National Security and Russia

Michael Fallon Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

We must start with the events in Salisbury. What happened to Sergei and Yulia Skripal on 4 March was an outrageous act committed with callous indifference towards the wider community in Salisbury, including those brave police officers who had to respond to and investigate the incident. Our first thoughts must remain with Mr Skripal and his daughter as they continue to fight for their lives in an NHS hospital, and with Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey as he continues his recovery.

Based on the analysis conducted by Government scientists, there can be little doubt that the nerve agent used in this attack was military-grade Novichok of a type manufactured by Russia. Since that analysis was revealed by the Prime Minister two weeks ago, the Russian state has had every opportunity to offer a plausible explanation as to how a nerve agent stock of this type came to be used in this attack. It has offered nothing concrete in response except denials and diversion. Indeed, the only solid assertion that it has offered so far in its defence was that all stocks of nerve agents were destroyed many years ago—an assertion that has been contradicted by intelligence reports. That suggests that just over a decade ago Russia invested in the use of nerve agents and developed new stockpiles of Novichok to that end. There is clear evidence that the Russian state has a case to answer, and it has failed to do so. We can therefore draw no other conclusion than that Russia has a direct or indirect responsibility for this.

We have supported actions taken. We have also condemned the Russian Government for including in their tit-for-tat retaliation a totally unnecessary and counterproductive decision to close the British Council offices in Russia which have done so much to promote better understanding and closer relationships between our two countries. It is a matter of deep regret to all of us that on issue after issue, and not of our making, UK-Russian relations now stand at such a low ebb.

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition has condemned Russia’s retaliation, but he has not yet clearly and unequivocally condemned the attempted murders themselves. Will he now take this opportunity, without further caveat, to absolutely condemn the Russian Government’s involvement in these attempted murders?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have very clearly condemned what happened and those who perpetrated this attack.

On 14 March, the Prime Minister said:

“there are other measures we stand ready to deploy at any time should we face further Russian provocation.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 857.]

Does she consider the expulsion of 23 British diplomats and the closure of the British Council a further provocation?

In the light of the poisoning of the Skripals and the murder of Nikolai Glushkov, what advice and support are the police and security services giving to high-profile Russians living in Britain, or indeed any other Russian national living and working in this country?

What plans does the Prime Minister have to publish and table the Government’s version of Labour’s Magnitsky amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill which was blocked in February? We have been assured that that will deliver all the powers that we were demanding—including by my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor in his response to the Budget and the Finance Bill—even before the Salisbury attack, to punish Russian abusers of human rights, but we are still waiting to see it published.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Michael Fallon (Sevenoaks) (Con)]

I begin by paying tribute to my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench. They have met the challenge of Salisbury clearly, firmly and deliberately. The response of the international community today simply underpins the resolution they have shown in dealing with this crisis.

The strength of our response, however, only underlines how our policy towards Russia has not worked. Yes, it was well intentioned, yes it was rational—we wanted to see Russia as a partner and a part of the rules-based international system—but it has not worked like that. Our actions have not deterred Russia from repeated misbehaviour. After Georgia came Crimea. There were sanctions. After those sanctions, thousands of Russian troops were deployed in the Donbass, and we had the shooting down of MH17, including the murder of 10 of our own citizens. Our response to the murder of Litvinenko clearly did not deter the attempted Salisbury murders. So we have to do more.

I note and welcome that the Government have reserved the right to deploy other measures beyond the expulsions—measures that must surely include making it more difficult for those close to the presidential Administration to do business, raise funds or buy property here in London.

Let me offer the House four thoughts, none of them particularly original. First, we must rise to the challenge of fake news: the ability of sophisticated enemies like Russia to obfuscate what should be clear, to foster conspiracy where none exists, and to tell blatant lies when they are pushed into a corner. It is the speed with which Russia is able to do that, using propaganda, social media, the “bots” and all the rest of it, that requires our response to be so much quicker. We need to deploy faster truth. I appreciate the difficulties of revealing or sharing intelligence, but when we have photographs of a mobile launcher that brought down an aircraft, and when we know that an agent as powerful as Novichok could only be developed in the highest-grade, most technically advanced state laboratory, we need to get those facts out far, far more quickly.

Secondly, this was an armed attack on a member of NATO. Under article 3 of the North Atlantic treaty, which is not quoted in the Chamber as often as article 5, NATO members agree

“to maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack”.

NATO must now renew its focus on the Russian threat. It must use the July summit to modernise its decision making, to make possible much more rapid deployment of troops and planes across NATO’s internal border, and, above all, to beef up its strategic communications, which are so often much less than the sum of their parts. We need a faster and more coherent response from NATO.

Thirdly, whether we in the House are remainers or Brexiteers, we need to come together now to support the security partnership that the Prime Minister described so well in her Munich speech. One obvious way in which to reinforce the security of what continues to be our continent is to help to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas, which means—even as we leave the European Union—supporting the fledgling European energy market. I was delighted to note a reference to that in the Prime Minister’s earlier Mansion House speech. It means helping to increase diversity of supply across our continent, encouraging dual flows and shared coding, promoting more interconnection, and using our technology and our regulatory experience to continue to play a leading part in making the European energy market much more resilient.

Finally, we need to strengthen our defences. Yes, the Prime Minister was right to remind the House that we have had a rising defence budget since April 2016, and yes, we do meet the 2% target, but Russia is not spending 2% of its GDP on defence; it is spending more than 5% of its GDP on defence.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Does the former Secretary of State for Defence consider that spending 2% of our GDP on defence is not enough?

[Sir Michael Fallon]

That is precisely the point that I am about to address. Russia is spending 5% of its GDP on conventional weapons, nuclear weapons, cyber and hybrids, and, as we now know, on a completely illegal chemical weapons programme. As my hon. Friend has pointed out, the NATO 2% is a minimum and not a ceiling. I think the House should consider this—and I do not make the point in a party political way. In the last year of the last century, the Blair Government were spending 2.7% of GDP on defence. That was before 9/11, before Daesh terrorism, before Kim had his nuclear weapons, before cyber-attacks on our own Parliament, and before Russia became more malignant again. I was in the House in 1999, and I do not recall anyone suggesting that our armed forces were overfunded then.

If we want to continue to lead in NATO, on the ground in the Baltics, in the air over the Black sea, and in the North sea and the north Atlantic in anti-submarine warfare, if we want to go on playing our part in the counter-Daesh coalition, if we want to prop up fragile democracies in Afghanistan, Ukraine and Nigeria, if we want to go on contributing to United Nations peacekeeping in sub-Saharan Africa, and if we want to maintain a presence in the Gulf and recommit ourselves to protecting international trade routes in Asia-Pacific, we must will the means to do so. That means that, along with the modernisation programme that I know my right hon. Friends are now considering, we must now set our minds—and this is the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh)—to a higher defence target. I have said publicly that I think we should commit ourselves, under the next spending review, to meeting a target of at least 2.5% of GDP by the end of the current Parliament.

If there is one thing that Salisbury has taught us and we have learnt all over again, it is that what Russia really understands is weakness—countries that will not stand up for themselves, will not protect their people, and will not protect their values and the freedoms that they enjoy. We have never been such a country, and Salisbury should remind us all that we never should be.