Office for Environmental Protection

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We have a real sense of urgency in the department; it does not just stop at Ministers but goes right down through the agencies that are the delivery bodies for this. We could double the size of Natural England and the Environment Agency and we still would not hit the targets if we were not weaponising the most important people in terms of improving the environment: the people who control and manage the land. Completely changing how we support farming, from an area-based system to one that is improving nature and incentivising and rewarding farmers, is just one part of what we are doing. I have great respect for the noble Baroness as well, so I say to her: come in to Defra and sit down. I will take her through the most ambitious plan for our environment that this country has ever seen.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

In answering a recent question in this House, the Minister introduced us to a very interesting category of person, and he has just done it again: the weaponised land manager. Looking at my register of interests, I think I might be one, and therefore I will put a question to him. I spent last month bouncing back and forth between officials who deal with Countryside Stewardship and the sustainable farming initiative, both worthy causes. There is a great deal of passing back and forth, confusion and lack of unity. When will we get a unified scheme so that environmental warriors such as me can actually deliver?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Lord is a weapons-grade guardian of the countryside, and I want to make sure that people like him find it really simple and straight- forward to apply for the sustainable farming incentive. It is probably the best 20 to 40 minutes of a farmer’s year, and it compares and contrasts so well with the complications of systems in the past. It is fairer: more than 50% of area payments went to the biggest 10% of farmers; these are systems that improve smaller farmers as well. We are also unifying, to use his word, the system that allows people to apply for Countryside Stewardship and sustainable farming incentives, and the RPA is doing that today.

Ukraine

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I also welcome the actions that the British Government have taken to support the Ukrainian nation and its people, including welcoming the provision of multiple launch rocket systems. However, sometimes I get the impression—and the flavour of this Statement indicates this—that the Government think they are the only leading supporter of Ukraine. Actually, we as a nation should be more interested in partnerships being strengthened through this action with other nations, particularly through NATO and with the EU, because that is the organisation that is right on the doorstep of Ukraine.

We know that Russia is using hunger as a weapon of war, with the continued Russian blockade on Ukrainian Black Sea ports, where 98% of Ukrainian grain and wheat exports are harboured. We know that this is a deliberate tactic of war that will have catastrophic global reverberations. Is the UK involved in plans to release those grain stocks, particularly over land? Who are we working with to secure vital future food supplies from these sources?

The war in Ukraine and the global fallout that it has caused are a crisis of epic proportions, which makes the Government’s actions on international aid even more bewildering. Does the Minister really believe it is still appropriate to cut the international aid budget by 35%, as laid out in the Foreign Secretary’s international development strategy? How much of the £220 million pledged to Ukraine has already been delivered, and what impact has it had on the war and the humanitarian crisis? Is that money being kept quite separate from our normal overseas aid plans?

The Liberal Democrats campaigned hard to put pressure on this Government for the golden visa scandal to be ended. It saw thousands of visas granted to Putin’s associates, who laundered their dirty money and reputations in our country—the very same people whom the Government have now sanctioned. For months now the Government have told us that the review into the scandal will be published in due course, but little clarity has been forthcoming. Why are they delaying the publication of that report? Will the Minister confirm a timetable for publication?

We welcome the concept of a Marshall aid plan, but, to be effective, that requires the wholehearted support not just of this country but principally of the USA and the EU. What discussions are taking place with the EU so that there is a genuine partnership to make best use of the limited available resources? Obviously Ukraine is likely to be the principal beneficiary of this aid but, given the migration, the problems in Ukraine’s economy and the impact in Europe, partnership in Europe is very important to the success of any Marshall aid programme. Will the Government please comment?

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords—oh, I am sorry. Forgive me.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord is forgiven.

I welcome the words from the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the emphasis he placed on the genuine cross-party nature of the support that this country has been providing for Ukraine. I know that is an authentic and genuine remark on his part, and it is a reflection of the reality. We have the kind of consensus here that we very rarely have, particularly in these days of political division, so I thank him for his remarks.

The noble Lord is right to put so much emphasis on the catastrophic impacts of Russia’s aggression on some of the very poorest people, communities and countries on earth. As has been said, there is no doubt that part of the Russian strategy has been to use Ukraine’s status as the breadbasket of Europe in order to trigger the kind of food insecurity that I assume the current leader of Russia thinks will help his efforts in Ukraine in one way or another. It is hunger, potentially even famine, as a weapon of war, and that must be added to the list of crimes he has committed.

The noble Lord asked what the UK is doing to address these issues. Many discussions are happening; I was talking to colleagues from the FCDO right before coming to this debate to get an update on what efforts are being made to try to create safe mechanisms for extracting grain from Ukraine. I cannot go into all the details of what that involves but we are urgently working with the UN, the G7 and the international community to look for the best possible solutions. There are some 25 million tonnes of grain currently stuck in Ukraine. Russia is not currently co-operating on this issue in the way that it really needs to. Ukraine is the fifth-largest exporter of grain in the world; it produces around 10% of the world’s wheat exports and feeds up to 400 million people worldwide, so this is a top priority for the UK. Before the invasion, 95% of grain was transported through the seaports; due to seaports being blocked by Russian military action, the UN has warned that potentially 25 million tonnes of grain are going to remain stuck in Ukraine unless we find a solution.

If noble Lords do not mind, I am going to switch from speaker to speaker. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, suggested that the tone used by my friend the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister is that the UK is somehow doing this alone. I reassure him that that is absolutely not the case; there is no sense at all in which the UK is acting on its own. Indeed, the entire purpose and goal of the UK’s efforts in relation to Ukraine have been about using our abilities to galvanise the world into action. Only a world that is as united as possible will be able to bring this horror to an end and resolve some of the appalling mess caused by Putin’s actions, so there is no question of the UK working alone. I suspect there has not been a day since the invasion began when the UK has not been talking to multilateral agencies, and friends and allies around the world, with a view to aligning as closely as possible our response to this crisis.

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked—I hope I am attributing the question to the right noble Lord—how much of the funding and support being provided is via international and multilateral institutions. Although I cannot give him exact figures, I can give examples: the UN’s Ukraine humanitarian fund has received £15 million from the UK to provide immediate life-saving assistance, including healthcare, food, shelter, water and sanitation. We have also provided £15 million to UNICEF for protection and support for the most vulnerable groups, in particular women and children in Ukraine. That includes nutritional support to pregnant women, mental health support to children and their caregivers, access to safe water and so on. We have provided £5 million to the Red Cross and are always looking for ways to ensure that the funds that have been promised, and in most cases secured, are delivered in the most effective way possible. We approach this very much with an open mind and are looking for the best possible solutions.

The noble Lord asked about the case of Mr Navalny. The UK has long been calling for the release of Mr Navalny. Anyone who watched that extraordinary documentary—I am not sure when it was released, but I watched it a month ago—will know that he is an extraordinary global leader and someone who is absolutely on the wrong side of the whims of a despot. I know that most in the West, if not all, would be supportive of his immediate release.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, asked about a return to 0.7%. All I can do is refer him to previous answers. I do not know when we are going to return but can tell him that, like perhaps virtually everyone in government, I am very keen for us to return as soon as possible to 0.7%. That decision was not taken lightly, nor was it one that anyone enjoyed taking, and when the conditions are right we will return to 0.7%. He can have my assurance that I will do all I can to ensure that we return to 0.7% as soon as we can, but I am afraid I cannot tell him more than that.

Finally, he asked how much of the resources that have been pledged in our humanitarian support for Ukraine come from the ODA budget, or whether it is separate. Not all the support promised by the UK, and in some cases delivered, is ODA money. Some of it is support using other mechanisms and tools we have available; for example, export credit and other governmental resources. Where the money is in the nature of humanitarian support, that comes from the ODA budget, just as it would for any humanitarian response to any part of the world that is in need of humanitarian assistance. That is right and proper.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I also—now that I have the chance to do so—welcome that fairly punchy Statement which was repeated to us, and the speeches from the noble Lords, Lord Collins and Lord Stoneham, both of which I do nothing but endorse.

In recent conversations with Ukrainian MPs, they have made it very clear to me that their stated policy is not to give an inch of ground to the Putin regime. That is probably the right policy to put out there because, if you give an inch, the regime they are facing will take not just a yard but a kilometre, an oblast and possibly your entire country. However, the statistics show that media coverage of this conflict is beginning to decline, and at some point that may lead to a diminution of support or the beginning of a withdrawal of support for the Ukrainian cause. Meanwhile, the Putin regime has learned from its early mistakes and is now grinding slowly across southern Ukraine. Yes, it is taking heavy losses, but the Russian military has a very long tradition of being very careless with its expenditure of human life in the pursuit of a long-term objective.

At some point, we are going to be faced with two scenarios. The first scenario is that, at some point, the allies will begin to put pressure on Ukraine to sacrifice territory for peace. One way of doing that would be to start to dial down the military support we give them to protect themselves. The second scenario is that we have to double down and double down again on the military support and live with the consequences of where that might lead us. I would be very interested in the Minister’s reply to the question of whether scenario one or two is really more likely. Despite the very bullish things we are saying, are we really prepared to go the distance?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. There is always a risk that people adjust to appalling things, and things which are entirely abnormal become normal. Before coming to the Chamber, I had a meeting with a group of extraordinary members of the Ukrainian Parliament, representing different political parties. Perhaps the noble Lord met the same formidable group, and so will know what I mean. This was exactly the point that was made to me: even for people in Ukraine, the sound of sirens, which would have put the fear of God into anyone when it first began, is becoming normal; people are gradually becoming used to them.

This is a risk, and there is no point pretending that it is not, but our job—not just as a Government but for all of us here, with our various platforms, and for anyone following this debate—is to do everything we can to keep this issue as live as possible in people’s minds. What is happening today is no less serious than it was a month ago, when this is all we were talking about. The noble Lord makes a very important point. We cannot dictate what occupies people’s attention, but we can do everything we can to raise this issue at every opportunity. The fact that we speak more or less with one voice in this place, as they do in the other place, helps. I take the noble Lord’s point very strongly.

In the meantime, in the UK, as with all such issues, particularly a dynamic situation such as this, we need to approach the problem with as open a mind as possible and look for more opportunities to provide more support to Ukraine. As the MPs I met said, they need a strong Ukraine and a weak Russia. There are a number of ways in which we have contributed already to tipping the balance.

But, of course, we can do an awful lot more, and we look for those opportunities wherever they are. We heard more about accelerating sanctions from the Foreign Secretary today, and we will need to hear more going forward—not just from the UK. We need to accelerate the process of unhooking the West from energy dependence on Russia. Since the conflict began, vast sums of money have continued to flow into Russia, and everyone acknowledges that that has to stop. I do not pretend that it is easy, but we have to be single-minded in our pursuit of that independence.

We need to be very clear—I can confidently reassure noble Lords that the UK has been from the start and will continue to be—that, whatever the nature of any settlement on this issue, it has to respect the sovereignty of, and be led by, Ukraine. It also has to acknowledge and reflect Ukraine’s right to determine its own future—it is not for the UK to be prescriptive in any way. But our starting point is of course to drive towards Russia simply leaving Ukraine alone, which is all that Ukraine is asking for at this point. We should not make the kinds of concessions that I think some are beginning to wonder whether we should pursue.

Kazakhstan

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right to draw attention to the location of Kazakhstan and the impact of the situation on its near neighbours. I have recently assumed responsibility for central Asia in the FCDO and I am seeing how we can work with others, directly and bilaterally with other key alliances and partners, to ensure greater stability not just in Kazakhstan but in the wider region.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

Does the Minister agree that this is an example of how regimes that suppress all opposition and brand it terrorism end up creating dangerous and violent outcomes, which are the only opportunity left for dissent?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as I have said, we have made very clear through our direct exchanges with my Kazakh counterparts the importance of upholding human rights—the right to free protest and the right to challenge Governments. We have been reassured by statements and comments made recently but, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, pointed out, it is about not just statements but actions. We are observing the situation very closely.

EU and Russia (EUC Report)

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in this part of the world as represented in the register, and I join the many people who have already congratulated the noble Earl, Lord Oxford and Asquith, on a speech that was both deft and comprehensive. It covered almost all the points that I wished to make and certainly everything I wished to agree with. I look forward to hearing a great deal more from him. I welcome this report and found much in it to agree with. I managed to find a few points that I would like to add.

First, Mr Putin is a creature of the post-Cold War world and, unwelcome though it may be to hear it, the West carries some responsibility for creating the conditions that brought him to prominence. Much has been said today and elsewhere about how the West mishandled relationships with Russia. I do not propose to rehearse all that again in detail now. In brief, Russia—humiliated, isolated and increasingly turbulent, and not least as it experienced a very sudden loss of empire—responded to a person who offered a return to strength and respect. To an extent, he has succeeded. But in doing so he has stifled civil society, established total control of the media that shapes public opinion, suborned the judiciary and the rule of law, and embarked on a series of aggressive external adventures, of which Ukraine is but the latest.

Today President Putin, working through a very small clique, is almost synonymous with Russia. He is unpredictable, antagonistic to the West and at the same time seemingly both in total control and beyond any control or accountability—but also seemingly hugely popular. I wonder if things could have been different. If the West had shown a bit more vision and less triumphalism—which now looks horribly like pure hubris—and thought a bit more about working jointly on the concerns that the West and Russia share, I believe that we would not now be facing what the report calls “outright confrontation and competition”. For example, I remember, in 1991, one man in Russian intelligence telling me that the West and the USSR had actually shared a great deal of intelligence on matters such as Northern Ireland during the Cold War, but this co-operation seems to have been discarded almost overnight. He was baffled that the West did not seem to see the common problem that we were going to have with Islamic fundamentalism to the south of Russia. Subsequent events have, of course, proved how tragically prescient those remarks were.

Secondly, I would like to ask one or two potentially uncomfortable questions about sanctions. I support sanctions; they have been necessary, and they have quite understandably been used to punish Russia for the invasion of Crimea. The people and the economy of Russia and other countries have indeed suffered. From a strategic point of view, however, surely we must recognise that Mr Putin is not going to be in some way “brought to heel”. His whole credo and platform are based on the very opposite of this. The situation in Crimea has not been reversed—indeed, as other noble Lords have said, there seems to be a creeping acceptance of it. Can the Minister tell us what evidence there is that sanctions have had any effect in causing Mr Putin to change his mind or his ways? More strategically, what are the likely outcomes if the Russian economy really does crumple under the sanctions, low oil prices and other economic headwinds that have been referred to? Surely the European Union and the Foreign Office must have thought this through to some sort of end game. Finally, how effective will sanctions be if the oil price should recover?

On Ukraine, the report refers to the West as “sleep-walking” into a crisis. I agree with an earlier speaker who felt that that was perhaps unfair, but there is a hideous civil war in Ukraine that is going to take a very long time to resolve. It has already cost thousands of lives. Mr Putin has a collection of frozen conflicts and it is hard to see how he could now return Crimea to Ukraine without humiliation.

We are where we are, and both the West and Mr Putin have made blunders along the way. The only way forward, as I see it, is for the West to make unoccupied Ukraine work economically. That would be hugely expensive—Natalie Jaresko, the Finance Minister from Ukraine, referred to the $40 billion IMF stabilisation bailout as just a first step—and extremely difficult to achieve. But surely it is something that, sooner or later, is going to have to be done. If we fail, Ukraine will remain corrupt and war-torn, a failed state and a basket case on Europe and Russia’s borders. Some would say that that is exactly what Mr Putin wants, but maybe it also holds the germ of an idea for how we could eventually re-engage with Russia on this very difficult issue.

Finally, on Russia itself, we have a good many reasons to criticise Mr Putin and his regime in the strongest terms. However, our difficulty with Russia started much earlier in the missed opportunities of the 1990s. We are now stuck in a cul-de-sac characterised by what this report calls an “adversarial mindset” on both sides. We may never—certainly not while Mr Putin is in charge—see Russia wish to subsume its interests in a wider European community. We cannot ignore Mr Putin’s actions, but we simply cannot allow Russia to become another pariah state and a destabilised and destabilising force. As other speakers have said, we need to base our strategy much more overtly and obviously on three things: a better understanding of how the Russians see themselves; a focus on common areas of interest; and a long-term view that includes the next generation in Russia—it is with them that we are going to find the solution to these problems and not in our own. That approach at least offers some kind of starting point for what I have called before in this House rebooting the relationship with Russia for the long term, whether or not Mr Putin himself remains in the Kremlin in the years ahead.

Ukraine

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I would say to my noble friend that Ukraine is, of course, a sovereign country, and all European democracies are entitled to pursue NATO membership. However, I am sure she knows better than I that it would be necessary for Ukraine to achieve the standards expected of an ally, and to be able to undertake the commitments and obligations of membership before being invited to join the alliance. Given the situation in eastern Ukraine we would expect this process to take many years.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, in repeating the Statement, referred to President Putin responding to strength—indeed I think “force” was the word used—and she may well be right in that. It is widely said that should the talks in Minsk fail, war is the next step. Does she agree with that, and if so who exactly is going to be declaring war on whom? Finally, with the President of Russia arming one side and the President of America possibly arming the other, what would a victory look like?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, the noble Lord tempts me to paint a picture of Armageddon, which is not my wont. When we go forward in diplomacy with the next-steps talks tomorrow, their results will clearly be discussed with the Ukrainians on Thursday. I would not want to predict the outcome of those talks. I always go into these matters in a determined and positive way, and I am sure that given the characters of those involved in the Normandy format, they are far more determined and knowledgeable than I could be. I do not wish to go down the route of predicting whether there would be all-out war because it is the job of us all to stop that happening. That is where we must not end up, and the route being taken by the negotiators is one which does not have on it a signpost to war.

Ukraine

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend is aware that the IMF has been carrying out a study within Ukraine. It was clear when the Ukrainian Government put forward their first budget, which was adopted by the Rada, that there was a shortfall—it did not properly reflect the need for international activity. We are now waiting for the IMF to report on its findings before we can make further estimates about what action to take. I understand entirely why my noble friend is so concerned.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as reflected in the register. Will the Minister agree with me that the winner of this argument will be the party that brings economic development in particular to western Ukraine rather than picking fights with the Russians and their friends in the east?

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns]

My Lords, we are not picking fights with the Russians; it was the Russians who invaded and took Crimea. We are simply making sure that we hold them to their international obligations. The noble Lord is right to point to the importance of the development of Ukraine, but first, of course, they have a lot to do in addressing reform in their country, in particular corruption.

Russia

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

My Lords, I add my voice to the double congratulation to the two noble Baronesses—one on securing this debate and the other on her new role. I declare an interest as director of the British East-West Centre, a UK organisation which supplies, among other things, election monitors to the former Soviet Union countries. It currently has about 80 monitors on the ground out there.

It is impossible in the time available to cover countries as diverse as Estonia and Uzbekistan. I look forward to the day when we stop referring to these countries as “former Soviet”, in the same way as we no longer refer to Russia or France as former members of the Triple Entente from 1907, as I am sure your Lordships are all fully aware.

While the focus of this debate may be on current issues in Russia and Ukraine, the fact is that in much of the post-Soviet area both democracy and international law are widely disregarded and abused by the powerful. We remember of course Stalin’s famous comment that what really matters is not that people vote but who does the counting. Rigged elections, torture of detainees and harassment of journalists, as well as personal concentration of power, all paint a pretty bleak picture of our neighbours to the east, but, turning to Russia specifically, there is another facet to this which needs to be recognised.

Russia, in particular, has plenty of reasons to distrust and dislike the West. After the Soviet Union imploded, many in the West—and I quote a recent British ambassador writing in the Daily Telegraph—

“simply stopped taking Russia seriously”,

and rode roughshod over its concerns about, for example, NATO, Georgia and Kosovo. I have also spoken before in this House about the way that the EU and the US, in my view, got themselves into an absurd tug of war with Russia over Ukraine, which had the effect of leading directly towards the current armed conflict. The sanctions that are now being imposed are being effective but they are also playing straight to Russians’ easily triggered sense of siege mentality and they drive Russia to seek cosmetic or actual alliances elsewhere. Where that leaves us is with a quasi-cold war stand-off, characterised by antagonism that is both increasingly unpredictable and commensurately dangerous—what Angela Merkel has called a long-term confrontation.

Make no mistake, my Lords, I am no apologist for Mr Putin. In fact, I do not think that apologies are really his style. He did earn a degree of respect for his determination to restore prestige for Russia as a powerful nation in world affairs but, when he quickly began to concentrate power to himself, to strong-arm the organs of the state and, latterly, to become a militaristic adventurer, our views changed. History also shows us that the more concentrated power tends to become, the less those in power seem to be able to see when it is time to go. All the more reason, then, for the West not to give Mr Putin excuses for further forays into the surrounding countries.

What of the future? I have three points to make. First, I believe that our relationship with Russia needs a complete reboot. While Mr Putin remains in place, we can expect the same calculated disregard both for democracy and for intentional law, combined with a sharp ability to play up any western evidence of hypocrisy in these areas. Therefore, we need to be robust but the idea that we can, by force, eventually persuade Mr Putin to give up either on Ukraine or on his own position begs a question as to who or what we can expect to get next.

As for Crimea and eastern Ukraine, it was economics that finished off the Soviet Union. Crimea and a shattered eastern Ukraine will be extremely expensive for Russia. Last night I saw an estimate of $100 billion to date. Although popular initially, the cost—not to mention the young Russians who have been sent to their deaths—may make Russia come to regret this adventure. Nevertheless, as many noble Lords have commented, we need a workable relationship with Russia—for example, in relation to Syria, as has been widely quoted, but also in relation to places such as the Arctic. There are many areas where we have common concerns and we need to build on these rather than, as currently, getting stuck in fairly pointless confrontations.

Secondly, and looking more widely across the region, many people were, as has been said, very optimistic about the future, but how many stolen elections and abuses of power does it take until that fades? The fact that people like to use English law for their business dealings, the fact that thousands of people turned out on the streets in Moscow not so long ago to protest against the regime and the fact that, despite harassment, courageous individuals and organisations try to highlight injustices show us that the people of the region seek democracy and the rule of law, whatever their leaders may do. That is why I underline the need for us constantly to bear witness to the degree to which elections are falsified or otherwise and the degree to which laws are followed or otherwise.

Finally, I place my faith in the next generation. The increasing number of young people educated in the West going home with friendships in this country—and to a degree, one would expect, with our values—may prove to be the most significant factor that in the long term enables us and the countries that we still refer to as the former Soviet Union to get along with each other rather better.

I strive in these matters to be an optimist but it is going to be a very long haul indeed to get the leaders not only of those countries but of our own to understand each other rather better.