European Council

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have already returned a power to Britain by getting out of the bail-out fund. We have returned 100 specific powers as a result of the opt-out on justice and home affairs. I have been very specific that when it comes to the free movement of people, and particularly its interaction with our welfare system, we need powers to be returned to this country. Specifically, I have said that people coming from European Union countries to Britain should not be allowed to claim unemployment benefit, that they should have to leave after six months if they do not have a job, that they should have to pay in for four years before getting anything out of the tax credits system and that they should not be able to send child benefit or other child tax payments to families back home. Those things require serious change in Europe, including treaty change, and that is what we will secure, and what a contrast with the Labour party, which will do absolutely zip.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Ind)]

May I add my own congratulations to Mr Natzler as Clerk, and say how pleased I am personally that the cross-party process of the Governance Committee has led to one of many important decisions that have been made following it?

When the Prime Minister speaks to Mr Netanyahu this evening, will he underline two things—first, that in respect of the negotiations with Iran, a deal which is acceptable and honourable on both sides is more likely to help guarantee Israel’s security, as well as that of others, than no deal at all? Secondly, will he emphasise to Mr Netanyahu that what his party and Government have been involved in is trying to change the reality on the ground through settlement building, so that if it goes on, it will be impossible for there to be a separate state of Palestine, and that if he carries on like this, the patience of this House and of Europe will run out?

Iraq Inquiry

Jack Straw Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). I welcome the debate, and in doing so I formally draw the attention of the House to the fact that as Foreign Secretary between 2001 and 2006, I have been a witness before the Iraq inquiry.

Of all the many decisions I had to make as a Minister, none was more serious than my decision not just to support military action against the Saddam Hussein regime, but actively to advocate that course in the final speech in the momentous debate in this House on 18 March 2003. The House went on to vote by 412 to 149 in favour of military action if Saddam Hussein failed to meet the terms of an ultimatum presented to him.

If one accepts the privilege of high office, one has to accept the consequences that flow from the decisions one makes. It was therefore entirely right that there should be a comprehensive and independent inquiry about the Iraq war, not least to hold those of us who had to make those decisions properly to account. There was an issue between the parties about the timing of the inquiry, and I shall discuss that briefly later in my speech, if I have time. The inquiry was established in mid-June 2009 and when it began its oral evidence sessions, in November 2009, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, said:

“We aim to report, if possible, by the end of 2010”.

Any inquiry of this nature has to follow rules of natural justice and public law principles, including that it judges decision takers on the circumstances that obtained at the time, on the information then available and without the benefit of hindsight. Alongside that, there is the Maxwellisation process to give witnesses an opportunity to respond to the drafts of any criticisms intended to be made of them, and the inquiry then has to have time and space to consider those representations.

[Mr Baron]

Is the right hon. Gentleman now going to admit something that his party and a good number of people on my side have not admitted, which is that we went to war on a false premise? There were no weapons of mass destruction. Is he willing to admit that now?

[Mr Straw]

With great respect, no, and this is not the occasion to do that. I gave extensive evidence to the Iraq inquiry, as I will explain.

As part of the process of Maxwellisation, all relevant witnesses were required to sign undertakings of confidentiality. The House will therefore understand that those who are part of the Maxwellisation process are constrained in what they can say. I would, however, like to say this. I gave oral evidence to the inquiry on three occasions: twice in early 2010 and then on 2 February 2011. The third time I was before the inquiry—four years ago this coming Monday—was the inquiry’s final evidence session. At that point, Sir John said it was

“going to take some months to deliver the report itself”,

which was taken to mean that publication would take place by the end of 2011. However, 18 months later, in July 2013, the inquiry announced that the Maxwellisation process would begin in October of that year. As the House now knows, it did not begin for more than 12 months after that.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

Why does my right hon. Friend think that the Chilcot inquiry adopted a convoluted Maxwellisation process, rather than the straightforward one adopted in the Inquiries Act 2005?

[Mr Straw]

I am afraid that the answer to that is well above my pay grade. My hon. Friend would have to ask the inquiry, or those responsible for the inquiry, about that. But I just say, parenthetically, that when this is all over, there will be many issues for parties on both sides of the House to consider about the conduct of such inquiries, not least whether they would be aided, as I soundly believe they would be, if counsel and high-grade legal teams were available to them.

There has been much nonsense around suggesting that it has been witnesses who have caused the extensive delays in the inquiry’s progress, and therefore its final report. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden for what he said, because these claims are wholly without foundation. A moment’s thought should convince anyone that no witness has had any interest in the inquiry’s being dragged out for this long. For example, to prepare for my evidence sessions in 2010 and 2011, I had to study hundreds of records. If the Maxwellisation process had taken place at the time, the detail from those records would still have been fresh in my mind. As it is, a further four years has elapsed, requiring fresh study of reams of documents. I am conscious too, as the whole House will be, of the anxiety and concern of those who have lost loved ones in the conflict at the delays in publishing the report.

When Sir John wrote to the Prime Minister last week with an update on the progress of his inquiry, he said that he could confirm that,

“individuals are currently being given the opportunity to respond to provisional criticism in the inquiry’s draft report”.

The House should note the use of the adverb “currently”, to which the adverb “recently” might have been an informative addition. It follows from this that no witness to the inquiry has remotely been responsible for any of the delays that have occurred to date. Nor, as Mr Blair has made clear in a recent statement, has he or any other witness been involved in delaying the process of declassifying previously sensitive documents.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Is there not then a question as to any obstruction that might have come from the office of George Bush, the former President of the United States, or the current White House, which seem to be very reluctant to reveal the details of correspondence and communication between former Prime Minister Blair and former President Bush?

[Mr Straw]

I have no information about any of the process of declassification.

At the same time, my hope is that in the Maxwellisation process, which is only “currently” under way, no one is suggesting that any person who is the subject of provisional criticisms by the inquiry should not be given a proper opportunity to consider those and to respond, with sufficient time, proportionate to the volume and complexity of the material involved. It has, after all, taken the inquiry more than five years finally to produce its initial report, and as the Prime Minister has conceded, even that may not be complete.

Let me deal briefly with the claims that if the last Government had established an inquiry earlier, we would have had the report by now. There are two responses to that. The first, the obvious one, is that no one anticipated delays of the length that we have seen. The then Leader of the Opposition’s complaint, when the announcement was made in June 2009, was that the inquiry

“is due to take—surprise, surprise—until July or August 2010.”—[Official Report, 15 June 2009; Vol. 494, c. 25.]

That is after that general election. There was never the remotest suggestion from anyone, nor anticipation, that this report would not be out well before the 2015 general election.

Secondly, although they were the subject of controversy, the previous Government did have sound reasons for not establishing an inquiry earlier than we did, because British troops were heavily involved in combat operations at the time when earlier calls were made. Our rationale—

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

The idea that the Iraq inquiry could not have been held during the Iraq war was shown to be a fallacy by Douglas Hogg at the time. He pointed out in the House that the inquiry into the Norway debacle happened during world war two. That was a smokescreen by the then Labour Government.

[Mr Straw]

With great respect, it was not. I have looked at the precedents. There can be inquiries in the middle of wars. I have looked, as it happens, at the precedents of the Dardanelles and the Crimea. A contemporaneous report of the conclusions of the report on the Crimea, which were read out to the House by the Clerk for one hour and 25 minutes, spells out that the difficulty of the task

“has been materially enhanced by the impossibility of summoning some persons by considerations…of State policy”,

and the committee admits that

“they have been unable satisfactorily to complete”

the inquiry.

The Franks inquiry was the subject of huge controversy at the time. I was in the House. Yes, it did report in six months, but it was a committee of Privy Counsellors, four of the six were former Labour and Conservative Cabinet Ministers, and one had been the former permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence. Some said that they were parti pris. They took all their evidence in secret and, as far as I know, they published no documents to be declassified. It can be done in that way, but it is not acceptable these days.

There were many debates about a meaningful inquiry, for example the one in October 2006. At the time it was said,

“important operations are under way in Iraq. Major political decisions…and efforts to contain the insurgency appear to be in the balance…Any inquiry should be able to examine what happens in the coming months…as well as the events of recent years. To begin an inquiry now would therefore be premature.”—[Official Report, 31 October 2006; Vol. 451, c. 183.]

Those powerful words were the argument that we were advancing. What is interesting is that they were not offered by a Minister, but from the Opposition Front Bench by the right hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague).

I do not envy members of the inquiry the burden they have had to face. The unanticipated delays in the inquiry’s progress now make for additional pressures on the inquiry members themselves. In particular, as the months go past, wholly unfounded suspicions fall on the inquiry about a whitewash, and there is an equal and opposite concern that they may feel obliged to respond to these pressures by conclusions more starkly drawn than the evidence would allow.

[Paul Flynn]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Straw]

I am just coming to the end.

Everyone bears a heavy responsibility for ensuring that the inquiry is not put in a position where it becomes impossible to conduct a fair process and reach a fair and independent conclusion. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden importantly noted outside the House on 14 January:

“The purpose of the inquiry is not vilification or vindication—it is to learn lessons.”

That is the path all of us wish the inquiry to follow, and I hope, as we all do, that it can be published as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), but I disagree with him on the idea that we see the events of 2003 as history. We see them under the cold light of eternity. They are not a matter of history for the loved ones of the 179 of our brave soldiers who fell. They still suffer a living wound that will never heal. I would like to repeat a speech I made in 2009 when I was sitting where the hon. Gentleman is sitting now. I am not allowed to repeat that speech, but not a word of it would change. The speech consisted of 10 minutes of reading out the names of all the British soldiers who died. I believe that that is a far more effective way of making the point that, as the result of a decision taken here in this House by many of us, those young people lost their lives.

An American-British enterprise was not inevitable. We need not have been involved. The Americans were going in anyway and we had the choice to stay out, as Harold Wilson did many years ago. The main reason I am offering myself to my electorate in a few months’ time is because of this. I want to see the end of this and I want to see us get to the nub of the terrible mistake we made. It is to do with the role of Prime Ministers and their relationship with Back Benchers in this House.

Something happens to Prime Ministers when the war drums start to beat. They talk in a different way. They drag out the old Churchillian rhetoric. The rolling phrases come out. They walk in a different way—they strut like Napoleon—and they are overwhelmed by hubris. No longer are they dealing with the boring detail of day-to-day operations; they are writing their own page in history. Usually, it is a bloody page in history.

We do not need an inquiry into the whole Afghanistan enterprise, on which there was general agreement, but we certainly need one into why we went into Helmand when only half a dozen British soldiers had been killed in combat. We went in with a belief that not a shot would be fired and we would be out in three years, but 453 deaths followed. That is what we need an inquiry into.

There has been a profound change in this House. It happened on 29 August 2013, when the Prime Minister came here to encourage us—I believe, with a certain complicity with other party leaders—to go into Syria to attack Assad, who was the deadly enemy of ISIS. Now we are attacking ISIS, which is the deadly enemy of Assad. How on earth could we have been persuaded to be dragged into the middle of that conflict, which is ancient, deep and incomprehensible to us? Thank goodness the good sense and pooled wisdom of 650 MPs, informed by the terrible tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan, persuaded this House not to follow the prime ministerial instinct for war. That will change this House for a long time.

Along with others, I believe there is nothing political about this in any way. Those of us who remember the vote, which was the most serious vote we ever took, remember the imprecations of the Front Benchers. One hundred and thirty-nine Labour MPs voted not to go to war, against the strongest three-line Whip of my time here, but 50 others, who were very doubtful, were bamboozled, bribed and bullied into the wrong Lobby or into abstaining—and nearly all of them bitterly regret it now. It was a misuse of the organs of this House. Virtually every Committee that looked into it—those that are supposed to know better, such as the Intelligence and Security Committee, the Defence Committee, the Foreign Affairs Committee—were all cheerleaders for the war. And where were the Opposition? There is nothing political here. The then Leader of the Opposition was more gung-ho for war than Tony Blair. Only half a dozen hon. Members on the Conservative side voted against the war, and to their great credit, of course, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru voted the same way.

We are being denied the truth. I find it astonishing that the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) does not agree there were no weapons of mass destruction. It is amazing if he still believes there was an imminent threat to British territory. I have a document—I have no time to go into its detail—referenced by Tony Blair as evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the threat posed. It concerns a meeting on 22 August 1995 at which the principal person giving evidence was a General Hussein Kamal. For goodness’ sake, read the document!

[Mr Straw]

I dealt only briefly with the intervention from the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) because this debate is about the Iraq inquiry and its timing, not about the substance, and I would have been slapped down very quickly. For the avoidance of doubt, however, the whole Security Council judged in November 2002 that there was a threat to international peace and security from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.

[George Galloway]

Because they believed you and Colin Powell.

Murder of Lee Rigby

Jack Straw Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend puts the matter into clear perspective. Once it has been discovered on someone’s e-mail account that they are planning or plotting a terrorist outrage, it is hard to think of any justification for not passing that on to the authorities. That is exactly what my right hon. and learned Friend’s Committee finds:

“the companies should accept they have a responsibility to notify the relevant authorities when an automatic trigger indicating terrorism is activated, and allow the authorities, whether US or UK, to take the next step.”

That is absolutely right and I hope that this will trigger a debate among the internet companies themselves about the action that needs to be taken.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

First, I commend the Intelligence and Security Committee report, as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition have done. I also echo what the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have said about the extreme difficulties that the intelligence and police services face when there is an expectation of success in respect of every investigation. These agencies, and the police, have people who are very highly skilled and dedicated and who are working very long hours—but, with the best will in the world, they are human. There will be some cases where the terrorists escape detection and there will therefore be terrorist outrages, as there have been in previous terrorist campaigns.

Lastly, may I press the Prime Minister again on the issue of the United States-based internet companies and ask him to take it up with the US at the highest level? Is there not a cultural problem among the leadership of some of these companies, which have a distorted “libertarian” ideology and believe that somehow that allows them to be wholly detached from responsibility to Governments and to the peoples whom we democratically represent in this country and abroad?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with everything that the right hon. Gentleman has said. First, on the work done by MI5 and our agencies, I will repeat the quote from the director general of MI5 that says it all:

“We are not an army that has battalions waiting in barracks for deployment. We are fully deployed all the time so the only way to go on high priority cases is to stop low ones.”

That gives a sense of the pressure that, inevitably, organisations such as this are under; they are trying all the time to think of how they best triage these cases and make sure that they have the maximum input into the most dangerous cases.

The second point that the right hon. Gentleman made was about taking up personally with the US the engagement on the importance of communications data. I can guarantee absolutely that that happens at every level, including with the President. It is a shared challenge for both of us to get this right. We are very clear: wherever these companies are headquartered, if they provide services in the UK they should be subject to UK law. The point he makes with respect to the companies is absolutely right. Of course they worry about their public image in terms of wanting to be in favour of data security, and one can understand that. But they also need to worry about their public image if they are being used by terrorists to plot attacks and they have information about those attacks that they do not pass on. We need to make that point tell in the conversations to come.

G20

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say is that we have one of the top five defence budgets anywhere in the world. We spend more than £30 billion on defence and people know that we have hugely capable armed forces. Because of the difficult decisions we have made, we will see a drumbeat of new destroyers, new frigates, new aircraft carriers and new fighter jets coming off the production lines, so we are in a very strong position.

But I do not actually believe that the solution to Ukraine is a military solution. Of course it is right that NATO is helping to strengthen Ukraine’s defence infrastructure, as we agreed in Cardiff, but crucially what is required is a political settlement that respects the independence of Ukraine. What President Putin will respect is a unity of purpose on behalf of European countries and the United States to maintain the pressure and the sanctions until he changes his behaviour.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

On the crucial issue of tax avoidance, could the Prime Minister say whether he is satisfied with the attitude and progress being made by Mr Juncker in respect of the scandalous behaviour by Luxembourg when he was its Prime Minister?

[The Prime Minister]

I am satisfied that every country in the European Union has signed up to the automatic exchange of tax information. For many years, it was not only Luxembourg but one or two other countries in the EU that did not sign up to that. We are making progress, but I will never be fully satisfied, because until every jurisdiction in the world signs up we will not be able to get rid of tax avoidance.

European Council

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 27th October 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. For those of us who want to argue that the European Union is capable of reform, this was not a good development. It is important to understand that these are provisional estimates and that EUROSTAT is still travelling to every country to work out what the numbers actually are. There are important challenges to be made. But clearly the idea of a bill being presented in that way, with so little time to pay, is not acceptable.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

On migration from the European Union, may I ask the Prime Minister to name five towns which, in his view, have been swamped by it?

[The Prime Minister]

I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that, to be fair to the Secretary of State for Defence, he corrected himself this morning, and I think he was absolutely right. It is right for politicians to raise concerns about immigration, but we should always choose our language carefully. He said this morning that he wished he had chosen his language in a different way, and I agree with that.

NATO Summit

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 8th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks and I can absolutely give him that assurance. It was important that one of the first things that needed to happen at the conference was for NATO to be very clear about the article 5 commitment that all members of NATO are subject to collective defence, Estonia included. It is important that that message goes out and that we should not only have the readiness action plan and the new spearhead force but start to see more NATO exercises, so that when Russians look at Estonia—or Latvia or Lithuania—they see different nationalities involved in their defence, not just Estonians. That is vital and yes, it is a red line.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I thank the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition for their generous tributes to our north-west colleague and friend, Jim Dobbin? I know that they will be much appreciated.

I want to ask the Prime Minister about the searing divisions that are now opening up within the Gulf Co-operation Council, with allegations by some states in the GCC that others, including Qatar and to a lesser degree Kuwait, are harbouring people, sometimes quite senior, who are helping to finance and give other support to the Islamist extremists in Iraq and elsewhere. What representations are the Prime Minister and others making to the Governments of those states to ensure that if such activities are taking place—there is high suspicion that they are—they should stop?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes the important point that, on occasions, there have been concerns that some Gulf states have supported players—whether in Syria, Libya or elsewhere—with extremist views. We have repeatedly said how unwise we think that is. There are discussions between those Gulf states but, as I have said many times with respect to our domestic arrangements, Britain is clear that we need to oppose not only violent extremists, but the extremist narrative.

EU Council, Security and Middle East

Jack Straw Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I always listen very carefully to the Father of the House but on this occasion I am not sure I agree with him. I would argue that the rise of Islamic State—of ISIS—has had two principal causes: one is the brutality that Assad has shown to his own people, and the second is the failure of the Government in Iraq to represent all of its people. We need to recognise that it is those two issues that have been the principal cause of this problem, together with, as I have said, the real problem, which is the Islamist extremist narrative that finds any broken state, any source of conflict, any sign of weakness, and exploits it.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

In an article that the Prime Minister wrote in The Daily Telegraph on 16 August, he spoke about the need to build alliances in the region, including, he said, perhaps even with Iran. Does he agree that, yes, while there is a negotiation to be had with Iran over the nuclear dossier, frankly, as he indicated, we need Iranian co-operation more than ever, as it is one of the few stable states in the region? Given that, could he say therefore what action he is taking to lead the full establishment of diplomatic relations with Iran, because the embassies have still not been fully reopened?

[The Prime Minister]

I greatly respect the right hon. Gentleman, and I know he has considerable experience of dealing with Iran, not least from when he was Foreign Secretary. As I have said here before, we are cautiously re-engaging with Iran—he knows about the steps already taken—and that will lead over time, I am sure, to the reopening of embassies and all the rest of it, but we should do so very cautiously, knowing Iran’s history and what it has done, including support for terrorist organisations. Clearly, what is most required in Iraq is an Iraqi Government who represent all of its people, and those that have been most excluded recently have been the Sunni population, but we need, of course, the assistance of Iraq and other countries in making sure this comes about.

G7

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. I raised it specifically at the G7 because I am very concerned that we signed the agreement at Lough Erne about not paying ransoms for terrorist kidnap, yet there are terrorist kidnaps taking place in our world and it is—how can I put it politely?—far from clear that some countries are not allowing, or even enabling, ransoms to be paid: ransoms that then go into the hands of very dangerous terrorist groups and fund weapons and explosives that could well be used in our countries back home. I raised this issue very forcefully, as did President Obama. It is very important that we do all we can to help to release those who are held, but paying ransoms for terrorist kidnaps is totally self-defeating—it makes the terrorists stronger and increases the chances of further kidnaps in future.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I first endorse what the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said about the presidency of the EU? I remind the House that it is not long since the German press themselves were very heavily critical of Mr Juncker for “running a tax haven” and, indeed, for his behaviour on some late evenings. OECD projections suggest that in 11 years the BRICs—Brazil, Russia, India and China—might overtake the G7 in terms of aggregate GDP, and we are already seeing a parting of the ways in terms of international cohesion. How far are the strategic implications of that change in economic power being considered by the G7?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. The reason I believe the G7 is going to have continued relevance in the years ahead is that it is a chance for some of the world’s biggest democracies, and largest economies, who are like-minded to have a very frank and open conversation. It is much less about communiqués and reading out speeches and more about a discussion about how we approach really complicated and difficult issues, whether it is the rise of Islamist extremism or how to make sure that our relations with China work in our mutual interest, and so on. I hope that we can keep going with these meetings. The G20 is able to address the broader world economy and to bring together the BRIC countries with some of the older western democracies.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

Credit unions are an enormously important part of the landscape in communities around the country, and many do extraordinarily valuable work. We are looking at the degree to which we can support their capitalisation. They are fragmented and under-capitalised, and we are discussing with Big Society Capital, and others, what ideas are out there for using the power of social investment to strengthen the capitalisation of that important movement.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I was the Minister who got going the first social impact bond at Peterborough. Would the Minister like to say what the experience of that first experiment has been?

[Mr Hurd]

I wholly acknowledge the role that the right hon. Gentleman played in that groundbreaking social impact bond at Peterborough. Its early results are extremely encouraging, and reoffending among short-sentence prisoners who receive support through the bond has fallen by 11%, while nationally that figure has risen by 10%. It was the first ice-breaking social impact bond, and I think its impact on the wider movement and the work happening across the country, with at least 15 social impact bonds live, cannot be overestimated.

European Council and Nuclear Security Summit

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend speaks with great force and a huge amount of wisdom on this issue, but I think it is too early for the history books to be written. What really matters is that the countries of the European Union, the United States and the international organisations, such as the UN, recognise that we need a long-term approach. When the history books are written, I hope they will show that Europe decided to become more energy independent, that the UN stood up for the importance of its charter and that Britain, America and our allies took a series of predictable and consistent steps to demonstrate to Russia that what she was doing was wrong. If we take a long-term approach, I think we will achieve an outcome that the history books might be kinder about.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

I commend the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary’s strategy. In the absence of sending gunboats, which I think few of us would recommend, a step-by-step, long-term approach is sensible. Ukraine is one of the very few countries in the world that voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons on its soil, and it did so in return for clear guarantees of its territorial integrity, including from Russia. Given the talks on nuclear security that he has been involved in, can he say what further steps need to be taken to ensure that Russia’s invasion of Crimea does not undermine the international strategy to reduce nuclear proliferation?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman, who served as Foreign Secretary, makes a very good point. There was never an option of sending gunboats. There is not some military answer to this. The only approach is a considered, long-term, tough and predictable one so that Russia knows that if it goes further into eastern Ukraine there will be very significant economic consequences. He makes an important point about countries that have given up their nuclear weapons not fearing that they have made the wrong decision, because there were countries, such as Kazakhstan, represented at the conference in The Hague which made the point that they had taken those steps too. That only serves to underline the importance of taking a long-term and tough approach to Russia on this.