Appointment of Lord Lebedev

Holly Lynch Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)]

This is a timely debate. In these historic and trying times, this country and our allies must be able to have trust in the Prime Minister on defence, on national security and on Russia. I am afraid to say that on all those fronts there are enormous questions for him to answer. My hon. Friends have outlined the concerns regarding the appointment of Lord Lebedev to the House of Lords. That is why this motion calling for the relevant documents to be published is so crucial. However, that is not the only cause for concern regarding the Prime Minister’s judgment on the Lebedev family.

On 16 March this year I wrote to the Security Minister regarding the now Prime Minister’s actions and his encounters with the Lebedev family in April 2018, which, as others have said, was just a month after the Salisbury poisonings. We all remember the events of 4 March 2018, when the Novichok nerve agent was used to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who both became seriously ill following their contact with the deadly substance. Detective sergeant Nick Bailey, one of the first on the scene, was admitted to intensive care but thankfully survived.

On 12 March the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) came to the House of Commons and told honourable Members that it was “highly likely” that Russia was responsible for the Salisbury attack, saying,

“either this was a direct act by the Russian state against our country; or the Russian Government lost control of their potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others.”—[Official Report, 12 March 2018; Vol. 637, c.620-21.]

Crucially, she said that the Foreign Secretary, now the Prime Minister, had summoned Russia’s ambassador to the Foreign Office that afternoon to provide an explanation.

The following month, the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) attended a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. In advance of the meeting, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg outlined that Russia would be first item on the agenda, after what he said were several years of Moscow’s “pattern of dangerous behaviour”. He went on to say:

“It is also highly likely that Russia was behind the nerve agent attack in Salisbury.”

That NATO meeting was on the 27 April 2018. I outline the timeline and context to make it crystal clear that the then Foreign Secretary, now the Prime Minister, would have fully understood how serious the situation with Russia was back in April 2018, in the middle of the Salisbury incident. It is therefore incredible that he went straight from that NATO meeting to Palazzo Terranova in Italy for a weekend-long party hosted by Evgeny Lebedev, now Lord Lebedev.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) has already said, there the then Foreign Secretary met with Evgeny Lebedev’s father Alexander Lebedev, an ex-KGB officer. That was confirmed by a spokesperson for Alexander Lebedev to The Guardian, which published the story in November 2019. When asked about the meeting, Downing Street declined to comment.

It is reported that the then Foreign Secretary attended the party with no security, and, other than a brief entry of ministerial interests on the Foreign Office website, where he declared an “overnight stay” there on 28 April—so we know it happened—there appears to be no official record of his time there, nor any details of any meetings or who else was in attendance. He left his officials and close protection officers behind, despite the Foreign Secretary’s position being deemed to require round-the-clock protection from the Metropolitan Police.

While the Foreign Secretary was off the grid, partying with Lord Lebedev and his father the ex-KGB agent, the Novichok was still waiting to be found, in a bin seven miles north of Salisbury. It was found by Charlie Rowley on 30 June. Charlie survived his exposure to the Novichok, but sadly his girlfriend Dawn did not, having sprayed it directly onto her skin, believing it to be perfume. It is nothing short of a miracle, given what we know about the Novichok and its reckless use, that more people were not seriously injured, with greater loss of life. A great deal of thanks is due to the professionals who worked tirelessly to respond to the risk and make the area safe. To leave a NATO meeting intended to co-ordinate the response of NATO members to the Salisbury poisoning, as Foreign Secretary, and fly directly to a party where a former KGB agent was in attendance, without security or officials, shows a somewhat catastrophic error of judgment. In September 2018, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, returned to update the House of Commons to confirm that, based on a body of intelligence, the Government had concluded that the two individuals named by the police and the Crown Prosecution Service were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU.

When my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) Neston raised this at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions two weeks ago, the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), said:

“The hon. Gentleman is talking total nonsense and I do not have anything to add to what I have already said.”—[Official Report, 16 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 889.]

This is utterly, utterly unacceptable. The Deputy Prime Minister might think that this sounds unbelievable, and he would be absolutely right—it does—but I have only outlined what has already been confirmed and published and is in the public domain. As a minimum, he owes my hon. Friend an apology. But beyond that, this Government and the Prime Minister owe the country an explanation. I am still waiting for a response to my letter to my counterpart, the Minister for Security and Borders, asking for answers. It is entirely right that the documents requested in the motion are published within the same spirit of transparency on this matter.

In addition to the documents relating to Lord Lebedev’s peerage, may I also ask that an urgent explanation is made to this House regarding the Prime Minister’s movements in April 2018? For him to decide to go to that party attended by a former KGB officer, at the height of the Salisbury poisoning, on the way back from a NATO meeting on Russia, left both himself and the country horribly exposed. I put on record my thanks to the fearless journalists who have put this information in the public domain. The Deputy Prime Minister’s dismissal of the PMQ from my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston is frankly beneath him. This is incredibly serious. The general public and our allies need an explanation from the Prime Minister, and we need the documents outlined in the motion to be published without delay.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

I do not recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the Prime Minister’s position. The right hon. Gentleman knows full well that no one can hold a candle to this Prime Minister in his integrity, honesty and opposition to the Putin regime. That has been proven time and again, throughout the international arena.

[Holly Lynch]

Will the Minister put some speculation to bed right now by either confirming or denying that the Prime Minister met Alexander Lebedev in April 2018?

[Michael Ellis]

I have no individual knowledge on that point, but the House of Lords Appointments Commission, in the person of Lord Bew, wrote to the Leader of the Opposition, after he wrote to Lord Bew, and addressed the matter, and nothing disorderly is said to have occurred. The fact of the matter is that the processes are followed routinely, as they have been throughout. How the vetting process works in any individual case is outwith my knowledge, but the Labour party ought to exercise caution—I say it respectfully—in casting aspersions on individuals because they happen to have Russian ancestry or heritage. That is the effect of the motion, and it is unworthy and certainly inappropriate.

In conclusion, we must ensure the ability of the commission to conduct robust vetting, and to provide advice that is not compromised. This process should continue to be conducted confidentially, with disclosure being at the discretion of the Prime Minister, who is, after all, ultimately responsible for making recommendations to the sovereign on appointments to the House of Peers; and the commission, independent of Government, is responsible for vetting nominations. I urge the House to reflect on whether this motion is a responsible use of its powers.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That, given the concerns raised about the appropriateness of, and process for, appointing Lord Lebedev as a member of the House of Lords and the role of the Prime Minister in that process, an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty that she will be graciously be pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House, no later than 28 April,

(a) any document held by the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office containing or relating to advice from, or provided to, the House of Lords Appointments Commission concerning the appointment of Evgeny Alexandrovich Lebedev as a Member of the House of Lords; and

(b) the minutes of, submissions relevant to and electronic communications relating to, any meeting within the Cabinet Office or the Prime Minister’s Office at which the appointment of Lord Lebedev, or advice relating to that appointment, was discussed in a form which may contain redactions, but such redactions shall be solely for the purposes of national security.