Appointment of Lord Lebedev

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending a 2050 Climate Group young leaders event, where young leaders were being given some ideas about how they might want to influence politics. It was a great event and the young people at it truly gave me faith for our future, as they had some excellent questions. Aimee Dobie, from the parliamentary outreach service, does outreach right across Scotland and was explaining to them about influencing MPs and Lords, and about how they could get in touch with Members of the House of Lords. One young person in the room put up their hand and said, “What are the checks on the House of Lords? How does that work?” I said, “In reality, there are very little checks on the House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords are appointed and they can be there for life. Removing those Members is all but impossible.” This young person asked about the appointments to the House of Lords and about the House of Lords Appointments Commission, because he was very switched on.

That goes to the heart of why we are here today, because the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be a brake on the appointment of people to the House of Lords, yet even though we hear that security concerns were raised about Lord Lebedev, this advice was overturned by the Prime Minister. The Paymaster General was very clear earlier when he stressed that the commission would draw concerns about any issue to the attention of the Prime Minister, but that seems to me to miss the point because the Prime Minister is at the heart of this shoddy appointment. There has been a clear misjudgment on the basis of his friendship with Lord Lebedev and, of course, the Prime Minister has some form on that as well, having overruled the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a previous appointment in 2020.

The Paymaster General also stressed that Lord Lebedev is a British citizen of Russian extraction, and that is true. We do not cast aspersions on British citizens who are of Russian extraction in general, but in this case and a number of others that is exactly how the kleptocrats and oligarchs buy their way in. They buy their children the finest education at the most expensive private schools. They buy themselves a clean reputation by becoming patrons of the arts, universities and charities, buying football clubs and giving philanthropic donations, laundering their reputations. The Foreign Secretary said on television regarding the photograph of her with Lubov Chernukhin:

“I think we’ve got to be very careful to distinguish between those who are supporters of the regime, those who are propping up Vladimir Putin and those people who may have moved from Russia years ago and who are part of the British political system.”

Someof these people have bought their way in to the British political system, and that is part of the problem.

Putin’s cronies, these oligarchs, have bought their way in to the political system in many different ways. They are sealed in on a super yacht with a golden visa and they are spending their lucre via a protective web of companies and vehicles such as Scottish limited partnerships, unheeded and unimpeded until the war in Ukraine, which suddenly made things bad for business. All that money coming in did not happen overnight.

I noticed earlier that Oliver Bullough’s new book, “Butler to the World”, is available in the Commons Library. It has not yet been checked out and I recommend that Members rush along the corridor to get it, because it is instructive about the scale at which people buy influence in this country and the way in which people in this country have allowed that to happen through the lawyers, the accountants and the very expensive reputation management firms that do that. Britain has become butler to the world, and this Government are allowing it to continue.

That is all a symptom of a higher problem, which is the problem of the House of Lords. I would not impugn their lordships individually, of course, but the whole system of inherited privilege exists here with patronage and rewards for pals, cronies and donors. Unlike all the other parties in this place, the SNP does not appoint people to the House of Lords. We never have and I hope very much that we never will, because, given the reputation of that place, it is not worth it. Despite what my good friend the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) says about her colleagues signing up to abolish themselves, I am certain that if the Liberal Democrats were offered a place in the House of Lords tomorrow, they would take it up. That is how the system works, and it stinks.

Appointment to the House of Lords is, of course, for life. There is no longer a Titles Deprivation Act as there was in 2017 and despite the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) during the cash for honours scandal there is no simple way to remove people from the House of Lords. At various points Members of the House of Lords of various different parties have been up to their chebs in scandal. Transparency is not present there at all in the way that it is in this place. The Russia report points out in very clear language that the House of Lords registers are not as open to scrutiny as those in the House of Commons. It is fundamentally opaque. They are not held to the same standards as people in this place, and this place is not always held to the best of standards.

The response to the young man who asked me that question on Saturday is that there is a whole lot more that this place could do to enhance the scrutiny of the House of Lords, but my view is that it is beyond help and should be abolished altogether.