Russia

Debate between Lord Robathan and Baroness Stedman-Scott

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, in August 2015, when I was a member of neither House of Parliament, I was contacted by the Foreign Office and informed that I had been banned—put on a stop list—and was unable to go to Russia. I was in very good company, including Malcolm Rifkind and other rather more distinguished people than myself. I saw it as a bit of a badge of honour but the best reaction was that of a Dutch MP on the same list, who said, “Not even my wife reads my speeches but I’m delighted that President Putin does”.

For those noble Lords who have not seen it—some may have done so—I recommend the film “The Death of Stalin”. It is a very funny comedy but also factually true. It takes the mickey out of the Stalinist Soviet state. Of course, the authoritarian Russian Government cannot cope with the ridicule of a regime which so many look back on fondly. Apart from the fact that I would like to visit St Petersburg, why should any of us worry? We have to deal with a host of unpleasant regimes. At the moment, there is a huge furore from rather ridiculous left-wingers about a proposed visit by the President of the United States; I rather wish that they would make more noise about the situation in Putin’s Russia.

In Russia, opposition leaders and journalists are murdered. I cannot cover them all but Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader, was arrested during a peaceful demonstration at the weekend. I understand that he has now been released, so that is all right then. But what about Boris Nemtsov, the former Deputy Prime Minister, who was murdered in Moscow in 2015? What about Sergei Magnitsky—I am not very good on my pronunciation—who died in prison in 2009 and was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howell? If there is anybody who has not read Bill Browder’s Red Notice, they really should. That is of course all domestic Russian stuff and it should not concern us. Noble Lords may believe that Boris Berezovsky committed suicide in Sunninghill in 2013, and that in 2012 perhaps Alexander Perepilichny—it is a bit of a tongue-twister—died from overexertion while out running in Surrey. But there is absolutely no doubt that not one mile from where we sit, Alexander Litvinenko was murdered with polonium by Russian agents in 2006.

Is Russia really a threat to us? I spent the best part of a year of my life on the inner German border. There are no longer serried ranks of Warsaw Pact tanks facing us but Russia did invade Georgia 10 years ago, and is still there in Abkhazia and elsewhere. It annexed the Crimea four years ago; many people living in the Crimea may wish to be Russian but there were international treaties, especially the Budapest memorandum of 1994, which was signed by Russia and guaranteed the borders of Ukraine. Also in 2014, Russia annexed Donbass in eastern Ukraine; it is still fighting there. Have we forgotten that flight MH17 was shot down in 2014 by Russian missiles, whomsoever pulled the trigger? It was probably Russian allies in Ukraine and there were 298 deaths, of whom 200-odd were European and 10 were British. So it does affect us. Others will, and indeed have, talked about the real threats of cyberattacks, or attacks on our infrastructure and hacking. The Defence Secretary and the Chief of the General Staff have referred to these things recently. But we also need to be able to defend our NATO allies in the Baltic and eastern Europe from a more conventional, or even somewhat unconventional, attack with little green men.

We had the ambassador here a couple of weeks ago, courtesy of the noble Viscount, and he certainly fulfilled the second half of Sir Henry Wotton’s old adage about diplomats. He would not tell me why I was banned, but he said that he believed that the EU would shortly lift sanctions. I agree with my noble friend Lord Howell and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about both the people of Russia and the need for dialogue. However, I also commend the British Government, the US and the EU on their sanctions. We must maintain them, because Russia, however much we may deny it, is a threat to our allies, to international stability and, as I hope I have illustrated, to our own country and to people here.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, I remind all noble Lords of the speaking time, as we are already eating into the Minister’s time.