Support for Ukraine and Countering Threats from Russia

John Howell Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

My hon. Friend is right, and I expect we may hear from the Minister that exactly that sort of action is being taken. It is certainly what some other European countries are doing, because the premium is on providing the defensive weapons and lethal aid that the Ukrainians require now. The fastest route to do that is required.

The second area is the requirement to cut Russia out of the international economic system. Putin himself has opened up a new front. The western sanctions are now opening up a new home front for Putin to fight on, because people in Russia are rightly asking why they cannot take their money out of the bank, why they cannot use their credit card and why they cannot use the metro. People in Russia are bravely coming out on to the streets to demonstrate the growing dissent in Russia for Putin’s rule.

But to be effective, we must do more and act faster. As I said a moment ago in response to interventions, to the extent that the Government are willing to act, they will continue to have Labour’s full support.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I agree that Russia must be cut out of the international economic system, but does this not go further? We cannot have Russia as part of an organisation that sponsors the rule of law, democracy and human rights, which is why my colleagues and I were very firm in getting Russia suspended from the Council of Europe.

[John Healey]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for the action he and his Council of Europe colleagues from all parties and all nations took last week.

Russia must feel that Putin is leading it in the wrong direction, towards increasing isolation, increasing cost, increasing damage and increasing uncertainty. We must ensure the people of Russia see that, whatever success he may secure in the short term in Ukraine, he fails in the longer run. As I said earlier, this must be the beginning of the end for President Putin.

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[John Healey]

Indeed, one of our fundamental values as a British democracy is the right to free speech and information. Those freedoms come at a price, and that is often the price that journalists, under pressure, have to pay. Those brave Ukrainian journalists, especially those who are staying in the country to try to make sure that those of us beyond their boundaries know what is really going on, deserve our honour and our respect. If necessary, we need to be willing to act where we can to assist them.

[John Howell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Healey]

I did promise to be quite brief, but I will of course give way.

[John Howell]

I promise to be as brief as possible. Yesterday, when the Home Secretary made her statement, I made her an offer, which I am not sure the right hon. Gentleman heard. He is right to say that we need to keep contact with the neighbouring countries to Ukraine. I offered to use the good offices of the delegation to the Council of Europe, which knows these countries and their leaders very well, to make sure that we maintain that contact and to help her in taking forward the discussions that she needed to have with them.

[John Healey]

I did not hear the hon. Gentleman’s offer to the Home Secretary, so I did not hear her response, but I sincerely hope she bit his hand off for that assistance —if not, I am sure he will follow it up directly with her.

[John Howell]

She did indeed.

[John Healey]

Then the hon. Gentleman has answered his own question; I am delighted he was able to answer it with an emphatic yes.

I turn now to the fifth dimension, where the Government will have Labour’s full support if they act as they should. It is one thing to confront Russian aggression abroad, but we must also strengthen our defences at home. We know that the UK is not immune to Russia’s aggression. We have had chemical weapons used on our soil to kill people. We have had dissidents murdered on British soil. We have had cyber-attacks against UK Government Departments, our defence agencies and even the organisations trying to develop our covid vaccines.

I say to the Minister that for too long that has been the poor relation of our national security and our national resilience. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report in 2020 said:

“Russia’s cyber capability…poses an immediate and urgent threat to our national security.”

The recommendations of that report have still not been implemented in full. The Government’s integrated review, almost a year ago, promised a national resilience strategy, but that has not yet been published. Our armed forces are essential to both our national defence and our national resilience. With the Army already cut to its smallest size for 300 years, in the light of the circumstances and the threats we now face, Ministers’ plans to cut a further 10,000 troops from Army numbers over the next three years must now be halted.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

When this crisis started, I looked at the areas for which I have responsibility. My outrage was enormous that the Council of Europe, which is responsible for the rule of law, democracy and human rights, still contained a country that abuses all of them, namely Russia.

Yes, I am emotional about this. I am emotional because I have long campaigned for Russia to be chucked out of the Council of Europe for not following any of its guidance to members. One good thing about the Council of Europe is that we get to know other parliamentarians from across Europe, and we know Ukrainian parliamentarians because we work with them, because we sit with them and because we talk with them.

I was sent a picture the other day by a Ukrainian MP—I will name him because he has named himself—called Oleksiy Goncharenko. He was in full military kit and carrying a Kalashnikov. That really brought it home to me. I thought to myself, “If we were attacked, would I put on full military uniform and go out with a rifle to defend this place?” I hoped I would, and my heart went out to Oleksiy Goncharenko because of all he is doing and because of his bravery in standing up to it.

I spoke very strongly in the debate at the Council of Europe on suspending Russia, and I did so with the backing of the delegation because, as has already been mentioned, it is so much better that we operate on a cross-party basis. I have always tried to run the delegation as a genuinely cross-party operation.

I would particularly like to thank two people who spoke very forcefully at the meeting of the Committee of Ministers—the second Chamber of the Council of Europe—and had to vote on this issue. The first is my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), and the second is not a Member of this House but our permanent representative at the Council of Europe who spoke very strongly and gave a very clear idea that Britain would vote to suspend Russia. During that debate, I also had to put up with listening to people such as Pyotr Tolstoy, who leads the Russian delegation, and who said that Ukraine had nuclear weapons that were pointing at Russia. He lied—it does not have nuclear weapons and it is not pointing any at Russia. Yet that was the message he gave out.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

As a member of the Council of Europe, may I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the leadership he gives to members of the British delegation? He is steadfast and decisive in his work, and he has achieved a result that Europe should celebrate, because it was his efforts and those of his colleagues that put Russia out last week. I think that has been decisive. Will he say something about the punishment that is now going to be meted out to the Council of Europe in terms of financial penalty? We should urge Her Majesty’s Government to give more resources to the Council of Europe in that regard.

[John Howell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks and for raising the point about what will happen in respect of the financial shortfall that will occur when Russia refuses to pay its dues to the Council of Europe. I have already had discussions and I make this plea to the Government: we cannot do this job in part. We have suspended Russia from the Council of Europe, but we cannot let the Council of Europe go down to the difficulties that will occur as a result of the Russians; we need to be prepared to step in and make up the difference that will come about when they do not pay their dues. The amount is not huge. Our permanent representative gave me the estimate that the amount we would have to pay is somewhere between €4 million a year and €9 million a year, depending on how this is calculated; it is a rounding error whichever way one calculates it. Therefore, we should accept that and agree to pay it. The French have already agreed, as have the Germans and the Dutch. Why have we not done so? Will we do that pretty quickly?

Lastly, in the intervention that I made during the statement by the Home Secretary, I offered the delegation’s services in terms of being able to talk to the neighbouring countries of Ukraine and to work with them to sort out the problems of migration. We have, in the Council of Europe, a body that looks after migration very well. We do not need to reinvent it; we have it there, and let us use it to the best of our ability.