European Council
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I certainly agree with the hon. Lady on that point, which I have made in the Chamber in the past. Anybody going into a negotiation needs to be able to take that position.
On the end date of the implementation period, I have spoken about it being around two years. In the negotiations, the European Union wanted it to be at December 2020, and I felt it was appropriate that we had that firm date, so that everybody is clear about when the implementation period will end.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
For understandable reasons, defence spending has more than halved as a proportion of GDP since the end of the cold war. Now that the threat from Russia is re-emerging, can we reassess the need to fill the holes in the defence budget identified by the National Audit Office, the Defence Committee, and, most recently, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy?
The Prime Minister
This is obviously an issue on which my right hon. Friend has campaigned, and continues to campaign, with great passion and dedication. As he will know, coming out of the national security capability review, we have set out the modernising defence programme. We are looking carefully at the question of our future defence against the background of the threats that we face. Of course, defence and national security covers more than simply what would traditionally be regarded as defence, but we are looking carefully at the capabilities required by the Ministry of Defence.
National Security and Russia
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Near the end of the second world war, the joint intelligence sub-committee of the British Chiefs of Staff, as it was then, produced a report entitled “Relations with the Russians”. From years of experience of working with Russia against the Nazis, the JIC concluded that Russia would respect only strength as the basis for any future relationship. That mirrored Lord Palmerston’s view of almost a century earlier:
“The policy and practice of the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it met with decided resistance and then to wait for the next favourable opportunity.”
Not much has changed. Alexander Litvinenko died in London on 23 November 2006. Four days later, the BBC News website published an article headed “Russia law on killing ‘extremists’ abroad”. It is worth quoting it for the record:
“A new Russian law, adopted earlier in the year, formally permits the extrajudicial killings abroad of those Moscow accuses of ‘extremism’...In July, the upper chamber of the Russian parliament—the Federation Council—approved a law which permits the Russian president to use the country’s armed forces and special services outside Russia’s borders to combat terrorism and extremism.
At the same time, amendments to several other laws, governing the security services, mass media and communications, were adopted.
The overall result was to dramatically expand those defined as terrorist or extremist.
Along with those seeking to overthrow the Russian government, the term is also applied to ‘those causing mass disturbances, committing hooliganism or acts of vandalism’.
Much more controversially, the law also defines ‘those slandering the individual occupying the post of president of the Russian federation’ as extremists”,
so those who insult the President of Russia can legally be killed overseas according to this law. The BBC report concluded that
“the Russian law is very specific in that it permits the president—alone, and apparently without consultation—to take such a decision”,
so at least one hon. Member will not be on Vladimir Putin’s Christmas card list after his speech today.
If anyone had doubts about Russia’s responsibility for the Salisbury poisonings, its contemptuous failure to respond to the Prime Minister’s 24-hour deadline should swiftly have dispelled them. An innocent regime would have rushed to explain how a nerve agent that only it produced could have been acquired and employed by anyone else. We should also have been spared sarcastic suggestions in the Russian media that the United Kingdom was an unsafe place for “traitors” to settle, as well as the ludicrous claim that we ourselves were behind the attack. That was a charge straight from the playbook of those who blame the Jews for 9/11 and US intelligence for the Kennedy assassination.
Vladimir Putin is a product of the KGB schooled in the suppression of captive countries, steeped in the culture of communist domination and filled with regret that the Soviet empire imploded. According to him, its break-up was the greatest disaster of the 20th century—a revealing and curious choice when compared with the millions killed in two world wars, the Russian civil war, the forced collectivisations, the mass deportations and the hell of the gulag.
Until the Bolshevik revolution, there was some chance of Russia evolving along democratic lines, but then the cancer of Marxism-Leninism gave psychopaths and dictators their ideological excuse to seize total control. Their opponents were denounced as enemies of the people and put, or worked, to death with no semblance of due process. Now the ideology has gone, but the ruthless mindset remains. Russian leaders no longer claim to be building a workers’ paradise, but they still believe that western capitalists will sell them the rope with which to be hanged.
For 40 years from 1949, two factors ensured the containment of Russia and the maintenance of peace: the deterrent power of western nuclear weapons; and the collective security provided by article 5 of the North Atlantic treaty. No longer could an aggressor attack small European states without the Americans immediately entering the war. Yet such preparedness did not come cheaply. In the early 1960s, UK defence spending accounted for 6% of our GDP—the same percentage as welfare. The current welfare budget is six times the size of the defence budget. In the mid-1980s, defence constituted 5% of our GDP—the same percentage as education and health. The current education and health budgets are respectively two and a half and four times the size of the defence budget. In the changed strategic situation, this downgrading of defence cannot be allowed to continue.
Since 2016, the Defence Committee has been making the case for a defence budget target of 3% of GDP, which is what it used to be in the mid-1990s, even after the cuts following the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the cold war. The former Defence Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), has called for a 2.5% target by the end of this parliamentary term. His successor is squaring up for a battle with the Treasury, and that fight has to be won for the safety of us all and for the security of our country.
Sir Edward Leigh
Does my right hon. Friend the Chairman of the Defence Committee think that the way to defeat a modern Russia is the same as the way in which we defeated the USSR? Reagan crushed the USSR’s economy through what was in effect an arms race between a strong and vibrant American economy and a weak Russian one. Does my right hon. Friend think that that could be a way forward?
Dr Lewis
I would certainly say that it is part of a way forward.
I will use the generous extra minute that I have been given to say that I am a little concerned about the fact that while the Government are right to recognise the existence of new threats, such as cyber threats, digital threats and intensified propaganda threats, including through the abuse of social media, and that we will need to devote resources to meet those new threats, that does not mean that the old threats or the old remedies to them have gone away. I do not like the conflation of national security budgets with defence budgets because that means that if we add more to the national security budget, we have to take more away from the defence budget, unless we listen to the warning from my right hon. Friend the former Defence Secretary, among others, that spending 2% of GDP on defence is not enough.
In my last few seconds, I cannot resist appealing once again to the Foreign Secretary—I am pleased to see him back on the Front Bench to hear my speech—to save the BBC Monitoring service at Caversham, which we are supposed to be going to visit. It costs £25 million a year to keep it going, but it is going to be decimated and absorbed into a wider system that will not be as effective as the dedicated teams at Caversham. If it was true before that we need to save it, it is even more true now, after all that has happened in recent days.
Several hon. Members rose—
Stephen Gethins
We absolutely believe it. In these times, we should be investing in our security infrastructure and in our relationship with our European partners. Let us look at the rebuilding of Bosnia: it has taken 25 years, and it is an ongoing project. If we look at security and areas where we have taken our eye off the ball—let us look at Libya, where we took our eye off the ball—we see that no amount of nuclear weapons will protect us and add to security in those areas. However, investment in the long-term security of our partners, not least in the western Balkans and the former Soviet sphere, is something we should be committed to. I acknowledge that that is something that Members on both sides of the House are committed to as well.
Dr Julian Lewis
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that now is not the time or place to renew the old debate about nuclear weapons, particularly as the issue has been settled by a vote in this House, but can we not agree on a cross-party basis with the proposition that 2% spent on defence is not enough?
Stephen Gethins
What I will say to the right hon. Gentleman—this is why this debate is important—is that £160 billion, at a time when GDP is due to go down the plughole, is money we can ill afford. [Interruption.] “Says who?” says an hon. Member from the Treasury Bench. Says your own Government figures. Remarkable! Courageous indeed from the Government Front Bench, but I respectfully disagree. That £160 billion is money that could be better spent on security and on securing our eastern borders.
The values we share with our European partners and our commitment to human rights are incredibly important. I know that Members across the House do not agree with the Scottish National party on remaining part of the European Union, but I think we can agree—this has been touched on—that we must remain vigilant when faced with a challenge such as the one we face from the Russian Federation. The best way to respond is through a commitment to human rights, a commitment to development and a commitment to an equal partnership of democracies across Europe. We must be vigilant and we must speak truth unto our friends in places such as Poland, Hungary and, dare I say it, Spain. Europe has been important for our security and it will continue to be important for our security. This is a time for friends.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) made an excellent point about finances and I raised Scottish limited partnerships with the Foreign Secretary in Committee. I hope he will, in a bit more detail, touch on the financial measures that should be taken. I think he has cross-party respect on that issue.
Boris Johnson
Suffice it to say that I am very impressed with the level of support that the UK has got and is getting around the world.
Dr Julian Lewis
With all these diplomats expelled, we will have to keep a much closer eye on Russia than ever before. Will my right hon. Friend therefore spend £25 million a year to save the BBC Monitoring Service?
Boris Johnson
We will be doing more to tackle disinformation in all sorts of ways, including by making sure that we monitor the output of the Russians properly. We will be hardening our defences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) rightly recommended. We will be going after the money, as the hon. Member for Rhondda, the right hon. Member for Exeter and many others recommended. As my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has said, we are unconditionally committed to the defence of our Baltic friends and, yes, we will continue to spend more than any other major European country on defence. Tomorrow all that work goes on, but tonight we mark what I hope will be a watershed moment and a turning point when after all the lies, all the clouds of deceit and all the deployment of Russia’s wearying and sarcastic intercontinental ballistic whoppers—after all the outrage and the provocation that we have had from it—the countries of the world have come together, in numbers far greater than Putin can possibly have imagined, to say that enough is enough.
We want to be friends with Russia and we want to be friends with the Russian people, but it is up to the Russian Government to change, and to change now. I am proud that it is the British Government who have been in the lead, and I thank Members on both sides of the House, including those on the Opposition Front Bench, for the clarity and moral certainty with which they have spoken today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered national security and Russia.
Salisbury Incident
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. Lady for the strength of the statement she has just made, which I know is representative of the views of many of her right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Back Benches. We are taking this matter to the United Nations. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has already spoken to the UN Secretary-General about this issue. The open discussion that is taking place tomorrow is the start of the process of looking at this issue. As I said in response to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), this is not just about the incident that has taken place here in the United Kingdom; it is about the use of chemical weapons—this illegal use of chemical weapons—that has taken place and about the role of the Russian state in the development of chemical weapons, contrary to international law.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
No reasonable person can possibly doubt that the Russian Government have behaved with arrogance, inhumanity and contempt, not least in failing to respond to the Prime Minister’s deadline, which they surely would have done if they had known that they were innocent of this charge. In welcoming the Prime Minister’s expulsion of 23 diplomats who are really intelligence agents, may I ask her to make it clear that any retaliation in kind by the Russian Government will be met by further expulsions, perhaps including even of the ambassador, who spends so much time coming to talk to us in this place, bemoaning the poor state of Anglo-Russian relations? Does she accept that Russia traditionally respects strength and despises weakness and that the time has come to recognise that 2% of GDP is not enough to spend on defence when we are reverting to the sort of adversarial relationship that we had when we spent a much higher proportion of GDP on ensuring that this country was well defended?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. In response to his first point, as I said in my statement, there are other measures that we stand ready to deploy at any time, should we face further Russian provocation. On his other point, as we review our national security capability and our modernising defence programme, we are ensuring that we have the resources and capabilities available to deal with the variety and diversity of threats that this country faces. However, as those threats diversify, not all of them will be responded to by what is conventionally considered to be defence.
Salisbury Incident
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need for a clear response from the whole House, and everybody in the House should be in no doubt of the nature of what has happened and that we should respond robustly to it. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has responded to her letter in relation to those 14 other cases. I think the focus at the moment should be on ensuring that resources are put into this criminal investigation, so that the police are able to do their work with the maximum time and space.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister recall that when Edward Heath expelled more than 100 Russian so-called diplomats in the early 1970s, it gave a blow to Russian intelligence operations against this country from which it did not recover until the end of the cold war? Does she also recall that when it was clear that a member of the Libyan embassy staff—which one was unknown—had killed WPC Yvonne Fletcher, a wholesale expulsion of staff occurred then? As it would be impossible for an operation to have been mounted by the Russian state without someone in the London Russian embassy knowing about it, does she therefore conclude that similar measures may well be necessary?
The Prime Minister
I thank my right hon. Friend. As I said in my statement, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has called the Russian ambassador into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office today and presented the two possibilities of the origin of this action to him. We wait for the Russian state’s response. I am very clear that, should that response not be credible, we will conclude that this action is an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom, and as I said earlier, I will come back to the House and set out the full range of measures that we will take in response.
Oral Answers to Questions
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am very happy to make that clear to the right hon. Gentleman, and to confirm what he says. We are very clear about the position and the decisions that will be taken about Northern Ireland. What we of course want to see is a Northern Ireland Executive restored so that devolved decisions can be taken by that Northern Ireland Executive. The right hon. Gentleman also wants to see that Executive restored, and we will continue to work with his party and other parties across all communities to see that happen.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
As one of the signatories to amendment 400 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, may I seek an assurance from the Prime Minister that its provisions to change the date of our leaving the EU will be invoked only in extremely exceptional circumstances, if at all, and only for a very short period?
The Prime Minister
I am happy to give my right hon. Friend and others that reassurance. We are very clear that we will be leaving the EU on 29 March 2019 at 11 pm. The Bill that is going through does not determine that the UK leaves the EU; that is part of the article 50 process and a matter of international law. It is important that we have the same position legally as the European Union, which is why we have accepted the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), but I can assure my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and the House the we would use that power only in exceptional circumstances for the shortest possible time, and that an affirmative motion would be brought to the House.
Brexit Negotiations
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
At a time of intolerable financial pressure on defence, will the Prime Minister confirm that there can be no question of our paying billions of pounds to the European Union that we do not need to pay, unless as part of an overall trade deal?
The Prime Minister
As I said earlier, the offer in the progress report is there, as the report itself makes very clear, on the basis that we will be making an agreement with the European Union on our trading relationship, and on our relationship in other areas, such as security.
European Council
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If our EU friends were to demand a sum of, say, £1 trillion, rather than £100 billion, the position of the Opposition would have to be to accept that, because they would not walk away under any circumstances. Given that the Government would walk away under unacceptable circumstances of that sort, can the Prime Minister reassure us that all necessary preparations will be made so that we can walk away without a deal if we need to, which will, of course, maximise the prospect of getting a good deal and not having to walk away?
The Prime Minister
Can I say to my right hon. Friend that, indeed, we are ensuring that the Government are preparing for all contingencies? That is a sensible, pragmatic approach for any Government to take. Of course, we are working for a deal, as I have set out in answer to earlier questions. Can I also thank my right hon. Friend for very graphically illustrating the position that has been taken by the Labour party, which is that it would simply pay any price for a deal, whatever?
Northern Ireland
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
In the discussions with the Democratic Unionists, did my right hon. Friend make any progress on the question of protection for former service personnel who still face the possibility of prosecution many years after fatal incidents in the period of the troubles?
Damian Green
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. The answer is yes. We seek to ensure proper fairness in the issue he raises and other legacy issues. I am sure that the agreement that comes out of our talks with the DUP will help advance a balanced and fair solution to those issues.
Debate on the Address
Julian Lewis Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), one of my colleagues from the north-east for whom I have the greatest respect. He was more than helpful in the last Parliament in helping me to find my feet.
It is an honour to be invited to speak in this great Chamber on the first day of our new Parliament. I would like first to put on record my thanks and admiration to our exceptional police force in the north-east and across the country. They were on duty and on high alert, keeping us all safe as we fought our elections. Alongside all our emergency services and our armed forces, they provided such extraordinary resilience throughout the truly horrific terrorist attacks in recent weeks and the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
It is a great honour and a responsibility, having been returned by my constituents in north Northumberland, to ensure that the legislative process, which has begun today with the Gracious Speech, and which is required to take the United Kingdom out of the EU, is met in full. At almost every door I knocked on across the north-east, the message was the same from leavers and remainers alike: “Please deliver Brexit properly, and get on with it!”
I am therefore proud to support this Government’s plans to deliver Brexit, using the repeal Bill to bring all existing EU law into UK law. The Gracious Speech is rightly clear that Brexit will be this Government’s absolute priority and that, as a strong union of four nations, we shall build new frameworks to continue our deep and special partnership with all our long-standing European allies; have the opportunity to create new trade deals with countries across the globe, supporting jobs across the UK; and have the flexibility outside the EU to support economic growth in developing countries. Free trade has been the greatest tool in reducing poverty for centuries, and I look forward to our great nations leading the way on that once again.
As an MP from the north-east of England—from the most northern point of the north-east of England—I am aware that its economic growth has remained behind that of other regions for too long. We are now seeing increasing export markets, as entrepreneurs look globally for new customers in leading-edge technologies. The opportunity for the UK Government to develop regional investment policy is most welcome. There will be no more EU funds—our money sent to Brussels, only to be partially returned to us with endless strings attached. We will be directly connected to the decision makers when it comes to how we get that regional support.
As the MP for the most beautiful constituency—I am happy to challenge all comers on that one—I have a large number of small farm businesses and fishing communities in Berwick, Seahouses and Amble. It is therefore pleasing that the Government will be introducing legislation on agriculture and fisheries as we leave the common agricultural and fisheries policies, and that we will determine our own long-term and sustainable plans in these important areas.
I look forward to clarification from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on how and when we will take back control over the UK’s exclusive economic zone, which I understand is 200 miles from the shore, or the midline between shores—otherwise we would be halfway into France before we started. Our fishermen need that clarity as soon as possible. My sheep farmers are also particularly keen to learn how the new trade deals with the EU and nations around the globe will ensure that their export markets can thrive and grow in the new global Britain.
As a result of Brexit, my constituents will now have a direct link to Government on all the laws we make and impose on them. At present, 60% of our laws are made by the EU, and we can only rubber-stamp them without amending authority. After Brexit is completed, and once we have left the single market and the EU’s customs union, the British people will know that, at last, their vote really can, and does, make a difference to how their country is run.
I for one am so proud of the British people for voting to get back control of their country and to take up once again the full mantle of responsibility for their country’s future direction. This is an exciting time indeed to be in the privileged position of serving as the Member of Parliament for Berwick-upon-Tweed.
I am also delighted that the Gracious Speech has confirmed that we will continue to meet our NATO commitment to spend at least 2% of national income on defence, though it is safe to say that, as a member in the last Parliament of the Public Accounts Committee, which focused on all matters defence—from the equipment plan to the reconfiguration of our defence estates and, most importantly, the continued and right support for serving personnel, veterans and their families—I shall be raising questions about whether that 2% is really enough and following in the footsteps of the former Member for Aldershot.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I gently remind my hon. Friend that the 2% is the result of low management of expectations. As late as 1995-96—long after the end of the cold war—we were spending no less than 3% of GDP on defence, and many of us think we ought to do that in future.
Mrs Trevelyan
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We are at one on that. We can and perhaps should be doing much more to ensure that the Treasury can support the Ministry of Defence in the work it has to do.
If, in this Year of the Navy, we are to ensure that we can afford to build the ships we need to protect our nation’s interests in conflict and in peace, we must be honest about what it will take to do so. As HMS Queen Elizabeth prepares to leave Rosyth and start her long service as a beacon for our country’s commitment to NATO, she will need to be supported by many other ships, submarines and aircraft, and the brightest and best young men and women committed to serving their nation. It is therefore excellent to see that the Government will continue to invest in our gallant armed forces and deliver the armed forces covenant across the United Kingdom.
Article 50
Julian Lewis Excerpts(9 years ago)
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The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady is right. Businesses want the certainty of knowing where they will stand so that they can plan for the future. Two things are important. It is important that we bring the acquis into UK law through the great repeal Bill, so that on the day we leave everybody knows those rules still apply and everybody knows where they stand. It is also right that it is a tight timetable to get agreement on our future relationship. There will need to be an implementation period to ensure that that is put into practice in a way that makes practical sense for businesses and Governments.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister reaffirm that the defence of Europe depends not on the EU but on the deterrent effect of article 5 of the NATO treaty, which means that an attack on any European NATO member will involve the United States in its defence from the first hour of the first day? In the spirit of unity, will she join me in congratulating two statesmen on opposite sides of the Brexit debate, Sir John Major and Lord Tebbit of Chingford? They may not share the same views on Europe, but they do share the same birthday today.
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to wish a happy birthday to members of the Conservative party.
My right hon. Friend raises the important issue of NATO. As I indicated earlier to my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), NATO is the bedrock of our security and our defence. Article 5 lies at the heart of that security and defence. We will continue to contribute to NATO in the way we have in the past, and we will continue to encourage others to ensure that NATO is able to provide that security in the future, as it has in the past.