Situation in Russia

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 26th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I thank the hon. and gallant Gentleman for the point he has made. As always, we keep decisions about proscription of organisations open across Government Departments, but as he will know, we do not typically comment on future proscriptions or designations. Back in June, when the announcement came out that volunteers would be contracted to the Russian Ministry of Defence, we looked at the implications of that for the sanctions structure and others. I am not at liberty to discuss the outcome of those deliberations, but I can reassure the hon. and gallant Gentleman and the House that we have had those things under consideration.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Many in the House and elsewhere are commenting on the opportunity provided to the Ukrainian armed forces to press home their advantage while the Russian command chain is in a shambles, but is it not a truism that the more help we can deliver to the Ukrainians now, and the quicker we can do it, the more likely it is that we will end the war quickly with a favourable outcome? What are we doing to press home the advantage by galvanising ourselves and our allies to give more support to the Ukrainian armed forces?

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the situation over the weekend makes the command and control of the Russian forces less effective. I assure him and the House that we have never been distracted from our primary goal, which is to support the Ukrainians financially and militarily so that they can press home their counter-offensive, and we will continue to do exactly that.

Integrated Review Refresh

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and for the presentation of this paper, which shows a far greater strategic awareness of the vulnerability that the whole of the west faces than we would have seen in any document just a few years ago. But is not the ghost at the feast still the money? I very much welcome his commitment to 2.5% of GDP for defence, but when are we going to see our armed forces restored to the critical mass that is capable of deterring the kind of aggression we are seeing in Ukraine and the kind of aggressive policies we are seeing from China? The £5 billion announced today will patch up what we should have been spending already, but it is not going to make a huge difference.

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is right to say that all defence postures need to be paid for, and that is why I am proud that we have the additional £5 billion that we have announced on top of the money previously announced in 2020. Obviously, when we are talking about expenditure as a percentage of GDP, one of the best things we can do is to grow the economy, which is why I full support the Prime Minister’s priority to grow the economy so that we can have a larger defence budget in absolute terms, because it will be a percentage of a growing economy. I highlight the fact that that is in stark contrast to the lack of commitment to a proportion of defence spending from those on the Opposition Front Bench, along with no credible plan to grow the economy. I take the point my hon. Friend makes to heart.

Missile Incident in Poland

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I remind the hon. Lady that that scheme is closed and has been for some time. Obviously, visas are a matter for the Home Office rather than the Foreign Office, but I remind her that, in a number of instances, people come to this country because they are fleeing persecution in the countries of their birth. I know that, for a number of British nationals of Russian heritage, that was very much the case.

I am very proud that the UK was one of the first countries to bring in sanctions specifically to target the money people around Vladimir Putin and to choke off the supply of funds that helped him to prosecute this conflict. We will continue to work in conjunction and co-ordination with our international allies to do likewise.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making it so clear that it is irrelevant whose missile it was and that the state of affairs is the responsibility of the aggressor: Putin’s Russia. In that context, can he use this incident to amplify to our allies in Europe, and to some of our colleagues in the Government, that Putin’s Russia is not just at war in Ukraine, but at war with us? His hybrid campaign—cyber-attacks, assassinations, sabotage of critical national infrastructure in European countries and, of course, the energy war—is against us. Unless we defeat Russia in the war in Ukraine, it will be a defeat for the west. Therefore, we must galvanise ourselves and put ourselves on the right footing and in the right frame of mind to ensure that the Ukrainian people prevail.

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the multiple things that are at stake in this conflict. We have seen military lives lost, civilian lives lost and, sadly, in ground that has been ceded by the Russian military, what appears to be evidence of widespread and systematic human rights abuses. Those are the things that we are defending against, but in addition, we are defending the UN charter and the concept of adherence to international law. As he rightly said, we in the UK have been the recipients of cyber-attacks and attacks on our homeland that we have attributed to Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime. All those things are at stake all at once. We have to defend ourselves against the full range of threats, and he is absolutely right to highlight that.

Northern Ireland Protocol: First Treasury Counsel

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 9th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The Government are confident that our actions are lawful under international law, and in line with a long-standing convention we do not set out internal legal deliberations.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I make it clear to my right hon. Friend that I voted for the withdrawal agreement and the protocol against my better judgment, and so it has proved. If the Government bring forward a Bill that does not hold out the serious prospect of the restoration of power sharing in Northern Ireland and the restoration of the Good Friday agreement, I will vote against it. Will he undertake to make sure that his right hon. and hon. Friends understand that those voting for such a Bill would be voting to wreck the Good Friday agreement?

[James Cleverly]

My colleagues on the Treasury Bench will have heard the point that my hon. Friend made; obviously, the question is narrowly focused on legal advice. As I said, we are confident that our position is legal but we do not discuss the details of legal advice to Government.

Ukraine

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and other members of the Government have made it clear that our intention is to be generous and to welcome Ukrainians with open arms. We are trying to facilitate that as quickly as possible, and the Home Secretary has spoken at the Dispatch Box about measures that she has put in place for that purpose. If the hon. Lady will pass on the details of the people whom she has mentioned, we will see what we can do to help, but I assure her that the generosity of spirit of this country will be felt by the Ukrainians who are fleeing persecution and attack from Vladimir Putin.

As well as supporting Ukraine directly, we are deploying our diplomatic efforts internationally. We are rallying the 141 countries that voted to condemn Russia’s actions at the United Nations to do even more. We have seen many of those countries support our sanctions worldwide, from Switzerland to Singapore, and we are working to draw more countries into the orbit of those that are prepared to stand up for the sovereignty of Ukraine. We are working with partners to reduce the economic dependency on Russia across the world, from the Indo-Pacific to Africa and the Gulf, through trade and British international investment. Everything we do will further isolate the Putin regime which has made Russia a global pariah.

Ultimately, we will hold Putin accountable for his crimes. We will work with prosecutors at the International Criminal Court to help them to obtain the information that they need, and we will not relent in our mission to see that justice is done.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent reports that the Russian navy is now massing off Odesa in a typical Russian tactical manoeuvre to open a new front? Is this not in fact a new opportunity to demonstrate to the world the unacceptability of Putin’s disgusting war and to invite open and international condemnation of his actions?

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to continue working internationally to enhance the coalition of nations that have denounced Putin’s actions and to increase the pressure on him to bring this war to a conclusion rather than opening up another front and increasing the suffering of the people in Ukraine.

We must be realistic that there will be a cost to the UK and to our allies of imposing these tough sanctions, but the cost of doing nothing is so much higher. We saw what happened in 2014 when the free world did not do enough to contain Putin’s aggression. He came back more aggressively, and that is why we cannot allow him to impose a settlement on Ukraine that vindicates his aggression. If we fail to stand up to Putin and fail to support Ukraine in its hour of need, we will live to regret it.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we will continue applying sanctions to the Russians to continue the pressure on Vladimir Putin and to choke off the supply of money to his war machine.

The Government have announced nearly £400 million in both humanitarian and economic support to Ukraine. We are providing medical supplies, generators and other essentials. We are bringing Ukrainian children to the UK to continue their cancer treatment, and we have made the offer that the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and other UK military medical facilities will be made available to injured Ukrainian service personnel. We will also welcome here Ukrainians fleeing from the conflict. We have put no cap on that number, and we have already seen that over 100,000 British families have offered to make their homes available to the refugees.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I appreciate that there might be difficulties with this, but would the Minister consider whether our offer should be open to injured Russian military personnel as well? If they are captured on the battlefield and they are injured, we should show them the humanity that we are obliged to under the Geneva conventions.

FCDO Staffing

Debate between James Cleverly and Bernard Jenkin

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman knows that I have a huge degree of respect for him. However, his questions are predicated on a starting point which I have just said at the Dispatch Box is not the case. He starts throwing around figures like 20% in terms of staff reductions in a clear attempt to generate scaremongering. I have said, and the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have both said, that there will not be 10% cuts, as has been brought up—[Interruption.] There will not be. Therefore, his whole line of questioning is predicated on a statement that is incorrect.

The hon. Gentleman said that we have had to spend less on ODA this year and, of course, that is the case. I remind the House that that is because we have experienced the largest economic contraction in three centuries as a direct result of the pandemic. Nevertheless, we still remain one of the largest ODA-donating countries in the world. We maintain one of the largest diplomatic networks in the world. The Foreign Secretary hosted G7 Foreign Ministers in Liverpool, showing global leadership on a range of issues, including girls’ education and humanitarian issues. At COP26, we saw the UK demonstrate global leadership on the existential crisis of our generation—climate change. We will remain a top-tier diplomatic powerhouse.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Can we just remind ourselves that the UK diplomatic service is in fact part of our vital capability to maintain the competitive stance of this country around the world? The cost of the diplomatic service is a minute pinprick in the overall scheme of public expenditure, well within the margin for error of many other Government Departments’ expenditures. Why would we want to squeeze this capability when it is so vital for our global future? Can we also think about what the diplomatic service is for? We value real subject knowledge and expertise, and country knowledge and the ability to speak the local languages more than perhaps we have recently. We value our history and understanding of our place in the world and the intelligence that those in the service gather and feed back to the centre. It is the centre that has to value that if our diplomatic service is to produce value for money.

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important and accurate point about the value that our diplomatic network and our diplomats around that network provide. We are all incredibly proud of the level of expertise of the FCDO staff, and I know the Foreign Secretary has said this to them directly. Our diplomats are an absolutely top-tier team. We retain a high ambition for our international relations, as set out in the integrated review. We will continue investing in our people, including in language skills and other skills, to ensure that we retain that position. He is right that they are the primary means by which we exercise soft power around the world, and they will continue to be very much at the forefront of our thinking when it comes to planning for the future.