Appointment of Lord Lebedev

Debate between Jonathan Gullis and Andrew Gwynne

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne]

The hon. Lady knows that I have been a Member of Parliament for 17 years, and as a Labour MP, I want a Labour Government. I have to say to the hon. Lady that if we had a Labour Government right now, we would not be allowing dirty money in British politics. We have made it quite clear, year after year, that we need to clean up the financing of our political system.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Gwynne]

I have already given way, and I will give way a bit later if the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make my argument.

I would argue that this is not and should not be a controversial thing to ask of the Government, but the Conservative Government are asking us to do an extraordinary amount on their behalf. They are asking us to take their word for it that the appointment of Lord Lebedev had absolutely nothing to do with the Prime Minister’s cosy relationship with the newspaper owner. They are asking us to ignore the overnight stay the Prime Minister had with the mogul in his flashy villa in Perugia when he was Foreign Secretary. They are asking us to ignore the trips in Lebedev’s private jet and the lavish parties, as well as to ignore the staunch support of the Evening Standard for the Prime Minister when he was running for a second term as Mayor of London.

The Government are asking us to ignore the comments from the Prime Minister’s former chief adviser; to ignore reports that the House of Lords Appointments Commission advised against the appointment of Lord Lebedev, only for the Prime Minister to personally intervene and push through the appointment; and to ignore the concerns raised by the security services, and the fact that the Prime Minister reportedly got very cross when he was told that Lord Lebedev represented a security concern. They are asking us to ignore Lord Lebedev’s defence of Vladimir Putin and his illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, to ignore Lebedev’s calls for Britain to make Vladimir Putin an ally, and to ignore his parroting of Kremlin conspiracy theories and his doubts over Putin’s links to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

I ask colleagues: is this a fair thing for the Government to ask Members of the House of Commons to do? Does this seem like the actions of a responsible Government and Prime Minister? I know that some on the Government Benches will say that the Government’s pre-packaged response lines are almost as nonsensical as they are predictable, and on that point I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the dangers, apparently, of this Conservative Government, but I am terrified by the fact that, at the last general election, the then Leader of the Opposition was someone who had been friends with the IRA not long after the Brighton bombing and laid wreaths for Black September. Those are the scandalous things that are dangers—