Russia

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his points. I have been working closely with my French and German counterparts to tackle this issue. Tomorrow, we have a virtual meeting of the NATO Foreign Ministers at which, again, we will be co-ordinating ahead of the meetings next week—namely, the meetings between Russia and the United States, but also the Russia-NATO meeting.

We are all very clear that NATO is a defensive alliance. Joining NATO is a sovereign decision for NATO and relevant applicant states; it is not a decision for Russia, which has no auspices over it whatsoever. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the disinformation that has been coming from the Kremlin on this subject. Jens Stoltenberg, with whom I have also been co-ordinating, will make a very strong statement about NATO and its purpose and reaffirm the fact that it is a defensive alliance to support the countries within it.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

Happy new year to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to colleagues throughout the House.

I am grateful for advance sight of the Foreign Secretary’s statement, which I welcome, as far as it goes. I have to say, in a constructive spirit, that I do not find much new in the statement, but I do welcome the fact that we are having this discussion, because the Russian Government’s actions are concerning. There is a pattern of behaviour in the Baltic states, the Balkans, central Asia and Belarus; the manipulation of energy markets; and disinformation. On Ukraine especially, the SNP will be part of the coalition to defend Ukraine and international law—the Foreign Secretary has our support on that.

I urge the Foreign Secretary to go a bit further. She mentioned financial consequences to the continued incursion into Ukraine; will she confirm today that the suspension of Russia from the SWIFT payment system is on the table and will be a consequence? That would be a top-level sanction that would take effect and have an influence.

In a constructive spirit—I have already said that the SNP supports the Foreign Secretary’s efforts—I urge her to heed seriously what the Labour spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), said about the implementation of the Russia report. Her own credibility in the eyes of Moscow is surely weakened by the fact that so many members of her own party are in hock to dirty Russian money. There are Members of the House of Lords who simply should not be there, having bought their places in the legislature of these islands. The Intelligence and Security Committee raised serious concerns about the extent to which dirty money is influencing UK politics. Integrity starts at home and there are a lot of things that we should be doing to strengthen the Foreign Secretary’s credibility. She will have the SNP’s support in that respect as well.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I have been clear that Russian military aggression will be met with strength, including massive economic consequences through co-ordinated economic sanctions by allies and partners that target Russian financial transactions and individuals, but I cannot speculate on future sanctions.

In July 2020, the UK used its global human rights sanction regime to impose sanctions on 25 Russian nationals who were responsible for appalling human rights violations. We have shown that we are absolutely ready to use those types of sanctions where it is appropriate. On the ISC report, we published our response immediately on its publication. Since then, we have introduced a new autonomous cyber-sanctions regime, set out a national cyber-security strategy, and announced new legislation to provide security services and law enforcement with additional tools to tackle evolving state threats.