Repurposing Russian Assets to Rebuild Ukraine

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I rise to speak in this very important debate on repurposing Russian assets to rebuild Ukraine. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on setting out so clearly the case for doing so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) on his work on the issue.

In February of this year, I had the privilege of going to Ukraine with the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine on the anniversary of last year’s invasion, and to see Irpin and Chernihiv. There, we saw the destruction of bridges, homes and schools—a reminder of the fact that Russians have targeted civilian areas so often—and the need for generators, because time after time those areas have been hit by power cuts. However, all of that pales into insignificance against the destruction in the east, where whole cities—homes, hospitals and schools—have been left with no power supply and no water, their populations dispersed abroad, to other parts of Ukraine or to the frontline. We have also seen the flooding from the Kakhovka dam, and of course, vast areas of agricultural land are unusable now because of landmines. The task is absolutely immense.

This month saw the Ukraine recovery conference, held in London. A number of events and meetings ran alongside it, including Inter-Parliamentary Union events, which I was able to attend. It was very moving to hear Ukrainian MPs speak of the huge challenges facing their country, but impressive to see their absolute determination to build back better, strengthen democracy and tackle issues such as corruption. Time after time, Ukrainian MPs made clear that they want Russian assets seized to rebuild Ukraine.

We have to admire the immense resilience and determination of the Ukrainian people to rebuild. I have found that whether meeting bosses from the biggest telecoms company in Ukraine, whose workforce have repeatedly been the first out there to restore communication after yet another Russian hit; meeting the CEO of Naftogaz, who stated plainly that tackling corruption has to come before reconstruction; and meeting the deputy Minister for digital technology, who described some of the remarkable progress made in the digital sphere. However, he also pointed out that his departmental budget has been cut by 86%, with the money redirected to the Defence department. That reminds us of the huge economic challenges that Ukraine faces.

The task is enormous; the World Bank estimates that some $400 billion is needed to reconstruct Ukraine. Using frozen Russian state assets must be part of that, but the UK appears to be lagging behind. In the US, the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act, which would give the US President the power to confiscate Russian assets frozen in the US, has been introduced in the Senate and the House of Representatives; and in Canada, the Government are looking to seize $26 million from Granite Capital Holdings Ltd. But here in the UK we are still lagging behind.

This issue has been raised time after time in this House. We had a whole Backbench Business debate on the issue not very long ago, in which suggestions and mechanisms were set out very clearly by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) and others. Today, we have heard suggestions on what could be done from my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). Time after time, we have made it very clear to the Government that they need to move faster on seizing frozen Russian state assets so that they can be used for rebuilding Ukraine.

Recently, like the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), I had the immense privilege and the very sobering experience of meeting the Evgenia Kara-Murza, the wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent Russian dissident who has spoken out against the war in Ukraine. She told us of the terrible treatment of anyone speaking out and opposing or seeming to oppose the war, with detentions and arrests all the time, the routine torture of prisoners and the removal of children from so-called dissident parents. We heard how, back in November 2022, Canada first sanctioned Vladimir Kara-Murza’s persecutors, and how in March the US also sanctioned all 38 of his persecutors. However, to this day the UK has only sanctioned five. I have to tell the House that Vladimir was actually brought up in the UK and has UK citizenship, so I implore the Minister to make it a priority to sanction the remaining 33 persecutors, and to do everything possible to secure the release of Vladimir. Rather than lagging behind in this case, the UK should be taking the lead.

Many businesses in the UK have had to make alternative arrangements and different business decisions because of the sanctions regime. Although this may have been inconvenient or costly, they understand and accept the importance of using the strongest possible sanctions against Russia to try to exert maximum pressure on Putin’s regime to stop his illegal invasion of Ukraine. I would hope that Departments want to set an example by making sure they too stick rigorously to all sanctions, and do everything possible to ensure that no taxpayers’ money is inadvertently finding its way into supporting Putin’s regime.

In this context, I raise the question of the Home Office planning to use the Stradey Park hotel in my constituency for housing asylum seekers. The Stradey Park hotel was taken over a couple of years ago by an investment firm, which then sold investments in parts of the hotel, rather like timeshares, to a whole range of investors. There are now some 77 of those investors registered at the Land Registry as part owners of the hotel, and they can of course receive dividends from their investments in the hotel. One of them is a Russian domiciled in Russia, so the question is: what due diligence has the Home Office carried out to ascertain what connections this individual has with any individual, entity or sector against which we have sanctions? Departments should be taking extra care to ensure that no taxpayers’ money is being used in any way that inadvertently breaks sanctions.

In conclusion, I would like to stress to the Minister the need to be meticulous about the implementation of sanctions, and I urge him to speed up taking the necessary steps to enable Russian state assets to be seized and repurposed to rebuild Ukraine.

[Several hon. Members rose—]