Ukraine

John Bercow Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: 19th Report from the European Scrutiny Committee, HC 83-xviii, Chapter 5; and 40th Report from the European Scrutiny Committee, HC 83-xxxvii.]

[Mr Speaker]

We now come to the main business: a general debate on Ukraine, for which there are three hours, protected. Before I call the Foreign Secretary to move the motion, it may be convenient for the House to know that 26 right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to contribute from the Back Benches. Obviously there is no time limit on Front-Bench speeches, but I feel sure that the Foreign Secretary and his shadow will wish sensitively to tailor their contributions in the light of the level of interest among their colleagues.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. In the light of the very large number of Members seeking to contribute to this debate, I have, sadly, to impose a five-minute limit on Back Bench speeches with immediate effect.

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[Mr Newmark]

He seems to have forgotten one important point. You can add targeted assassinations on British soil to your list.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not have a list, but I think that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does.

[Chris Bryant]

That was one of the other things I was leaving aside for a moment.

We know how Putin reacts in a crisis. That is what really worries me. He always reacts with extreme force. In Beslan the state used such force to resolve a hostage crisis that 334 of the hostages, including 186 children, were killed. When terrorists from the Chechen republic took over a theatre in Moscow, the state’s intervention ended up killing not only all the terrorists, but 130 of the hostages.

We also know about his territorial ambition. I can do no better than quote the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). During a debate on Georgia in the previous Parliament, he said:

“Whatever one may think of Georgia’s actions on 7 August, Russia used grossly disproportionate force in response, and by subsequently recognising its supported regimes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia is attempting to redraw the map of Europe by force”.—[Official Report, 20 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 686.]

That is exactly what we are hearing again today. What more do we need to know?

In Syria, Putin actively prevented an early resolution to the conflict and assisted Assad’s barbarous regime in repressing its people, and all for the strategic advantage that accrues to Russia, as has already been said, from its naval base in Tartus, which is vital for access to the Mediterranean. Now, after trying to bribe, bully and coerce the whole of Ukraine into aligning itself with Russia and against the European Union, he has effectively annexed part of an independent country.

I am afraid that the international response, as the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) said, has thus far been pitiful and spineless. People have even trotted out in this Chamber the argument that most of the people in Crimea are Russian speaking and wanted to join Russia in the first place. Can Members not hear history running through the decades? In 1938 the British apologists for Hitler, combined with those who felt that Germany had been treated badly after the first world war, combined with the British mercantilists who wanted to do more business with Germany, and combined with the British cowards who wanted to avoid war at all costs, argued, using the same argument that has been advanced today, that the vast majority of the people in the Sudetenland were really German and wanted to be part of Germany.

I have no desire for us to be at war, or for there to be a war of any kind. I opposed the proposed military intervention in Syria for the simple reason that I could not see how bombing that country would help. However, we should be ready for any eventuality. I was saddened that when I formally asked the Foreign Secretary on 30 November 2011 whether he would rule out the use of force in tackling Iran’s illegal nuclear ambitions, he refused to do so. Others agreed with him. I was told, including by Members on my side of the House, “Don’t be silly. You simply can’t rule things like that out.” Well, perhaps they were right, but I want to ask now why on earth we ruled out any military intervention, in whatever set of circumstances and at whatever stage, from the very beginning of Putin’s advances into Ukraine. I am not arguing for war; I am simply asking why we do one thing for Iran but say exactly the opposite when dealing with Russia.

I think that the EU has shown little honour in this. The Ukrainian Government have behaved with extraordinary and admirable restraint.

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[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that, with immediate effect, I have to reduce the time limit on Back-Bench speeches to four minutes.

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[Mr Raab]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Speaker]

I think the Leader of the House has concluded his speech.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Ukraine.

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Two years ago, on 12 March 2012, this House unanimously agreed a motion calling on the Government to introduce precisely the kind of Magnitsky list that the Leader of the House just mentioned. At the time, the Government said they were not going to oppose the motion—indeed, those in the Government shouted “aye” along with the hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Mr Raab), who had introduced the motion. Yet despite it having been unanimously agreed, the Leader of the House has today, as far as I can understand it, reneged on that position. Far from being more robust with Russia, we are being less robust today than we were two years ago. Have I got that right?

[Mr Speaker]

Far be it from me to say whether anybody has reneged or not, although I note in passing that to renege, whether disagreeable, not least in this case to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), is not unparliamentary—nothing unparliamentary has happened. He is a considerable expert in parliamentary procedure and has just written a two-volume tome on the history of Parliament. He may well be very dissatisfied, but he has vented his concerns and they are on the record.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Clearly the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) is most agitated also to raise a point of order, and we had better hear from him.

[Dr Lewis]

Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, you noticed my eccentric gesticulations and today you note my great agitation. I think the point raised by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has wide ramifications, similar to those we were concerned about yesterday: what is the status of motions passed, either in substantive votes or nem. con. votes in this House, when they are the result of the Backbench Business Committee agreeing that something should be debated and voted on? There is something a bit wrong when the House passes a motion and the Government appear to take no notice of it. What is the point of having a vote in that case?

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman has opened veritably a can of parliamentary worms. The issue he raises is important, and I do not seek to brush it off for one moment, but it is not a matter of order for the Chair. What I say to him in all seriousness and solemnity, recognising that the concern he expresses is probably more widely shared, is that ultimately it is for the House to decide what is the meaning of a particular decision taken. That is not a matter for the Chair but it is a matter for the House, and it is a point to which he and others can return if they so wish, but we cannot dilate upon it now. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda could if he were in order, but he is not and so he will not. We will leave it there for now.