Salisbury Incident

James Gray Excerpts

Wednesday 12th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I start by thanking the hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) for the robustness and clarity of his condemnation of the Russian Government for their part in these outrages. It would be wrong for us to pry into private grief, but what he said from the Dispatch Box bore very little resemblance to what his leader said during the statement two weeks ago. That, of course, was corrected by his spokesman afterwards, but at the time he used weaselly words. I thank and congratulate the hon. Gentleman for laying out the real stance of the Labour party: that it strongly condemns the Russian Government for this appalling outrage on the streets of Salisbury.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to slightly rephrase his description of the words used by the Leader of the Opposition.

[James Gray]

Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker; I should have said that I was quoting from Hansard: my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) used the word “weaselly” about that particular statement. If he was incorrect, alongside him I apologise for that. Even if the statement were weaselly, I perhaps should not have said that. I apologise, of course, and withdraw the remark.

I have the very good fortune to be able to speak for all the people of Wiltshire, for the very simple reason that I have the very good fortune not to have been noticed by those who make appointments and am therefore not a Minister. All the other Members in the county of Wiltshire—all seven of us, leaving aside my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), who will be joining us very shortly—are Ministers and so are not able to speak in this debate. I hope that I can speak on their behalf. It is very nice to see two of my hon. Friends from Wiltshire on the Front Bench, my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan), who has recently become a Government Whip, and of course my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who has done magnificent work in the aftermath of this appalling outrage in his constituency. I hope that anything I say about his constituency will not be incorrect in any way. I am sure he will correct me afterwards if it is. He has done huge work. I hope to be able to speak for the people of Wiltshire as a whole on this one occasion by virtue of my strength as a Back Bencher.

I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Minister said about Russia and security—I agree with what the Labour Front-Bench spokesman said, too—but I hope you will understand, Madam Deputy Speaker, if I speak largely on local Wiltshire issues, rather than on the broader security issue. I may touch, just briefly, on Russia a little bit later.

The first thing I think we should do, and it has been done by most speakers throughout the past couple of weeks, is pay enormous tribute to the emergency services in Wiltshire, in particular the ambulance service, the Odstock Hospital workers and the police, who did such a superb job both on the occasion itself—on the two occasions, I should say—and in the aftermath. We now know that Novichok was used and that it was localised. We now know there were only two outbreaks. At the time, however, it must have seemed to the police and NHS workers that it was quite possible that this was a huge appalling chemical incident and that thousands of people would be affected. Nevertheless, they did their job with huge dedication and courage. I salute them very much for it. I also pay tribute to the Army and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down. They made a huge contribution in the aftermath of the event. I also pay tribute to Wiltshire Council. My noble Friend, Baroness Scott of Bybrook, has been very strong in the support she has given the people of Salisbury and the rest of the county in the aftermath of the event.

The hon. Member for Torfaen raised a point about the cost to Wiltshire police, which has been estimated to be between £5 million and £7 million. I had a very clear response from the Prime Minister, during her statement last week, that the Home Office would indeed cover the costs borne by Wiltshire police. I very much welcome that and hope that that is the case. We have been here before with the entirely unnecessary investigation into Ted Heath, on which Wiltshire police spent £1.7 million. I am glad to say that we eventually persuaded the Home Office to cover those costs. I hope that the same will apply here. Equally, I hope that the very large extra cost borne by the national health service and others will be borne by the Government in one way or another.

I very much welcome the fact that the county as a whole has already received more than £6 million from the Government. Some £327,000 of Government and council funding has been granted to 60 businesses particularly affected by the outrage. Some £92,000 of capital grant has been provided by the local enterprise partnership to support 29 businesses through these difficult times. Some £208,000 has been provided in business rate relief to a total of 50 businesses. Business drop-in centres have been provided in two locations, in Salisbury and Amesbury. That is already a significant level of support from the county council and the Government, but it is very important that we continue to provide that national support.

It would be wrong to exaggerate the effect that these incidents have had on the people of Salisbury, Amesbury and the surrounding district. They were, of course, appalling incidents and there was a real feeling at the time of concern that the effect might be wider than it turned out to be. As a result, there has been some downturn in tourism and commerce in Salisbury—some 12.9%, I am informed—but it is recovering rapidly. The people of Salisbury are resilient in every way. The businesses I have spoken to realise that they must offer something for the people who come in from the surrounding area, and they are already doing that to a significant degree. I do not think that we should talk Salisbury down in any way, shape, size or form. The people of Salisbury are well able to handle this. Now that it has been made plain that there is no risk of any kind at all to pedestrians or passers-by in the city of Salisbury or elsewhere, I think that people will return rapidly.

Tourism is, of course, enormously important to Salisbury. After Malmesbury Abbey, which is of course by far the finest church in Wiltshire, Salisbury Cathedral is a huge attraction and will no doubt attract large numbers of people—as does Stonehenge just down the road. It is very import that we make it plain to people everywhere that there is no risk if they visit Salisbury: they may go there without any form of risk of any kind whatever and we can put this incident behind us.

Wiltshire Council has put in place a long-term recovery programme for Salisbury and south Wiltshire, laying out a whole portfolio of measures it will be taking in the area to encourage footfall to recover. I particularly welcome the fact that the Government recently announced that the 2019 National Armed Forces Day, from 28 to 30 June, will be held in Salisbury. That will be a gigantic boost for the city and the whole area. I very much hope that all those things will revive businesses and visitor numbers for the city of Salisbury. I encourage visitors to spend some time in North Wiltshire on their way to south Wiltshire and Salisbury.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you may not be aware that the expression, “as different as chalk and cheese” actually comes from the county of Wiltshire. Up in the north we have cheese and dairy, while down in the south they have chalk downlands. Down there, of course, they are members of the Church of England, whereas we in the north are non-conformists. So the difference between chalk and cheese comes from Wiltshire. We are one county divided by the great Salisbury Plain. On this occasion, I think that we speak as one county and one people. We entirely reject the appalling incident that occurred in south Wiltshire and we are determined to support the people of Salisbury and the surrounding district in their recovery from it.

I could not finish without adding my total condemnation of the event itself and adding one view of it. I would just like to ask why we think that Mr Putin chose to carry out this act at all and why he chose to do so in such a peaceful county town as Salisbury. Partly he did so because the Skripals were there, but my view is that he did so entirely intentionally. He wanted us to know it was him. He wanted us to know it was Russia. It was part of a power move not dissimilar to the way that he flies his aeroplanes over our airspace and the way he gestures in all sorts of ways. He wanted to demonstrate the strength of the Russian people by using this dreadful nerve agent in the middle of Salisbury. After all, he could have pushed them off a bridge or done all sorts of other things. He used a chemical nerve agent in the centre of Salisbury highly intentionally. Mr Putin understands one thing and one thing only, and that is strength. He does not understand politics, the law or international conventions. He understands strength. That is why, when he has used strength in this disgraceful way by using a chemical nerve agent in the centre of our city, we must respond with strength. We cannot let it pass. We cannot turn a blind eye to it. We must, must, must respond strongly and with clarity to what he has done. We need strength in our response to Mr Putin.

Finally, may I say just one more thing? This may sound a little counter-intuitive. I am just about to go off to Finland for a conference of international parliamentarians with an interest in the Arctic. There, there will be 16 Russian parliamentarians of one sort or another. I am confident that I will be discussing Arctic matters with them perfectly coherently and perfectly sensibly, and that these are good people. The people of Russia are not bad people. The people of the Duma, curiously, are not bad people The Duma is a very fine organisation, albeit entirely ignored by the Russian establishment. It is very important that we maintain our soft-power connections with the people of Russia. We should have exchanges with them in all sorts of ways: on science, on exploration, on the arts and so on. It is very important that we maintain our talks and connections with the ordinary people of Russia. They are not our enemy; Mr Putin and his regime are our enemy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kerr (Stirling) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), who, as ever, gave a very insightful speech, especially on matters related to the defence of our country. I have felt fortified by what I have heard this afternoon and I congratulate the Minister on his opening remarks. The remarks of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) were wholly appropriate, and they resonated with my own feelings on the subject. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) gave a masterful exposition of the relationship that we should aspire to have with Russia and how we should go about establishing that.

The attack on Salisbury was an attack on us all. I am sure I speak for other Members when I say that it was as real and personal to me and my constituents as it would have been had it been an attack on the streets of Stirling. A few days ago, relatively speaking, I had the privilege of welcoming my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) to Stirling and was able to speak with him at some length about the impact of these events on the people of Salisbury and Amesbury. I pay tribute to them for their fortitude, endurance and patience. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, too, because I have become aware of how hard he has worked for his constituents throughout this period of what can only be described as an emergency.

I also pay tribute to the Prime Minister and both the previous and current Foreign Secretaries for the work they have done in response to these events. The Prime Minister’s patience and commitment to service to this country have paid off in how our allies, in an unprecedented way, responded to the events in Salisbury. The evidence suggests that an attack by a foreign power on British soil occurred during which a British citizen was murdered and several more people were made seriously ill. Comments have already been made in tribute to the valour of Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who, in response to an emergency call, did what is all too often the case with our blue-light services, and went towards danger without fully appreciating the danger that he was putting himself in.

An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. We must approach this as one nation. The spirit and tone of this debate has undoubtedly conveyed that. Comments have been made about the degree of our indebtedness to the security services of our country, and I echo those sentiments. Now is the time for us to stand together and meet this challenge with the combination of fortitude and resolve that we have seen from the people of Salisbury—and even, I would suggest, with a degree of truculence. We must first seek to prepare and to tackle any deficiencies that might be discernible in our defences against the likelihood of a repeat attack—whether that is an attack of the same style against individual British subjects or one against critical national infrastructure.

I am particularly concerned about cyber-security, and endorse what has been said about it in the debate so far. Cyber-security and physical security go hand in hand when it comes to addressing this threat. I echo the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot about the modernising defence programme. Things have changed dramatically in recent years in respect of where the threats to the nation’s security lie. I very much hope that when the time comes to present the modernising defence programme, the Government will take a realistic view of what we need to do and not shy away from being on the level with the British people about what the cost might be of our response to these threats.

People sometimes say, perhaps too casually, that there are no votes in defence, but I cannot agree. My constituency has a long tradition of association with our armed forces, and there is certainly a strong feeling there about the need for this country to maintain its defence posture with strength. I do not think that we currently have sufficient strength in our defence. The point was made earlier about the need for critical mass in our response to the threats the country faces. Reference was made earlier to the Vostok exercises. Quite frankly, it is mind-boggling just to listen to the scale of what these Russian exercises—the largest conducted for decades—consist of: some 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 vehicles, 1,000 aircraft and 80 ships. It should also give us pause for thought that these exercises are being conducted with the Chinese. The prospect, sight and sound of President Putin and Chairman Xi making pancakes, eating caviar and taking vodka shots in Vladivostok ought to make us think very seriously about our nation’s security.

[James Gray]

My hon. Friend is making a fine speech. Even more chilling than the exercises he describes were the Zapad 17 exercises last year, where an alleged 125,000 Russian soldiers, all armed with tactical nuclear weapons, took part in a huge exercise within 100 miles of the borders of NATO, near Estonia.

[Stephen Kerr]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that contribution, which underpins why our friends and allies, especially in the Baltic states, are incredibly nervous about the developments that have transpired in recent times. That is why I intervened on the hon. Member for Aberavon to ask about the Nord Stream 2 project. I hope that our Government’s representations to the German Government are as forthright as they need to be in respect of the risks and dangers posed to European security by their determination—or at least so it appears, from the outside looking in—to proceed with the Nord Stream 2 project. I very much hope that our representations to the German Government are of such a nature that they are in no doubt as to how we see that situation.

The spirit of Russian adventurism is disturbing. Mention has already been made of action in Syria, as well as, of course, the annexation of the Crimea and the ongoing violence and threat in the eastern part of Ukraine. I feel particularly strongly about the fate of the 298 people on board flight MH17, who were shot out of the sky over eastern Ukraine by Russian missiles. Among those 298 passengers and crew were 10 British subjects—although all lives have equal value, regardless of which passport they hold. In the context of the matter we are debating, we should refer often to that particular incident, because it cannot be allowed to be forgotten—swept away under the carpet like so many other things in recent history and conveniently forgotten. Justice needs to be done for those people and their families.

I absolutely endorse the comments that have been made by a number of Members that we should bear no malice towards the people of Russia. I have previously mentioned in this House that our elder son spent two years in Russia. He went to Novosibirsk, in Siberia, which is not the warmest part of the world to go to, as well as to Omsk and Ulan-Ude. My wife and I will be forever grateful for the incredible hospitality, kindness and generosity of the people of Russia whom my son lived among and worked with during his time there. We have nothing but admiration and affection—I can speak from the heart on this issue—for the people of Russia. I had the opportunity to go with Luke to Moscow. He is a fluent Russian speaker. He loves Russia and its culture; he is immersed in it. That infectious love that he has for Russia and the Russian people has been transmitted very freely among all of us in his family circle, so there is no malice and no malintent towards the people of Russia, but there is strong objection to the activities of the Russian state.

Let me speak now as a Scottish Member of Parliament. There are regular incursions by Russian military aircraft into British airspace over Scotland. The RAF is regularly scrambled to go out to meet that threat head-on. That represents the threat that the Russian state poses.