National Security and Russia — House of Commons, 2018-03-26
Topic: International Affairs
John Woodcock (Labour, Centre-left): It has been a pleasure to listen to the real insight and knowledge that the new hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Seely) brings to the Chamber on this subject, in particular It does feel as though we are now in a significant place, particularly as a result of the co-ordinated expulsions. I will be frank: I did not have full faith that the Government were actually going to be able to get to this point and convince our allies to go as far as they did. Clearly, difficult months—and potentially years—are ahead, and they are made more difficult by our exit from the European Union, but we should acknowledge what has happened today. It is a level of co-ordinated action that I do not think the Russians will have expected, and it ought to make a significant difference in the necessary pushback against them It was interesting to listen to the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Sir Michael Fallon), a former Defence Secretary, because what I took from his speech was a pretty thoughtful recognition and admission that the Government have not got their strategy against Russia right in recent years. Their laudably aimed overall strategy of resolutely turning the other cheek to transgression after transgression has partly left us in this situation today. A greater level of resolve has been needed from the UK and others to counter that, but it is good to see it now. We must never get back to the situation we were in before That is why it is important to reinvestigate the 14 deaths that have been highlighted—all those where there is any existing suspicion. All of us in this House are looking intently at the criminal investigation into Nikolai Glushkov’s death which, as I said to the Prime Minister earlier, took place only eight days after the Salisbury attack. This was the death of a man who was clearly also in President Putin’s sights. The conclusion on this must not be allowed to slip away, as I fear has happened in previous instances over recent years So what is needed now? There have been many excellent suggestions from hon. Members on both sides of the House; let me briefly add a few. When Bill Browder came to the House to brief Labour Members on the Magnitsky Act in the US and the need for such powers here, what he said was deeply persuasive. It is important that the Government do not shy away from a full-blooded translation of that principle into UK law The defence budget has rightly been mentioned by many Members. Of course it needs to rise beyond 2% of GDP. It also needs to rise beyond a genuine 2%, not the fiddled 2% that has been accepted by Ministers—I recognise that they have been in a difficult situation, but we have to get back to genuine accounting. It has to rise significantly, including in the battle for the submarine space It was crazy that we ever got close to debating whether boat seven of the Astute class SSNs could be scrapped after so much money was spent on it. The damage that that would have done to our underwater capability is frightening, even if we were looking at the status quo; of course, we are not doing that. We have heard from many people that the Russians are pouring in money, particularly for submarine technology, so the SSNs need to be kept on track The Dreadnought programme must be given the money needed for up-front spending, rather than funds being salami-sliced over years in a way that will make the programme inefficient and could mean that we lose our continuous deterrent capability for the first time since its launch in the 1960s. We also have to accelerate future capability funding. That has been going on in dribs and drabs for some years, but its significance has greatly increased, given what we are facing Many people have talked about cyber-deterrence. We will have to be clearer about the capability that has been developed in the UK and our potential to use it in retaliation. In the same way in which we seek to maintain the nuclear deterrent but never use it, that has to be a credible threat to deter the kind of state attack that we must now fear could come to UK shores In the minute I have left, I will briefly say something about due process. It is really important that the UK is at the forefront of showing that we follow due process, uphold the rule of law and are more transparent than Russia will ever be. There will always be endless threads to tug that are suggested in various ways by the Russian Federation, but we must not go down those routes. The idea that it was in any way credible to send the Russians a sample of the Novichok so that they could decide whether it was theirs was ludicrous. We should have confidence in our values and in the country. If we do that and stay the course, we will be able to prevail.