Ukraine

Lord Trefgarne Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Trefgarne (Con)]

My Lords, with your Lordships’ permission I will make a brief intervention at this point. I apologise to your Lordships for not having put down my name on the list in the normal manner.

I start by saying that my knowledge of our relations with the Soviet Union, as it then was, and eastern Europe stems from a very short time as a junior Minister in the Foreign Office responsible for those matters—frankly, I was a very junior Minister. I was instructed by the late Sir Michael Palliser, Sir Rodric Braithwaite and Sir Christopher Mallaby—great people whom I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, will know well. Sadly, my training in those matters was brought to a premature halt by the Argentinians in April 1982, which is the reason for any shortcomings that I shall no doubt now reveal.

My preference in these matters is for a diplomatic solution above all. I suggest that the sort of diplomacy that we want is not megaphone diplomacy, which we hear so often these days, not least from across the Atlantic. My noble friend Lord Carrington turned the phrase “megaphone diplomacy” in some other connection. Progress in this regard will not be easily achieved by the kind of shouting at each other that we so often hear at present. One has to have a certain sympathy with the Russian position, but no sympathy at all for any contravention of international law or the norms of international behaviour, which I fear we have witnessed in recent times.

I will make a simple suggestion to the Minister, which I hope will be a partial way forward, if that can be identified. I refer to the possibility of leasing Crimea to the Russians while the Ukrainians retain sovereignty. We have some experience of this matter. Hong Kong, of course, was leased for a 99-year period, which ended successfully and peacefully a few years ago, and we have a sort of lease for the so-called sovereign bases in Cyprus, Akrotiri and Episkopi. I do not know whether a formula of that kind could be a partial solution to the problem, but I suggest that it is worth exploring and I invite the Minister to consider it. Perhaps it has already been considered, in which case I would be happy to hear that. However, in the mean time, if we could stop shouting at each other through megaphones, that would be a way forward.