Mrs Litvinenko’s lawyers have been designated for other reasons under sanctions relating to Crimea and activities in Ukraine. There is an ongoing police investigation into the two individuals that we discuss this evening.

I will have to write to the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, in answer to his questions about the total volume of assets frozen under freezing orders. I think he went just beyond the order that we debate this evening and his question applied to all freezing orders, so I will write to him. I am sorry if I have not answered all the questions raised by noble Lords. I will write in respect of those that I have not been able to answer.

Personal Identity Cards

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think exit checks were reintroduced in May 2015. I will correct that in writing if that is not the case. The Government want tourists to be able to visit this country and not spend a disproportionate time going through passport or visa control. The last statistics I saw a few weeks ago indicated that the average time it takes to get through passport control was coming down, but I take note of the noble Lord’s representations. I agree that we should allow people to come in without undue delay.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister has not addressed the issue, which is that the Government are undertaking work at the moment and have tasked businesses with coming up with options to provide a means of identifying yourself online by using a card with biometrics. If you have a biometric card which identifies you, which is being used so that you can get online to all the government services we want to put online, what do you call it? It seems to me that it is an identity card. If we have one, why can we not use it more thoroughly?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think what you call it is a voluntary system, as opposed to a compulsory one.

Parliament and Central Government: Relocation

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister think there might be merit in building a purpose-built ship, which would help British shipbuilders and British steel, could visit various parts of England when needed—and would be quite useful during recesses as well?

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen]

I think this is an excellent idea. The only problem is that I only have to step on a ship and I feel very seasick, so I might not be able to take part. As long as it was full of admirals, I am sure we would be in agreement.

Cyberattack: UK Defences

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

I can confirm that and draw the noble Lord’s attention to paragraph 7.7 on page 82 of the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review, which sets out a very nice organogram for who is responsible for what.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that the firing chain for Trident is air-gapped in its entirety, as it certainly was until 2006, and is therefore invulnerable to cyberattack? Will he also confirm that any upgrades that may be planned for that firing chain will remain air-gapped? If not, there will clearly be a vulnerability.

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The noble Lord speaks with immense experience in this area and I will write to him on the specific point. I cannot comment on the detail of the security arrangements for our nuclear deterrent but we can, and do, safeguard it from threats, including cyber.

Government Digital Service

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

Absolutely, my Lords, and we need to continue to use our data better. It surprises me that we still have silos of data that we do not use and do not mine, and we need to continue to make the data more open and more available.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, one of the greatest challenges with digitisation is protecting personal data, and the ability to access government services is much easier when you can do that. Is any consideration being given to a card that will allow people to prove exactly who they are when they try to get this data?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

As the noble Lord will know, there is a project underway led by GDS on Verify, but that is a very good point and I will draw it to the attention of GDS.

Security: State Procession

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

My Lords, let me take that concept away with me. I have looked into this matter over the last few days and I am assured that the relevant security matters have been addressed, and that we have balanced those matters with the need to deliver savings in government.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, on a slightly less serious point, are the new owners responsible for ensuring that all the various flag-staffs, with flags and all the things that are flown on state occasions, will be dealt with correctly? There is a strict format for this and a cost involved. Is that their liability?

[Lord Bridges of Headley]

The flags for ceremonial events will remain on Admiralty Arch. This is a provision in the lease arrangements. Should the hotel wish to use its own flags, a proposal will have to be made to government to consider how that will be done.