Ukraine

Clive Efford Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

We are hosting the 10 nations of the joint expeditionary force, which includes the Nordic states plus Iceland and Holland, tonight and tomorrow at a summit. I have invited colleagues across the House, including Members on the Labour Front Bench and in the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrats, because it is important that we recognise those countries’ importance to us as our allies. They are the ones on that frontline. My hon. Friend is right that they will be the ones most worried; some of them are territories that President Putin and his like have often felt are not territories. As I have said before, we should look at President Putin’s essay from July last year. That is one of the consequences, I fear, of President Putin being successful in Ukraine. Where will the ripples land next? We will need forces for that. We have been managing to double that up into a brigade. The enhanced forward presence is currently four multinational battlegroups; I suspect that it will grow. We will be open to more suggestions.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

We should be moving against Russian dirty money in the City of London, regardless of what happens in Ukraine. I do not doubt the determination to deal with it that the Secretary of State has expressed today, but the lack of activity suggests that others in the Government do not share that determination. Can he assure us that should there be an invasion, even tonight, we are ready to take action against that dirty money?

[Mr Wallace]

It will not have been missed by anyone in this House that we are all vulnerable not only to dirty money, but to illicit lobbying or influence by foreign agents—all of us in this House. We have to wake up to the threat of sub-threshold challenges, whether those are money, corruption or political interference—all of us. I am not going to throw stones in glass houses, but all Conservative Members and all Opposition Members know what that looks like. We have to have more transparency, as the beginning of that process, and we have to enact some of the laws that we already have. I would be very happy, on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf, to engage with the National Crime Agency to see what more we can do.