Ukraine

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this important debate about the very serious situation in Crimea and Ukraine.

The whole House is agreed that the events of the past two weeks have gone in completely the wrong direction and that what we want to see is the peaceful democratic development of Ukraine. We all know that conflict will set that back. If this crisis is not to escalate, we need to concentrate on bringing down the temperature, but securing Russian participation in meaningful talks about the future will be difficult.

It is clear that a vote with transparent ballot boxes and no international monitors does not reach the required standard for a free choice for Crimean people. When he winds up the debate, will the Leader of the House explain whether we are going to stick with our position on the overriding importance of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, or are we going to discuss what we believe would be a free and fair plebiscite?

As the Foreign Secretary has said, Ukraine should not have to choose between Russia and the EU. It is quite clear that the Russians feel they have a great deal at stake. Their major—possibly the major—concern is the warm-water location of the Black sea fleet. Will the Leader of the House explain how it could be maintained were Ukraine to join NATO?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth)? My real worry is that the Crimean peninsula is isolated and that the Russians require land access to it, which means coming through eastern Ukraine.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman, whose military expertise goes far beyond mine, makes a very useful point.

As we have previously discussed in the House, we need to look at the behaviour of the new Government in Kiev. The under-representation of Russian speakers from the east and the appointment of two oligarchs as governors of eastern regions does not look inclusive.

When I was in Ukraine a couple of years ago, it was absolutely clear that weak institutional arrangements had been further sapped by a weak political culture and an undeveloped civil society. Virtually every senior politician was supported by an oligarch—unless they had become one themselves—and it was very unclear who controlled whom.

I was therefore extremely concerned to receive e-mails from human rights activists in Ukraine who claimed that British parliamentarians had received money from Dmitry Firtash, a major Ukrainian oligarch. He owns 45% of the Ukrainian gas transit company, which controls Gazprom’s supplies through Ukraine to Europe, and he also owns a major chemical industry in the country. Mr Firtash is estimated to be worth between $600 million and $5 billion. He has been linked to President Yanukovych and even to President Putin.

When I raised the possibility of conflicts of interest with the Foreign Secretary on 4 March, he described my question as “utterly baseless” and “ridiculous in the extreme”. Since then, in an episode described by one analyst to the Financial Times as “seismic”, Mr Firtash has been arrested in Vienna by the Austrian organised crime unit, following a seven-year investigation by the FBI.

We have also learned that Mr Firtash had a meeting at the Foreign Office on 24 February. I hope that the Leader of the House, who will wind up the debate, can tell us whom Mr Firtash met, what was discussed and whether the issue of sanctions or asset freezes was on the agenda. On the same day, the Foreign Secretary said in the House that he wanted to see an “end to pervasive corruption” in Ukraine. We all agree with that, but I notice that Mr Firtash is not at the moment on the sanctions list issued by the EU.

Even the most cursory glance through the Electoral Commission website reveals that in recent years the Conservative party, in various guises, has received nearly £200,000 from associates of Mr Firtash. The Harlow Conservative party has received £40,000 from Mr Shetler-Jones, who was the chief executive officer of Mr Firtash’s holding company, Group DF. Mr Shetler-Jones has given money in his own name and via a company called Scythian, which he owns and of which he is a director.

Earlier in the Parliament, Baroness Neville-Jones was refused the post of National Security Adviser because of her links to Ukrainian oligarchs. She, too, has received money from Mr Shetler-Jones. During the previous Parliament, the Electoral Commission looked into whether Scythian was an active company, but it has not published its findings. It is apparently a consultancy that advises on energy matters, but it is not clear who its clients are.

That is not only a concern in this country but a serious problem from the perspective of Ukraine. Ukraine has lost the equivalent of almost half its annual GDP to outflows into offshore accounts during the past three years. The all-party group on anti-corruption says that a proportion of those funds have been laundered through the UK, that this is a clear example of the damaging role UK companies and individuals play in aiding foreign corrupt officials, and that assets should be identified, frozen and returned without delay. The Foreign Secretary has said that he is working on Ukrainian asset recovery, and I hope that the Government will take a no-holds-barred approach.