Relationship with Russia and China

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

The world order is at a pivotal point in history. From Moscow to Tehran to Beijing, autocratic rulers are attempting to enforce their undemocratic models not only on their own people, but on those beyond their borders. What we are witnessing in Ukraine today is the starkest example of that frightful and frightening phenomenon.

Almost unbelievably, in the 21st century we are witnessing the invasion of a peaceful European state by an armed aggressor—something we have not seen since the actions of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Yet, in a warped and perverted view of history, Putin last night compared Ukraine to Nazi Germany, painting it as a genocidal state that poses a threat to the Russian people. That can only be true in the deranged analysis of Putin’s mind as he unleashes a tsunami of violence against the people of Ukraine.

How could Ukraine be a threat to Russia? Russia has 4,100 aircraft; Ukraine has 318. Russia has 772 fighters; Ukraine has 69. Russia has 1,543 helicopters; Ukraine has 112. Russia has 12,400 tanks; Ukraine has 2,600. Let us also remember that Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal at the end of the Soviet era on the basis of a guarantee that it would not be invaded by Russia. One wonders whether, if Ukraine had maintained its nuclear deterrent, those tanks would be rolling across Ukrainian territory today.

Make no mistake: Putin will continue to challenge the international order and advance his imperial agenda until he is decisively confronted. He seeks to reverse the democratic result of the 1991 Ukraine referendum and resurrect the Soviet empire. With increased security control in Eurasia over recent years, the Baltic states and Ukraine stand as outliers—those states that have stayed beyond Moscow’s malignant grip.

The implications are clear. We must now increase the NATO presence in the Baltic states, as well as in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, which will now be on the frontline. NATO countries must be willing now not only to raise the proportion of their GDP that they give to defence, but to give that money to NATO rather than making paper promises.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

The right hon. Gentleman mentions that Russia has 12,400 tanks. He will know that the Prime Minister mentioned that we had sent 2,000 anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Does he think we are doing enough to provide assets to Ukraine to defend itself?

[Dr Fox]

No, we have not been doing enough. Since we saw the occupation of Crimea in 2014, many of us, including some who are in the House today, have been arguing that the west should be giving Ukraine the proper capabilities to defend itself. It is clear today that we did not do so—something that I will come to in a moment.

Since sanctions were imposed on Russia in 2014, it has paid down state debt, had significant import substitution to make it less dependent on outside producers, and made large investments in European metallurgy, energy and critical infrastructure. In 2020, the inward stock of foreign direct investment in the UK from Russia was £681 million, and the equivalent EU figure was £112 billion. Sanctions must include restrictions on all Russian investment if we are to stop Russia from wriggling out of any new sanctions that are applied because of what it has done today.

To go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), I hope the House will forgive me for quoting an article I wrote on 22 February 2015, which said that an option would be

“to give the Ukrainians the capabilities they most require in order to defend themselves against the military superiority of the pro-Russian separatists and their Kremlin allies.

Primarily, this would involve properly encrypted communications, UAVs for surveillance and targeting and anti-tank capabilities to deal with the massive deficit which the Ukrainians currently have on this front.

There is increasing scepticism in Washington that any diplomatic solution reached with the Putin government will be as worthless as that achieved in Minsk last September.”

What was true at that time about NATO is true today:

“Everybody wants the insurance policy, but too few want to pay the premiums.

Western nations are too afraid to reallocate funds from their welfare addicted domestic populations to their national security budget and Russia knows it.”

National security is the first duty of all Governments. Today’s shocking events should be a clear reminder of that to all of us.

The challenge of Ukraine is likely to be faced elsewhere, as despots start to believe that the west is weaker than it has been for many a long year. It will be a challenge to our values, our democratic way of life and our security. All of us in politics, at whatever level, should remember this: politics is essentially binary. Either we shape the world around us, or we will be shaped by the world around us.

I believe that the values we hold and the history and culture that we defend are worth not only protecting for ourselves, but extending to those in the rest of the world who should have a right to enjoy the same freedoms and benefits we have. The gauntlet was picked up by previous generations. The question is whether we will have the courage to do so today.

Future Free Trade Agreements

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The UK as well as the EU have been at the forefront of improving the investor-state dispute settlement system and its transparency; in particular we supported the UNCITRAL—United Nations Commission on International Trade Law—rules on transparency that became effective in 2014. We have always seen this as being a necessary part of agreements, but we do absolutely agree that transparency is one of the ways to give greater public confidence in the system itself.

It is predicted that the share of global GDP of the seven largest emerging economies—Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey—could increase from around 35% to nearly 50% by 2050, which would mean that they would overtake the G7, although of course even with more mature economies the International Monetary Fund has predicted that the United States will grow over 50% faster than the euro area this year, at 2.5%. This historic shift in global economic and demographic power will reshape the opportunities of international trade in the years to come, perhaps faster than many expect.

We cannot wish away this change and nor should we. Providing the employment and economic growth the UK needs means navigating this shift successfully. Happily, the United Kingdom is well placed to take advantage of these new opportunities. British businesses are superbly positioned to capitalise on this new environment, as both established and growing economies drive demand in precisely those sectors in which the UK excels. Anyone who has travelled widely will have seen how impressed global businesses and consumers are by the high quality of British goods and the professionalism of British services.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

But surely Team EU collectively, with Britain in it, would have much more negotiating leverage against those very large emerging markets. An extreme example would be China. We are dwarfed by China but, as the EU, we can negotiate the best deal. The EU is negotiating deals with Singapore, Japan and others. Surely the Secretary of State must agree that we would get a better deal as part of the EU than isolated as a dwarf outside it.

[Dr Fox]

I really find it quite insulting that the United Kingdom, the fifth biggest economy in the world, should be described as a dwarf by the hon. Gentleman. We are one of the most successful global economies. It is also worth pointing out that the European Union does not have a trade agreement with China or with the United States because it was too difficult to get an agreement with the 28 nations in those negotiations. He is right to suggest that economies of scale have a role in trade agreements, but so also does the ability to conclude those agreements and to ratify them. That has shown itself to be easier when dealing with single nations, which is why Australia has a trade agreement with China but the European Union does not.

Draft EU-Canada Trade Agreement Order

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade (Dr Liam Fox)]

I beg to move,

That the draft European Union (Definition of Treaties) (Canada Trade Agreement) Order 2018, which was laid before this House on 21 May, be approved.

I am delighted that we have the opportunity once again to debate the comprehensive economic and trade agreement between the EU and Canada, known as CETA, and that this is taking place on the Floor of this House. This follows on from the thorough and constructive debate last year and the overwhelming support shown by the full House in a subsequent deferred Division. I note that a majority of those on the Labour Benches who voted in that Division chose rightly to vote in favour of the agreement, and I hope they will continue to do so, because this debate comes at a crucial point in world trade, with the potentially destructive rise in protectionist sentiments.

Free trade is the means by which we have collectively taken millions of people out of abject poverty in the last generation, and we must not put that progress into reverse. We should also realise that trade is not an end in itself, but a means to widen shared prosperity. That prosperity underpins social cohesion and, in turn, political stability. That political stability, in turn, is the building block of our collective security. To interrupt the flow of prosperity is to risk creating a torrent of instability. We have an opportunity today to reaffirm Britain’s commitment to the principles of free trade and the application of an international rules-based system.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that after exit day, we will be bound by these treaties with Canada and hopefully Japan, but that there is no legal obligation for Canada and Japan to honour their obligations to us, because we will be out of the EU? That is the big problem with leaving the customs union.

[Dr Fox]

We already have had substantial bilateral discussions with Canada, and it agrees with the United Kingdom that CETA should form the basis of a bilateral agreement between the UK and Canada as we leave. However, we will have greater leeway to look at what additional elements we might want to include when we are no longer tied to the European Union.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Secretary of State give some reassurance to Welsh lamb and sheep farmers, who have faced 40% tariffs under WTO, and ensure that if we do have a trade agreement with New Zealand we will not be flooded with New Zealand lamb?

[Dr Fox]

When we get to the point at which we begin to have those discussions, we will want to take into account a balance between UK producer interests and UK consumer interests, and we will also wish to ensure that we are making a contribution to a global liberal trading environment that benefits everybody.

Health

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)]

Perhaps I may allow the House a slightly more bipartisan interlude by concentrating for the moment on a different part of the Gracious Speech, which is the part relating to our country’s national security. I was delighted to see in the Gracious Speech the Government’s commitment to the NATO alliance, which is underpinned by the hosting in Wales of the NATO summit later this year.

From 4 April 1949, when it came into being, NATO has become the major instrument of stability and security in Europe. It has taken in newly emerging democracies, such as Greece and Spain. It has been extended to countries formerly in the Warsaw pact, creating a far more safe and stable continent. It has embraced countries such as Norway in the far north and Turkey, giving us security in places where we perhaps have greatest strategic vulnerability.

However, as we approach the summit in Wales, we need to accept that there are big weaknesses inside our major military alliance. To an extent, the political and military roles that we clearly understood during the cold war have dissolved away, and western countries existing in peace and freedom have become fat on the prosperity and security that they have come to take for granted. Only four members of the NATO alliance currently meet the 2% of GDP floor of spending that they undertook to meet when they joined and, as a consequence, the European continent gives a lower priority to defence and is ever more addicted to welfare. As the Prime Minister and Chancellor Merkel have regularly pointed out, we have now reached a situation in which the European Union represents 7% of the global population, 25% of global GDP and 50% of global social spending. That picture is utterly unsustainable. It is a situation in which the pressures of defence have become great.

Of course, NATO has had recent success in the way it took charge of operations in Afghanistan, what it did in response to the invasion of Kuwait and, perhaps more successfully, what happened in the Balkans. However, not long ago the Libyan conflict showed us how many weaknesses the alliance has. We did not have enough of some key assets—such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or air-to-air refuelling—to the extent that we would not have been able to carry out the Libyan campaign without the United States being on board. Such is the current weakness of European NATO.

We are confronted with a growing threat in the shape of Putin’s Russia, and we have stood by and watched serial bad behaviour from the Putin Government. They cut off gas to Ukraine, in breach of the NATO-Russia treaty, and we did nothing. We saw a cyber-attack on Estonia, and we did nothing. Russia invaded Georgia, parts of which it still occupies, and we did far too little. I am afraid that the signal the House sent after the debate on Syria only gave Putin the understanding that further aggression would not be rewarded with real resistance by the west, and I am afraid that the events we have seen in Ukraine are, at least partly, a result of how such decisions have been interpreted. We must be careful to ensure that our behaviour does not further reinforce that position.

We have allowed wishful thinking on Russia to replace critical analysis. We have all wanted to see Russia develop as an open, democratic, pluralistic system, but that is not going to happen, at least not under the current regime. The quicker we understand that, the better for the wider security picture. It is a bullying and thuggish regime that is not likely to change. Its modus operandi is clear: it pumps money into regimes or city states—wherever it can—to try to encourage them to be more Russia-friendly. It issues huge numbers of Russian passports to citizens in those places and then claims that it has to defend them.

The whole debate about the Ukrainian crisis misses one essential point: it is not to do with strategic or even tactical interests; it is a direct challenge to international law. Putin has said that the protection of ethnic Russians—not even Russian citizens—lies not with the states in which they live, or with the laws, constitutions or forms of government of such states, but with an external state, Russia, which can intervene to protect ethnic Russians wherever they may be. If we allow that to stand, there will be no international law, because it will sweep away every norm of international behaviour that has been accepted since world war two.

[Geraint Davies]

President Obama has made it clear that he is against Britain leaving the European Union or Scotland leaving the UK. What does the right hon. Gentleman think President Putin’s position would be on those issues?

[Dr Fox]

With all due respect to anybody outside our own borders, what the United Kingdom decides to do is a matter entirely for the United Kingdom, and what Scotland decides to do is a matter for Scotland. Nevertheless, since the hon. Gentleman asked me what I think about President Putin’s view on those issues, I will tell him what I think about Scotland. Any fragmentation would be not only a fragmentation of our country’s defences but a potential weakness inside NATO, and that is unlikely to help or give comfort to anyone other than those who are a potential threat to our national security. The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, in that events that take place inside the United Kingdom may well have resonances that are not naturally considered when decisions are being taken.

I want briefly to mention another area of national security of which the House must be very cognisant: the changing nature of the threats we face. We have gone from state threats in the cold war to the domestic terror threat we faced from the IRA, and we now face a transnational terrorist threat. That threat has come at a time when we have seen a huge growth in the internet, which allows a lot of the enemies of this country to hide. Back in 1995, when President Clinton was President of the United States, there were 130 websites in the world; at the end of 2012, there were 654 million. That is a lot of places for our enemies to hide.

Our security services need to be able to operate in the same environment as our enemies, and that to me was the essence of the great betrayal of Snowden. We depend on a moral and legal relationship between our employees and the Governments of our allied states to maintain our security, and there were three elements to what Snowden did. The first was his disclosure about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance. Had he done that inside the law it would have been a legitimate debate in a democracy, but to go further and set out the means by which our security forces carry out their business, or even potentially to set out the names of particular operatives, goes well beyond what is acceptable. In my view it goes from legitimate debate into the business of treason.

We do not have massively overwhelming security apparatus in this country. We spend 0.3% of Government spending on all our agencies put together, which is what we spend on the NHS every six days. We have good, strong oversight of our security services in this country that we should be proud of, but we must be clear when it comes to national security that peace and security are not the natural state of the world. Those things have to be fought for with every generation, and we have a responsibility to fund that appropriately. We can have neither such restricted freedom that we start to become what we claim to oppose, nor go off on a libertarian rant that takes us to a place that leaves us far less secure than we ought to be. If we get that balance right, we will be doing our duty in this House.

Armed Forces (Redundancies)

Debate between Geraint Davies and Liam Fox

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

As of this moment the changes are being considered—they will be announced later in the year—so obviously none will impact on any short-term decision about a no-fly zone in Libya.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

At a time of enormous uncertainty—not just about Libya, but about the middle east and northern Africa—does the Secretary of State agree that making long-term strategic reductions in our capabilities for short-term cost reasons will hearten the Taliban and encourage their resurgence in future years, in the knowledge that we are in disarray over piecemeal successive cuts to our strategic capability?

[Dr Fox]

The idea that these are short-term cuts for short-term reasons beggars belief. Next year we will spend more on debt interest than on defence, the Foreign Office and aid put together. Even if we eliminate the deficit in this Parliament, the debt interest will still go up, so future generations will still be living with the legacy of Labour’s economic incompetence. This is not something short term; this is long-term pain imposed on the British people by the economic incompetence of another socialist Government.