Prime Minister’s Meeting with Alexander Lebedev

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Thursday 7th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I take issues of our national security extremely seriously, which is why I am at the Dispatch Box today. Day after day, Ministers in the Government, especially Foreign Office Ministers, make decisions that affect the safety and security of UK citizens; in the case of Foreign Office Ministers, especially UK citizens overseas.

On sanctions, the UK has introduced world-leading sanctions packages since Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine—that is over 12,000 individuals. I cannot comment on any further sanctions, as we never comment on sanctions in advance, but I can comment that, since 24 February, I, like other Foreign Office Ministers, have carried out my duties in signing off a number of those sanctions.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

The last 48 hours of this hapless Government have been quite disgusting to any decent person who has been submitting to the spectacle of it. And the last few years have not been much cop either: somebody who is deeply inappropriate for public office, not least the highest office, aided, abetted and enabled by the venality and cowardice of people who are now falling over themselves to compete for sanctimony and hypocrisy.

We on the SNP Benches do not celebrate the departure of the Prime Minister—like getting rid of a headache, we are just glad he is going—but his toxic legacy will live on after him. We will all need to deal with the consequences of this disastrous Administration: his toxic legacy on inflicting his disastrous Brexit on us all; asleep at the wheel over climate change; allowing the cost of living crisis to accumulate, which all our citizens are dealing with; inaction on climate change; and breaking international law over Northern Ireland. We will all of us be dealing with that thereafter.

I am glad to hear the Minister takes national security seriously. I do not doubt it—

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith]

I do, Mr Speaker. I am trying to chime with the mood of the House, rather than the Government.

The Minister takes national security seriously, but it is quite obvious from the Prime Minister’s admission yesterday that he has serious questions to answer. I appreciate that the Minister is perhaps not in a position to give a proper answer, but will she at least allow the prospect of a police investigation into the Prime Minister and the influence that Russian individuals have over him? His toxic legacy over national security cannot be something he can evade responsibility for.

[Vicky Ford]

I would say that—I will follow up as well to the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper)—the Prime Minister did commit yesterday that he would follow up on the question from the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North at the Liaison Committee. He did commit to that. I have asked whether there is more detailed information on the discussions, but I do not have any information about the content of those discussions at this time.

NATO Accession: Sweden and Finland

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Wednesday 6th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I too thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement. It is a pleasure to see her in her place, although I should point out there are still nine and a half resigning hours until “Newsnight”. More seriously, it is important to stress where we agree, and the SNP agrees with the UK Government’s position in welcoming the applications, from a position of self-determination and democratic sovereignty, of Finland and Sweden to join NATO. I also welcome our Finnish colleague to the Gallery and pledge the SNP’s support for a speedy accession process into NATO. Finland and Sweden will be very welcome; they will augment the alliance, and we support that.

We also support the expedited approval process within this House that the Minister proposes under section 22 of the 2010 Act. I stress that that is not a precedent or a blank cheque, but, as the Minister says, the circumstances match that case and very much merit the suspension of normal procedures. We also support NATO’s strategic concept from an SNP perspective and believe NATO is the cornerstone of European defence. We look forward, under our worldview, to seeing an independent Scotland joining the 29 out of 32 non-nuclear NATO member states—that is, of course, a different discussion.

We on the SNP Benches are NATO supporters. While we support the strategic concept, since the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee made wider points it is also worth mentioning the EU’s strategic compass, which is moving at light speed. The EU is developing a much stronger unified defence capability. The UK risks missing out on those negotiations and the UK defence industry and defence operations risk missing those co-ordinations. I reiterate our call for a deep and comprehensive UK-EU strategic defence treaty, as well as augmenting the NATO alliance. We support what the Minister presents today, and I thank her for the statement.

[Vicky Ford]

While I support the hon. Gentleman’s sharing our joint approach to accession by Sweden and Finland and his approval of the fast-track process we are laying in exceptional circumstances, I do not treat our national security as a joking matter, and it is not the time to be cracking jokes when we are talking about our national security. I am very pleased that the Scottish nationalists have just said that they support NATO, although how they can say that they support our national security when they do not support our nuclear deterrent is deeply questionable.

Prime Minister’s Visit to India

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The entire point of this trip was to increase co-operation between the UK and India, to increase trade deals between ourselves, and to make sure that India can become more self-reliant. On energy, as I have updated the House, we made progress in a number of areas on the move towards clean energy. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, moving towards the use of more renewables and clean energy is a key part of our domestic strategy to help reduce reliance on fossil fuels. As regards one-on-one meetings with leaders, a number of times, on recent visits to countries, I have met one on one, as opposed to one plus and one plus, as occasionally people may want to discuss things directly. I cannot confirm who was in the room, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman can ask the Prime Minister tomorrow.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) on bringing forward this urgent question. I have respect for the Minister, but it is a matter of fact, at this late stage, that she has been unable to answer many of the questions asked. I do not criticise her for that; I criticise the Prime Minister for putting her in this position and for the discourtesy shown to the House. I will ask an easy one: can she tell us, for the record, about the Government’s best-case scenario of a boost to UK-India trade from this agreement, and does it come anywhere near to touching the sides of the proven—as calculated by the London School of Economics and published this morning—decline of 25% in UK exports to the EU relative to the rest of the world?

[Vicky Ford]

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, when it comes to trade deals, we need to look at what is negotiated in the final partnership to see which sectors will benefit most, and it is important to have a trade deal that benefits both partners. We believe that this could significantly increase, and indeed supercharge, the trade between our two countries, which already totals over £23 billion. There are various sectors in which there are significant barriers. I mentioned that Scotch whisky has a tariff of over 100%, and cars do as well. I am sure that as these negotiations progress, further analysis will be looked at.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I really am troubled by this. We think this is a disastrous policy that will not do anything about small boats in the channel, but let us put that to one side. The Minister and the Foreign Secretary must be aware of the grave misgivings among Foreign Office officials about this policy. Can they name a single non-governmental organisation that is in favour of it? Are they just glossing over the human rights concerns about the Rwandan Government? An international development partnership with Rwanda is one thing, but this is entirely different. Are they glossing over concerns in the cynical expectation that the policy will come to nothing? That is the only thing I can think of that would allow them to lend credence to this disastrous policy.

[Vicky Ford]

We are absolutely not glossing over our concerns about rights when it comes to, for example, space for political opposition, civil rights and media freedom. Indeed, I met the permanent secretary of the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation in London earlier this year and made those points to her. However, to break the people trafficking model that is causing lives to be put at risk in our channel, things need to be done; doing nothing is not an option. That is why the Government of Rwanda have willingly entered into this partnership; they too want to stop lives being put at risk.

Rape as a Weapon of War in Ukraine

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Thursday 31st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) on securing this urgent question on a very difficult but very important subject. It is vital that we take due note of what is going on in Ukraine. We can all agree that rape as a weapon of war is beyond despicable. I will focus my remarks on urging the Government to take action on only three points, because much has been said that I agree with.

SNP Members have called for a specific atrocity prevention strategy. Work is under way across the FCDO on these issues, but we think that bringing that into a coherent atrocity prevention strategy would be helpful in not only holding the Government to account on what is being done, but urging more action on that.

On accountability, I agree with the Government’s approach of supporting the ICC, rather than creating new structures. That is proportionate and the best way to do it. I was glad to hear about the funding, but as we have seen from Syria, we can have all the evidence that we like, but if there is not the political will to carry it through, we will not see the necessary accountability on the ground and the fear of justice to end the culture of impunity that we are hearing reports of from Ukraine. I urge the Government to do more on that and to publish as one document the efforts that are being made to help accountability mechanisms in Ukraine, because that would again help the coherence and strategy to be clear to us all.

I echo the points about people trafficking and safeguarding, on which I know the Minister has been very active. However, perhaps we can have a specific statement on the risk of trafficking of vulnerable refugees and what the UK and other partners have done to help and assist. I am aware that the German police have been doing very useful work on that, but, sadly, a lot more work needs to be done.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his care and concern on this really dreadful issue. His last point was about the risk of people trafficking and other safeguarding issues and that is precisely why I met the head of the Charity Commission this week. We want to ensure that we are getting the alert out to charities on the ground about the risk of infiltration by people who they would not want in their organisations—let me put it like that. It is a very serious risk. That is one of the reasons we encourage the British people, if they want to contribute, to do so through the Disasters Emergency Committee.

How do we try to change the dial on this issue? The hon. Gentleman is right that more needs to be done. That is precisely why, at the end of last year, the Foreign Secretary said that we need to look at a new international agreement or convention on dealing with sexual violence in conflict. There is no single treaty that is dedicated to conflict-related sexual violence, and we believe that consolidating all the legal obligations could help to prevent that and to ensure that SV is seen as an early warning sign. We think that having a new international agreement or convention would have a symbolic and practical value, because it could help to increase the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence, strengthen states’ commitment to supporting survivors and, importantly, improve the mechanisms to hold perpetrators to account. It will take time. We are not going for quick political wins; we are working with experts internally and internationally towards a new UN General Assembly resolution to set up a convention on the process.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Discussions across Government are still continuing.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

Mr Speaker, happy Burns night to you and to colleagues later on.

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us”

would be a useful thing for those on the Treasury Bench to remember at the moment.

The best contribution that we, however we define ourselves, can make is to help other countries with resilience against disinformation, and I would praise to the rafters the Resist toolkit run out of the Cabinet Office. We already have a set of measures that we can use to assist other countries to combat disinformation. Could the Minister assure us that this will be beefed up, better financed and rolled out internationally? It is a very good domestic toolkit, but we could do a lot more to it, because plenty of other places really need it.

[Vicky Ford]

The integrated review made it very clear that the UK will be a responsible and democratic cyber-power. We intend to use our global network to strengthen the case for open, peaceful and secure digital space, pushing back against those who misuse technology or spread disinformation to undermine democracy.

Ukraine

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right: any Russian incursion into Ukraine would be a strategic mistake, and the costs of such an incursion would be catastrophically high. This needs to be a co-ordinated effort between partners to maximise its impact. I have no doubt that the incoming German Government will have a key role to play, and that is precisely why the Prime Minister spoke to the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the US yesterday to make sure that the message being given by President Biden to President Putin today is a co-ordinated one.

We were very clear in the integrated review that Russian actions pose an acute and direct threat to the national security of the UK and its allies, and we have shown that we take that threat seriously. The current relationship with Russia is not the one that we want, but we will continue to respond to, and call out, Russian aggression wherever it occurs.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I will not have been alone in being chilled by today’s Financial Times article mentioning an essay written by Vladimir Putin that ends with the words:

“For we are one people”

when talking about Ukraine and Russia. Well, that is not what international law says. We have seen this pattern of behaviour from the Russian state in cyber-attacks in Latvia, in the use of migrants on the Polish border to foment a crisis, in Bosnia and in the continued illegal annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine. There must be consequences to further action, and the Scottish National party will be part of that coalition. I am glad to hear of the international co-ordination that is going on.

I have two concrete proposals and a plea. We have heard already—we have not had an answer—that the SWIFT payment system and Nord Stream 2 must be on the table. Magnitsky sanctions will do so much, but we are dealing with people who do not greatly care, so there must be an elevation of the sanctions available.

I have just pledged SNP support for UK Government actions, so I am not trying to make a political point. However, we are two years out from the publication of the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report. There is credible evidence of dirty Russian money washing around the UK’s democracy, and the Conservative party in particular. There are Members of the House of Lords who I do not believe should be there, and there must be consequences at home as well as abroad. When will we see serious action on implementing the Russia report recommendations? Vigilance must start at home, as well as abroad.

[Vicky Ford]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the UK Government. He raises a number of issues. On disinformation, we have seen time and again from the Russians transparent attempts at disinformation and at providing a pretext for reckless and illegal military action.

On tackling illicit finance and dirty money, this Government continue to step up our activity both domestically and internationally to tackle illicit finance entering our country. We cracked down on illicit finance through the groundbreaking legislation introduced in 2017, the Criminal Finances Act, and we published our economic crime plan in 2019. However, we are going further in tackling dirty money. The National Crime Agency has increased the number of investigations into corrupt elites. Let me be clear: serious criminals, corrupt elites and individuals who seek to threaten the security of the UK and its allies are not welcome here. I am afraid I cannot comment on the SWIFT payment system, as I understand it is also a US issue.

Arrest of Sudanese Prime Minister

Debate between Alyn Smith and Vicky Ford

Monday 25th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his very kind words. As ever, he is deeply thoughtful on these matters. I agree that this is a totally unacceptable betrayal of the people of Sudan who have stood up for their democracy and freedom.

Regarding the debt clearance, the UK used our G7 presidency to agree an ambitious financing package to clear Sudan’s arrears with G7 Finance Ministers and other international partners on the IMF board. It was a really important part of that pathway towards democracy and a stronger economy. As I have said, we will consider the impacts of today’s events on our support, including with key international financial institution partners.

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I warmly commend the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) for bringing this urgent question forward. I also commend the Minister for her reply, with which I agree entirely. There is a lot of agreement across the House that this is a very serious setback. The SNP stands four square behind international law, which cannot be taken à la carte—that applies as much to Northern Ireland protocols as it does to any other peace agreement anywhere else. Coherence across Government is really important for integrity and credibility internationally. This is a coup; it is a betrayal. The fact that the Minister was in Khartoum last week indicates just how little traction we have over events, as the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said, and I regret that. I particularly liked her remarks about holding people collectively and individually responsible for recent events, because that is very important. Can she reassure the House about arms exports to Sudan and what assessment the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has made of the flow of arms into Sudan and how they are being put to use? Furthermore, the UK is presently providing military support to the Sudanese army. That was unsuccessfully challenged in the High Court in July, but can we take it as read that that support is now being suspended?