Greenpeace Activists in the Russian Federation

Debate between Chris Bryant and Robert Buckland

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I should start by making a slight correction to my own title for the debate, because this incident did not happen “in” the Russian Federation—a point that I shall come on to.

I shall say first what I am not saying in the debate. I am not saying that Greenpeace activists should have immunity from prosecution wherever they engage in their activities in the world. I am not calling for impunity for people when they take on such activities and, indeed, I do not think that Greenpeace would, either. Part of civil disobedience is that people expect that at some point they will face the criminal law, and I do not think that anybody resiles from that or wants to hide from it.

I am also not saying that Greenpeace is right in its assertions on polar drilling or what the Russians should or should not be doing in the Arctic. I personally have a set of concerns about whether it is possible to drill in heavily icy water—whether it would be possible to clear up a spill—but that is not my argument today at all. I am also not saying anything about the criminal justice system in the Russian Federation, respect for human rights in the Russian Federation or its membership of the Council of Europe and its adherence to the European convention on human rights, although I have said many things on all those matters on many other occasions. That is not the issue before us today.

Let me run through the facts. The first is that, on 18 September, several Greenpeace activists attempted to climb a Russian oil rig owned by Gazprom, the state operator—they had also done that the previous year—so as to be able to hang a great big banner proclaiming their views on drilling in the Arctic. The Prirazlomnaya rig has been there for some time, and Greenpeace has been running a campaign against its presence there. Not immediately but 24 hours later, FSB—the federal security service—operatives, presumably on the command of the Russian state, stormed the Greenpeace ship and seized it, along with the captain and all the crew members, the activists and the two journalists who were on board, and took them all off to Murmansk.

The 28 activists and two journalists were subsequently charged with piracy, which in Russian state law carries a term of imprisonment of up to 15 years. Every one of them was refused bail and, as I am sure right hon. and hon. Members—I note that this debate is very well attended—will know, there are six British people involved. They are Phil Ball, who is a Greenpeace activist and a constituent of the Prime Minister; Kieron Bryan, who is a freelance videographer and a constituent of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is sitting on my right; Frank Hewetson, a Greenpeace activist; Alex Harris; Anthony Perrett; and Iain Rogers, who was the second engineer on the Greenpeace ship.

I think there are some very significant problems with the actions of the Russian authorities. The first is that, as I said, the ship was not seized in the Russian Federation. It was not in Russian Federation state waters. It was in international waters. I know that Russia has sought to declare a 3-nautical mile exclusive economic zone around the rig, but I believe that is not within international law. Quite explicitly, article 60.5 of the United Nations convention on the law of the sea specifies, I believe, that that 3-nautical mile exclusion zone is illegal. But even if it is legal, that does not give the Russian authorities the right to operate in the way that they did, using the level of force that they did, 24 hours after the demonstration on the rig had ended, let alone to seize a ship that is flagged under the Dutch authorities, which is why the Dutch authorities have now made a claim on the ship. Therefore, I think there are significant areas in which, even against their own Russian law, the Russian authorities have not operated correctly.

There is also the matter of the charges that have been brought against the activists. They have been charged with piracy. This country takes piracy extremely seriously. The situation off Somalia has seen the British Navy and British troops engaged in a European effort to root out the significant problems there, and British people have been seized by pirates, so we do not take piracy lightly at all. But even President Putin says that it is completely obvious that the activists are not pirates. I am quoting his direct words. He said that

“it’s completely obvious they aren’t pirates.”

Mikhail Fedotov, the chair of the presidential human rights council, which advises the President on human rights issues in Russia, has also said that they should not be prosecuted for piracy.

I believe there is a very good reason why these people should not be prosecuted for piracy. It is not only that we undermine the law on piracy around the world and the efforts to tackle piracy if we call people pirates when they are not in any sense pirates. It is also that we have only to look at the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, which says specifically in article 101:

“Piracy consists of…any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft”.

The key element in that is “for private ends”. That does not mean prosecuting a campaign. It means “for personal, private, financial or monetary gain”. There is no allegation that that is the situation in this case. For that matter, the article says that there has to be an illegal act “of violence or detention”. Greenpeace engaged in no such act of violence or detention.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Of course I will give way. The hon. Gentleman is a lawyer, so I am sure he will be able to help.

[Mr Buckland]

The article also talks about acts against ships or aircraft. I do not think that the definition of an oil rig falls within that ambit. There are also huge questions about the moral dimension to the use of piracy charges against these protesters.

2014 JHA Opt-out Decision

Debate between Chris Bryant and Robert Buckland

Monday 15th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

That’s because you were charging by the word.

[Mr Buckland]

I certainly was not charging by the word; it was a graduated fee system, but that is for another debate. I do not think my hon. Friend should be criticised for repeating the point.

Prime Minister’s Evidence (Leveson Inquiry)

Debate between Chris Bryant and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to repeat the comments that I made earlier in the year. I do apologise, and have apologised profoundly to the House, for giving evidence that I had previous notice of as a core participant, which I should not have done—I apologised to the Leveson inquiry as well; I believed it to have been published but it had not been—but there are still discrepancies in the Prime Minister’s account. The Prime Minister’s list of meetings does not include, for instance, the dinner with the Brooks family at their home on 22 May; so, no, the Prime Minister’s list is still not correct. Also, it does not account for the fact that two of the meetings that Rupert Murdoch said happened were withdrawn later in the day in amended evidence. I am sorry; I am not going to apologise to the Prime Minister, because I still think there are profound discrepancies in the evidence that he has provided.

The other reason I think that the matter important is that the Prime Minister cannot in the end run away from the norms of Parliament by evading answering 17 questions of mine and countless questions from other members of the media and the public. I put all those points to him in a letter last night, because I presumed that he would not reply to today’s debate, and that a Minister from one or another Department instead would do so. I want to say to the Prime Minister that it is not right simply to say one will not answer questions. Whether one likes a Member or the tone of the question is neither here nor there. It is a fundamental principle of Parliament that questions must be answered. He does himself no favours, because in this regard silence speaks volumes.

There are things that we already know about the Prime Minister’s evidence. We know that Mrs Brooks and News International gave considerably more material to the Leveson inquiry—texts, and, as I understand it, e-mails as well—that has not yet been produced in public, but will be published before the inquiry is finished. That material relates to three periods: October 2009, May 2011 and June 2011. We also know that some witnesses—there is at least one lawyer in the Chamber who will know well the processes of the Inquiries Act 2005—were served with section 21(2) notices, which meant that they had to provide material. The Prime Minister has still refused to answer even whether he was required to provide any material under section 21(2)—so, for that matter, have the Home Secretary and other Ministers. It is a simple question. Were they asked to provide material under section 21(2) or not?

We also know for an incontrovertible fact now—because Downing street has confirmed it to several newspapers, although not in answers to Parliament—that Downing street has stored four categories of material in relation to evidence for the Leveson inquiry: texts between the Prime Minister and Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch; e-mails between the Prime Minister and those four people; texts between Andy Coulson and News International; and e-mails between Andy Coulson and News International. I simply draw those out separately because the Prime Minister, in his evidence to the Leveson inquiry, did so, too. I simply do not understand why Adam Smith, the special adviser to the then Culture Secretary, was required to provide every e-mail and text to the inquiry, every one of which was made public, while none of the other people involved was required to do so. None of the politicians, so far as I can deduce, but perhaps the Minister will correct me—

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way, although the same applies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Buckland]

Is not the hon. Gentleman’s point that it does not seem that any politician was required to provide information under section 21—including the former Prime Ministers, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) and Tony Blair?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, so far as I understand it, that is true, but I have no means to ask Tony Blair questions through Parliament—nor, for that matter, the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Everyone should provide all the material that should be in the public domain. However, only one person is now the Prime Minister, who will make decisions about the future regulation of the press. I do not understand why Adam Smith had to provide all the information that led to his resignation, when the Prime Minister and his special advisers did not have to provide any such material. That suggests to me that there is one rule for those at the top, and another rule for others.

We also know for a fact—because Downing street said so this weekend to The Mail on Sunday—that a civil servant at Downing street and an unnamed lawyer reviewed all the material and decided not to hand it over to the Leveson inquiry. We do not know what criteria were used for deciding whether it should be handed over, or why they decided that nothing—not a single e-mail or text message—was relevant to the inquiry, whether it referred to the BBC or gave further evidence of a much more extensive relationship or of earlier knowledge of what went on at the News of the World than we have been aware of thus far. The only thing that we know is the name of the civil servant—Tristan Pedelty. We do not know the name of the lawyer, or, for that matter, whether the lawyer was paid for by the taxpayer or by the Prime Minister personally. Certainly, all the legal advice provided to former Prime Ministers would have been paid for by them personally.

Privilege

Debate between Chris Bryant and Robert Buckland

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

rose—

[Mr Buckland]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I have a multiplicity of offers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I absolutely agree, but I also think that we should no longer live in an era of trepidation in this House. I think that we should step more boldly.

[Mr Buckland]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about being bold in regard to contempt of Parliament and how the House enforces its rules, but does he not share my sense of trepidation about involving the prosecuting authorities in dealing with any alleged lies that have been told to us? Does that not present a danger that the courts will be brought in to determine issues that are properly the province of this House and no other?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has taken me into much wider subject matter, but he too is trepidating—if that is the verb from “trepidation”—and I do not want to trepidate. I want to step boldly.

I believe that the House, and the Select Committee itself, should consider, in terms, first whether or not the three individuals mentioned, and perhaps, corporately, News International, should be summoned to the Bar of the House. I believe that that must still be an important power available to the House. Secondly, I think that the House and the Committee should consider whether or not the individuals should be fined, not least because considerable expense has been incurred by Parliament and by the prosecuting authorities through the process of lying to Parliament. Thirdly, I think that it must be right for us to consider whether or not to imprison. If this had happened in the Scottish Parliament, it would have led to imprisonment. If it had been a contempt of court, it would have led to imprisonment. If it had been perjury in court, it would have led to imprisonment.

It has been said that some of these people are not in this country. What can we possibly do about it? The last person who was arrested and imprisoned by Parliament, in 1880, Charles Grissell, also fled the country. He went off to France, to Boulogne. The Speaker sent the Serjeant at Arms’s messenger to Boulogne, and when Charles Grissell came back to the country he was arrested and sent off to Newgate until the end of the parliamentary Session.

I simply think that we were hoodwinked. Indeed, for a long period politicians were so nervous and frightened of what the press would say about us that we effectively put the hoodwinks on ourselves. Now the temptation will be for the Committee to shy away from using any of its penal powers, and I think it a shame that that seemed to be the direction in which the Leader of the House was pushing it. I think that would be a profound mistake, because, surely to God, it is time we asserted the freedom of Parliament—in fact, the rights of Parliament. We must do so not for our own sakes—it is irrelevant for our own sakes—but simply because if Parliament is lied to, we cannot do our job on behalf of our constituents, and if Parliament is lied to and there is impunity thereafter, people will lie again, and then the democratic process unfolds.