Clive Lewis
Main Page: Clive Lewis (Labour - Norwich South)(2 years, 8 months ago)
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James Cleverly
I am often encouraged to do a “compare and contrast” between the United Kingdom and our international friends and partners, but the simple truth is that there has been greater, tighter and closer co-ordination in response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine than I could ever have imagined, and we will continue to work together extremely closely. We are proud of the fact that the UK Government have had a dramatic and detrimental impact on Russia’s finances, choking off Putin’s ability to fund this aggression, but we intend to go further, and we will do so in close co-ordination with those international friends and partners.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
As someone who lost his guts, or at least his lunch, quite a few times when helicopters were having to jig because of the threat of Singer missiles—given to our allies at the time, decades earlier—may I ask whether the Minister can assure us that the Government’s measures are sufficient to ensure that our weapons do not end up on the black market in the hands of the wrong people at a future date? Will he also confirm that our weapons—the NLAWs and other pieces of aggressive equipment—will not end up in the hands of far-right neo-Nazis, many of whom we know to be making their way to Ukraine now from around the world?
James Cleverly
Our priority, and the purpose of the defensive weapon support that we have provided, is to help the Ukrainians to defend themselves against the attacks of Russia. Obviously we hope that this conflict will come to a swift conclusion, but until then we will continue our support for the Ukrainians as they defend themselves. What happens at the end of this conflict, in terms of securing munitions, will be something on which we will work with the Ukraine Government and our national friends and partners, but at the moment our priority, quite rightly, is to help the Ukrainians to defend themselves against Putin’s attack.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Nobody could fail to be moved by the images of Ukraine that we have been seeing on our screens for days now—the destruction, the death and the millions of refugees. It is right that we are in this Chamber discussing Ukraine at further length. None of us can know how long this conflict will last, but we do know that there is already a severe refugee crisis with the potential of literally millions of victims.
A number of Members on both sides of the House have already given vent to their frustrations at the Government’s response. Members have spoken about the Calais visa processing centre, which does not exist, and the Lille processing centre, which may as well not exist, because its whereabouts cannot be divulged. Instead, I will focus on the Government’s new scheme. The shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) yesterday called it a “DIY asylum scheme”, and she is right. It is the responsibility of Governments and states to ensure that the legal rights of those seeking asylum are upheld. It should not be dependent on the generosity of the people of Britain.
The scheme that has been announced is something of a curate’s egg—good in parts. Let me begin by praising those parts of the scheme that are commendable. The Secretary of State told the House yesterday that the scheme would begin with people with known connections to Ukraine and then be widened out, and that is sensible. There is a stipulation that accommodation is made available for at least six months. On the face of it, that is a sensible precaution—nobody wants to see vulnerable refugees moved from pillar to post—but it does highlight a structural problem with the scheme to which I will return.
It is a very good thing and correct that under this new scheme, refugees will be allowed to live and work in the UK for up to three years and receive full and unrestricted access to benefits, healthcare, employment and other support. Some of us have long argued that that should be the position for all refugees and asylum seekers, wherever their country of origin. The current position, where some of the most vulnerable people in this country are kept dangling with vouchers and minimal income, is itself inhumane and a recipe for exploitation of all kinds. It is costly and bureaucratic to run, and it demeans those we are supposed to help. The arrangements for the Ukrainians should be a precedent for the treatment of all asylum seekers, not an exception.
Clive Lewis
Does my right hon. Friend have any idea why Conservative Members might want to have a different approach to refugees fleeing Ukraine and refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Syria and other countries?
Ms Abbott
My hon. Friend tempts me; perhaps it is the case that it is easier to be humane with refugees who look like us.
In the first instance, the Government tried to apply the visa system to refugees, which is wrong in principle. Visas are discretionary for any Government and any Government are within their rights to limit or withhold visas, but that is not the case for refugees who have a right to seek asylum under international law. It is a category error to treat, or attempt to treat, refugees in that way because it breaches international law in principle and it is unjust. Yet with the new scheme, we have an asylum system in which, essentially, the responsibility for refugees has been outsourced; it is a DIY scheme, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan put it. That cannot be right. It is one thing to harness the generosity of the British public but quite another to leave vulnerable refugees waiting and hoping because their only chance of a decent life here depends on private generosity.
I remind the House that that model of community sponsorship has been used before for the 2014 group of Syrian refugees. By 2017, however, there were only 12 schemes across the whole country, six of which were in London. We know from the attempt to use community sponsorship for Syrian refugees that there are issues that need to be resolved: there needs to be strong local authority support, because when the community sponsorship ends, the local authority will have to provide housing and support; we need a better structure than we had in relation to the Syrian refugees; we need better planning and funding; and we need to be clear what happens when the community sponsorship comes to an end. It is not clear to me how outsourcing the reception of asylum seekers in that way meets our treaty obligations or whether the Government could be suspected of trying to shirk them.
I will also mention the contrast between the stated willingness to help Ukrainian refugees fleeing war and the approach to no less terrified victims of other wars, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. They were wars and conflicts that the Government and their allies had a role in and that caused vast destruction and loss of life. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that there are still more than 9 million Iraqi refugees worldwide, yet there are currently only 20,000 in this country. Whatever the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities may say, that is not generous and it is not even close to being proportionate.
The Government need to think through their proposals. They need to do more and much better and to abandon the notion of visas for refugees. There may have to be rudimentary security checks, but to make refugees, to whom we have a legal obligation, go through all the red tape of a visa application is wrong and does not meet the Government’s responsibilities in principle. The Government need to do more and do better. The British people have shown the way with their generosity and the Government need to step up and meet their responsibilities to refugees, not just in words but in practice.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
It is a privilege to speak after so many interesting and varied speeches so far. Let me start by saying unequivocally that the Ukrainian Government and their people have every right to wage armed resistance against this unmentionable Russian invasion, which I believe is included under the UN charter. That is the first thing I wanted to put on record, but from now on some of my speech may find disagreement with Members in this place. I support the Government and their arming of Ukrainian resistance but, as I mentioned in an intervention, I also have questions. One of the roles of the Opposition and one of the roles of us in this place is to ask the questions that we think the Government are not asking or do not want asked. That is our job here and that is what I want to do today in my speech.
In my intervention, I asked whether we were doing enough to put in place precautions about the billions of pounds of arms that are going into Ukraine. Some of them— Stinger missiles and anti-tank weapons— are quite lethal. We know from our recent history that those weapons can be turned against us. I can go into a shop and find a tracking device to follow my bike, my iPhone or any device I have. There is software that can be shut down with kill switches. The more lethal and complex the technology, the easier it is for us to do that. I do not need the details—we do not need the details in this House—but I want to know that the Government are thinking a few moves ahead and that is what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about thinking beyond the immediate, trying to be strategic and thinking about the consequences of our actions now. Those actions are right—arming the Ukrainian people is right—but there are other actions that will come from this, so how do we make sure we learn from the lessons of the past?
I think it is time to pause and reflect: where do we want to be in six months, in a year, in 10 years? I want to ask some questions that have been raised by an organisation called Rethinking Security. I will quickly go through them now; there are about seven.
Do we see military might as inherently wrong, delegitimised because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, or do we merely see it discredited in the wrong hands and validated in the form of our valiant allies and armed forces? Do we recognise the horror of all humanity caught up in war, or do we decide that, like malaria and cholera, this is some African or Asian malady that intrudes intolerably into safe, civilised Europe? Do we recognise that oligarchic interests have captured and corrupted our own political, economic and media structures, or do we make examples of a few Russian playboys and declare mission accomplished?
Do we really want to break our easy addiction to imported carbon, or do we just want to find a new dealer? I say that noting that the Prime Minister is on his way to Saudi Arabia, a country that has just executed 81 people and is conducting a brutal war in Yemen—I am smelling some inconsistencies here. Do we believe that Ukraine, Belarus and Russia are all integral to Europe, and commit to their eventual inclusion within a secure and just peace system, or do we decide that a new iron curtain is the best way to divide and subdue a continent at arms? Those are the questions we need to be asking, beyond the immediate.
I want to come now to the role of the oligarchs and their interests. This is the rot that is at the heart of our politics and economy. We have heard repeatedly how the Benches opposite are bankrolled by the richest, including oligarchs. That is who they represent. This is writ large in their policies and policy choices. But do not take my word for it. An investigation by openDemocracy in 2019 revealed that, in a decade of austerity, the Conservatives took £130 million in donations and 80% of their 2019 general election funding came from the elite Leaders Group, with exclusive access granted to group members for a fee of £50,000. There are other examples. Overseas territories, British tax havens, are responsible for 29% of the £245 billion in global taxes that the world loses to corporate, according to the Tax Justice Network. We know that donors and elites can essentially purchase a permanent seat in the House of Lords. Look at the owner of the Evening Standard, who, I am pleased to say, our own leader refused to be photographed with. We know that elites in our own media own 90% of UK-wide media and print and it is controlled by just three companies.
Richard Graham
This is an incredibly important debate for us all. Feelings are very strong and a massive amount is being done by our constituents and by the Government in a series of different sectors. The hon. Gentleman has so much to contribute and so many valuable thoughts. I wonder whether he really needs to focus on an argument about the funding of different parties as his key contribution to the debate.
Clive Lewis
I think the reason many of us on this side want to focus on this is because, at the heart of what is going on, we understand that, for many years, Putin—the same man, the same circle that devastated Russia and asset stripped it—planted that money into the City of London. This was their city of choice. That happened on the watch of successive Governments, but the hon. Member’s Government as well. I think it is critical that we understand Putin and the people around him, and how they have enriched and engorged themselves and made themselves powerful. We have to understand how that has happened if we do not want it to happen again. We also have to understand how our democracy is being corroded by interests similar to those of the people in control of Russia.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
Is my hon. Friend aware of the £30,000 accepted by the Conservative party from the wife of a Putin ally, Lubov Chernukhin? Let us be clear, in answer to the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham): Lubov Chernukhin is married to the former Deputy Finance Minister, Vladimir Chernukhin. At that time, the then Secretary of State for Defence, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Gavin Williamson), was warned about cyber-attacks from Russia. We had the absurd situation where he himself took that woman around Churchill’s war rooms on a private guided tour. That is the point my hon. Friend is making. The Conservative party is steeped in Kremlin money.
Clive Lewis
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—[Interruption.] I can hear chuntering. I am sure Conservative Members do not want that mentioned. They want us to focus merely on what is happening in front of us. That is right, and much time will be devoted to it, but it is also important that we see the underlying trends and conditions that have in part enabled people such as Putin and the circle around him to come to power. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke) is chuntering from a sedentary position. He can make a point if he wishes to.
Alec Shelbrooke
The hon. Gentleman just said that the Conservative party brought Putin to power. Will he remind me who was in government in the year 2000?
Clive Lewis
I will give the right hon. Member a quote—it will make the point very clearly:
“When confronting oligarchs and corruption, we need to look well beyond Russia, and not just at other autocracies but at our own national elites and the control that they have over politics and the media. It is too easy to blame Russia and some campaign of foreign subversion. The truth is that we have also been subverted from within and allowed our institutions to be captured and sold. Our media is oligarchic and so, increasingly is our politics. Whether Russian, Australian or British, such concentrated wealth and power is detrimental to our freedom and security.”
James Gray
I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way in the middle of his rant. Supposing that his absurd conspiracy theory were correct, can he point to one single policy decision by the Government—any Government—made as a result of his alleged corruption?
Clive Lewis
I am pleased to see the hon. Member here and not in his Caribbean home—[Interruption.].
James Gray
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. May I make it absolutely plain to the hon. Gentleman that I have a flat in Westminster, that I have no Caribbean home and that it is simply an absurd allegation to suggest that I do?
Clive Lewis
I take that back—I have the hon. Member confused with someone else, but don’t worry about that. He does not have a Caribbean home, and that is fine, but one of his colleagues does and he spent a vast deal of time during lockdown defending the interests of oligarchs in this country. We will move on. [Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering from a seated position—would he like to make a point?
Clive Lewis
No? Thank you. Good. [Interruption.] You can bury your gold in there. Let us move on.
Clive Lewis
No, I will make some progress. [Interruption.] I am sure that there will be plenty more for the hon. Member to come back on.
I will move on to military spending. I hear Government Members making—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that I have not put a time limit on speeches, but I have asked people to keep to around eight minutes and he is way over that now.
Clive Lewis
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker; I appreciate your generosity.
In terms of increasing expenditure on defence, we must first ensure that what we already spend is spent properly and efficiently. I do not think we can say that about the Ministry of Defence’s procurement, which is known across Government to be ineffective and inefficient—I need only mention the Ajax armoured vehicle to make the point that billions have been misallocated and spent inefficiently and ineffectively. Before we start talking about spending more, let us not forget that we are one of the biggest spenders on armaments in the world, dwarfing Russia—we spend more than Russia every year—and that global spend on armaments is approaching $2.5 trillion, which is 20 times larger than what we have pledged to spend on the climate crisis, the biggest existential threat facing humanity. I understand that all eyes are on Ukraine and Putin now, but we must understand that poverty, inequality and the climate crisis are the biggest drivers of global insecurity, and, while spending money on weapons and warfare is right and appropriate, we must put that into the context of appropriate spending on other areas.
We already see right-wing Tory outriders such as James Forsyth saying that money will have to come from other sectors of Treasury spend to pay for defence increases. I and—I think—many Opposition Members feel that if there is to be extra spending on defence, that needs to come from the rich, not the public, the poor and my constituents, who have spent the last 10 years under austerity, just come through covid and now face a cost of living crisis. They should not be paying the extra for defence spending. If there are to be sacrifices, let them be made by the rich, not the vast majority of my constituents.
I will finish with a quote. You have been very generous, Mr Deputy Speaker. If the answer to the questions I asked earlier
“is not to defend the status quo by investing our common wealth into more arms, border walls and imported fossil fuels, then we have work to do. The first step is recognising how perilous the current order is and acknowledging the culpability of our own actions and those taken in our name. Solidarity with a common humanity deserving of a common security is the next step toward taking action to change the international system towards one genuinely opposing the threat and reality of war. The challenge then is to build-back-better a new international order supportive of human development, human protection and human security for all.”