Appointment of Lord Lebedev

Stephen Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)]

Lord Lebedev’s case raises a wider question of the huge weaknesses that exist within our political donations system. For over a decade, foreign money has flooded our democracy. The Minister may like to claim, when he winds up this debate, that his party does not raise money from Russian oligarchs, but nearly £2 million in donations from Russia has found its way into either the Tory party or constituency association coffers since the Prime Minister took office.

A further £1.6 million has been donated to the party, its MPs and local associations by Aquind or its company directors. Recent investigations have revealed that one of its directors, Mr Fedotov, benefited from $4 billion alleged fraud in Putin’s Russia. Both Mr Fedotov and Mr Temerko have undertaken a co-ordinated effort to influence the Conservative party into support for their disastrous project, which would have caused untold disruption to my constituency. Since the project began, directors have bankrolled the equivalent of one in 10 Tory MPs, including the Paymaster General. That includes a string of current and former Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and a serving member of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

We are still not completely clear where the company’s money has come from or what the company’s owners expected in return for their cash, but, like the concern expressed in the motion, it does not take much to connect the dots. In 2018, the project was magically designated a national infrastructure project by the then Business Secretary, taking the planning decision away from the local authority and giving it to central Government. Until the Paterson fiasco, it seemed a nailed-on certainty that the project would go ahead, despite the dedicated and unified opposition from my city and, specifically, the #LetsStopAquind campaign group. The Business Secretary faced a choice between the people of Portsmouth and a billionaire Tory donor facing fraud allegations. After much dither and delay, and a concerted local campaign, he narrowly made the right choice. However, my constituents continue to ask how Conservative Ministers came so close to allowing party donors facing corruption allegations to control a national infrastructure project. Can those who receive the funds from Aquind or its directors be sure that they are not indirectly benefiting from fraud? Like the motion today, the answers are uncomfortable for the Conservatives and worrying for our country.

The case of Lord Lebedev and the Aquind fiasco threaten to undermine our democracy and our national security. Now more than ever, we should be taking every possible step to insulate ourselves from the threat posed by those with links to Putin’s political power, but for every second that the Conservatives are in power, their cronyism makes our whole country more vulnerable.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is talking about party political donations. When Unite, for example, donates £1 million to the Labour party and Labour Members of Parliament, or when many other trade unions make donations, what influence does that buy those trade unions? Do they write the manifesto, for example?