Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The answer I give my hon. Friend may be the same as the one I have just given to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman). There was an opportunity to raise the issue in the House of Commons yesterday, in Westminster Hall. We have arranged fairly regular debates on north Africa, the middle east and Afghanistan. I hope that there will be other opportunities in the new year to have similar debates, which will provide my hon. Friend with a platform to raise the legitimate concerns that he has just brought to the attention of the House.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May we debate the Russian winter? I am not referring to the weather; I am referring to last week’s elections, which were profoundly corrupt. All who went to witness the elections say that there was massive vote-rigging. In Chechnya, for instance, 95% of the vote came in for Mr Putin’s party, despite the fact that everybody noticed massive vote-rigging. May I also suggest gently to the right hon. Gentleman that he take this matter up with his colleagues? There are Members of this House who sit on the Council of Europe in the same grouping as members of Mr Putin’s party, and there is no reason why we should hide from the fact that there has been corruption in Russia. We need to ensure proper democracy.

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman will have seen the protests in Russia over the weekend about the conduct of the election. I am not sure whether this gives him any satisfaction, but I understand that President Putin has ordered a review of how the elections were conducted, although one should perhaps not set too much store by that. I shall draw the Foreign Secretary’s attention to the concern—I suspect shared by those on both sides of the House—about the conduct of the elections and, again, see whether appropriate representations might be made to the Russian ambassador.