Russia

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is clear that we need to reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian gas. In fact, I think that 3% of our gas is from Russia, but I agree with the hon. Lady that it is desirable to reduce that. The way that we need to reduce that dependency is with more investment in areas such as nuclear energy, which we are doing with small modular nuclear reactors, as well as more investment in areas such as renewables and ensuring that we are using alternative gas sources to supply our domestic energy needs.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

Some of us are sadly old enough to be able to remember Hungary in 1953, the subsequent removal of Alexander Dubček in Czechoslovakia, more recently the annexation of parts of Georgia, and then the invasion and annexation of Crimea. All were with impunity, so far as the Soviet Union and the neo-Soviet Union are concerned; the free world simply failed to act. Further to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell), Russia and Ukraine are members of the Council of Europe. Will my right hon. Friend use the platforms available to her within the Committee of Ministers and in person within the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to make it plain that the United Kingdom will no longer stand by and simply talk, but that we will act?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend about using all platforms available, and also about the fact that the free world needs to stand up against aggressors. The UK has played a leading role in bringing together the G7 to make a very strong statement, as well as working with our NATO allies to make clear the basis of the talks taking place next week. We are very ready and willing to use our position to make the case for severe consequences, should Russia seek to stage an incursion into Ukraine.

Oral Answers to Questions

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

We see a concerning pattern of Russian behaviour. The aim is to hamper Euro-Atlantic integration in the region. The UK’s approach is clearly set out in the integrated review. The UK takes the threat from the Russian state extremely seriously and we will continue to call out Russian aggression.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

It is clear that the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has worsened considerably as a result of the separationist ambitions of Republika Srpska, which is backed by the Russian Federation. Can my hon. Friend the Minister tell me what discussions the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has had with the new High Representative and what steps we are taking as a nation to try to stabilise the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Roger Gale Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq]

The hon. Gentleman has appeared at every single debate we have had on Nazanin. I thank him for all his efforts in the campaign. I will come to the debt and getting our constituents back home.

It goes without saying that the reason why my constituent is imprisoned in Iran is because of the Iranian regime. It is because of them that my constituent is away from her young family. But in six years of dealing with our Government, I have become increasingly frustrated that Ministers are ignoring the elephant in the room, which is the fact that this case is now linked to the £400 million that this country owes Iran. That is not something I want to deal with, but it is the reality of the situation. It is becoming obvious that the Iranians see the £400 million that we owe as a pre-condition to releasing Nazanin.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. She said “constituents” and she is absolutely right. Nobody in this room has anything but compassion for Richard Ratcliffe and his family, but there are other constituents who are dual nationals who also need the help of the British Government. Does she agree that they are living under the most awful regime and that has to be a priority?

[Tulip Siddiq]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I will mention the other dual nationals who are imprisoned in Iran. As he says, Nazanin is not the only one.

I want to go back to the question of the debt before I take another intervention. When Nazanin was captured and put in solitary confinement in Evin prison, she was told by prison guards that the reason she was being held was because of our failure to pay this historic debt. Former President Rouhani told our Prime Minister in March this year that accelerating the payment on the debt would solve a lot of the problems in the bilateral relationship between Iran and our country. Iran’s former Foreign Minister Zarif also cited the debt in an article. There is no question but that the debt is linked to Nazanin’s case.

We have seen that it is not a coincidence: every time there is any movement on the IMS court hearing, there is some movement on Nazanin’s case. When the IMS court hearing was delayed earlier this year, Nazanin received a call a week later saying, “Come to court, because we need to speak to you.” There is no coincidence, because the two are linked. What frustrates me so much is that every time I speak to the Government, they seem to bury their head in the sand and deny that there is a link.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]]

Thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was taken slightly on the hop; I was expecting another colleague to be called before me. May I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this important debate?

In her opening remarks, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) reminded the House that this is a debate about FCDO estimates; it is not a proxy vote for a reduction in overseas aid. We do not, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) reminded us, normally vote on estimates, because to do so would simply be disruptive in parliamentary terms, but we still need a meaningful vote. To try to suggest that this is somehow a vote on the overseas aid issue is simply disingenuous, and it will not wash.

In breach of an Act of Parliament, the Government are seeking to reduce our overseas aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5%. That in itself is significant, but that figure is based on gross national income. The net effect of that is that because gross national income has also fallen, it is a cut upon a cut. It is a cut in provision for some of the poorest people in the world. I listened with sadness to the comments of a couple of my younger friends in the House, who seem to think only that charity begins at home and that because of the pandemic we cannot afford to fund overseas aid at the legal rate. We are and remain, thank God, one of the richest countries in the world.

In the context of the national budget, the amount of money spent on overseas aid is pitiful. I would ask my hon. Friends to think again about whether we should in fact be reducing the money that we spend on, for example, the education of young women, which the Prime Minister hailed triumphantly at the G7; whether we should cut funding for the provision of clean water, particularly for young people who sometimes have to walk for miles to draw such water as is available from infected streams; or whether we should cut the funding for sanitation of a kind that no Member in this House would wish their children to experience.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, reminded the House that we are cutting the funding of our tropical diseases programme from £115 million to just £17 million. That tropical diseases programme, that life-saving programme, that potentially pandemic-preventing programme was—I think the expression is—world class, and that is what we are about to cut.

We are also going to reduce the funding for the British Council, a source of soft power that enhances our reputation around the world, and for Voluntary Service Overseas, which provides so much opportunity for British volunteers who wish to help those in developing countries. We are going to cut the international community service programme—a programme involving very many young people from the United Kingdom who have been going around the world—which was instigated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield when he was the Secretary of State. That is going to go.

These programmes are trailblazers for global Britain—or were. They are not projects that can be turned on and off like a tap. They involve real people, real expertise, real time and real effort. By cutting the funding for this year, we are probably setting back each one of those programmes, even if the money is reinstated next year, by five, six or seven years, because it will take time to rebuild from the rubble that is left and to get those programmes up and running again, if ever. Is this global Britain? Is this really what we want? Do we really want to break the trust that we have built up internationally for fair dealing, generosity and an understanding of what our place in the world really is? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) said in a very powerful speech, these cuts are about real people. They are about life and death, and what we are choosing to do means death for some of those people.

I hope that the Government will either implement the Speaker’s instruction and allow this House of Commons to have a vote—a meaningful vote—on a substantive motion on the reduction of our overseas aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI, or give an absolute cast-iron guarantee from the Front Bench today that the money will be reinstated in full next year.

ODA Budget

Roger Gale Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The Government absolutely recognise the importance of Africa, in terms of the challenges it faces and the opportunities that it presents itself with. We will spend around 50% of our bilateral ODA in Africa. I am not able to give commitments on the granularity of how programmes will be funded or, indeed, with regard to carry-overs, but as I have already said, we absolutely recognise the importance of research and development as a theme and Africa as a continent.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]]

My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) was absolutely correct in pointing out that this represents a double cut: it is a cut from 0.7% to 0.5%, but it is also, of course, 0.5% of a lower figure, because gross national income has fallen. Can my right hon. Friend the Minister tell the House what effect that is going to have on the Ascend programme, what effect it will have on research into the treatment and prevention of malaria, and how many young women around the world will not receive education as a result of what I am afraid I have to regard as a breach of faith?

[James Cleverly]

I am not able to provide my right hon. Friend with the level of detail that he has asked for at this stage. The thematic programmes that were set out in my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s written ministerial statement will now be worked out in more detail, and we will provide detail to our delivery partners as soon as we are able to, but I am not able to furnish the House with those figures at the moment.

Russian Federation: Human Rights

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Sir Roger Gale, who has two minutes.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con) [V]]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on what further sanctions he will impose upon the Russian Federation following the arrest, over the weekend, of Alexei Navalny, his wife and hundreds of his supporters in clear and gross breach of the European convention on human rights.

The G7 has condemned the imprisonment of Alexei Navalny, and reminded Mr Putin that he is bound by international obligations to respect human rights. One of those obligations is to the Council of Europe. Tomorrow, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will discuss the credentials of the Russian Federation. Does my hon. Friend agree that a nation that engages in state murder and that imprisons its political opponents and their supporters is in gross breach of the European convention on human rights and has forfeited its right to be a member of an Assembly that is founded on the very principles of democracy?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Wendy Morton)]

The UK is appalled by the politically motivated detention of Alexei Navalny on arbitrary charges. As the Foreign Secretary made clear, Mr Navalny is the victim of a despicable crime, and we call for his immediate and unconditional release.

The Foreign Secretary has also condemned the Russian authorities’ unacceptable use of violence against peaceful protesters and journalists last weekend, and we have called on the Russian Government to respect their international commitments and to release those detained during peaceful demonstrations.

The UK has galvanised the international community in condemnation of these deplorable detentions. As G7 president, the UK issued a G7 Foreign Ministers’ statement on 26 January, emphasising our deep concern at these developments and calling on Russia to adhere to its national and international obligations.

The UK has led international efforts in response to Mr Navalny’s poisoning in August. We have worked closely with our international partners at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, to urge Russia to uphold its obligations under the chemical weapons convention. Last December, the UK led a joint statement in the OPCW, supported by 58 states parties, calling for Russia to be held to account.

We have also taken robust, bilateral action. In October, the UK enforced asset freezes and travel bans on six individuals responsible for the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, as well on one Russian organisation. We keep further sanctions designations under constant review. However, it would not be appropriate to comment at this stage on possible future designations, as that could undermine their impact. We carefully consider all options under the relevant sanctions regimes.

The UK has been clear in condemning in the strongest possible terms the chemical weapons attack against Mr Navalny last year. He was the victim of a nerve agent attack, and the UK has called repeatedly for the Russian authorities to investigate and explain the use of a chemical weapon on Russian soil and to declare its Novichok programme to the OPCW.

The confirmed use of chemical weapons against opposition figures further undermines democracy and political plurality in Russia. More broadly, Mr Navalny’s detention is a further demonstration of the concerning deterioration in the human rights situation in Russia. We raise that regularly with the Russian Government, making it clear that Russia must uphold its international human rights responsibilities. I raised the issue myself during my visit to Moscow in November 2020, and our ambassador to Moscow raised Mr Navalny’s case immediately prior to his return to Russia, to underline that the UK was closely monitoring Russia’s actions.

We condemn the detention of thousands of peaceful protestors and journalists on 23 January and the Russian Government’s continued disregard for the fundamental rights of its people to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. The UK has also urged Russia to fulfil its commitments under the international covenant on civil and political rights, the European convention on human rights and all the relevant instruments of the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and to guarantee those rights, including the right to freedom of expression, to its citizens.

The UK’s policy towards Russia is clear: we want a different relationship, but Russia must stop its destabilising behaviour towards the UK and its partners. Russia’s pattern of aggressive behaviour undermines its claim that it is a responsible international partner upholding the rules-based international system.

[Mr Speaker]

We will go back to Sir Roger, in case he wishes to add something.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I am very grateful for that powerful statement. I am concerned because I spoke with the Russian ambassador, Andrei Kelin, who chose to call me this morning. He made it absolutely plain to me during that call that the Russians regarded Mr Navalny as a prisoner who had broken his bail conditions and therefore would not be released. Under those circumstances, I have to say that I still regard this as a gross breach of the European convention on human rights. I hope that my hon. Friend will do everything in her power to underscore that and make it plain that this conduct is completely unacceptable.

[Wendy Morton]

I would like to come back briefly on that point. We have been very clear. The Foreign Secretary has condemned the Russian authorities’ unacceptable use of violence against peaceful protestors. We really have been leading from the front when it comes to taking action against this situation. We are absolutely appalled by the politically motivated detention of Alexei Navalny on arbitrary charges.

Resignation of UK Ambassador to USA

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

The right hon. Gentleman has spoken with authority and wisdom. What he said should be pinned on every wall as an instruction to people on how to act, respectively, in public life and about public life. I commend him for what he has just said.

We have emphasised throughout the importance of ambassadors being able to provide honest, unvarnished assessments of the politics in their country, and to be able to report without fear or favour. We will continue to support civil servants in carrying out that duty. On Tuesday and again today, I have been very grateful to those on the Opposition Benches for the support and cross-party unity they have shown. Their decency, with all those across the whole country who support officials when they are under attack, is something for which I personally am very grateful. When I spoke to Sir Kim yesterday, he was too. He asked me to pass on to the entire House his gratitude.

The right hon. Gentleman is right about the decay in our institutions. We can have a ferocious contest across the Floor of the House, but we have to do that under certain rules and certain codes of conduct—being able to say hello in the bar afterwards, having expressed our differences. So many codes of conduct are in freefall. It is leading, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly says, to unacceptable attacks on judges, Members of Parliament and broadcasters. Attacks of that sort are a fundamental attack on all the basic freedoms within the democracy in which we operate.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

While the failure of the former Foreign Secretary to leap to the defence of Sir Kim shows a lack of leadership that is lamentable, is not the priority now to restore the shattered confidence of our diplomatic corps? Is not the best way to do that to identify the miserable perpetrator of this act and then to see them charged with a criminal offence?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I hope the House will understand if I hold back today from making any further comment on my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). I said enough yesterday to make my position entirely clear.

In terms of the confidence we need to have in our officials and their morale, the permanent under-secretary in the Foreign Office, Sir Simon McDonald, had an all-staff meeting yesterday, which included people who were able to come in on phones and by video conference. The mood was palpable. There is deep upset, but a fantastic united defence of Sir Kim Darroch. I think and I hope that the very, very deft manner in which the PUS handled that meeting will have absolutely reassured our diplomats and officials everywhere that they have our full support. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the leaking. I really hope that we find who did this, and that their name and the consequences of what they did become very, very clear indeed.

Russian Annexation of Crimea

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) is the most assiduous of members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and I am delighted that he secured this debate. I am also very pleased, as the leader of the delegation, to have seen so many hon. Friends from that delegation here this morning.

I ask the Minister specifically to address the situation that currently faces the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley was absolutely right when he said that, following the annexation of Crimea, the Assembly suspended certain voting rights for the Russian Federation’s delegation. We must make it absolutely clear that the Russians were not expelled from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe; they chose to walk out. Having walked out, they have since singularly failed on any potential occasion to present their credentials.

Far from taking any remedial action in respect of Donbass, Crimea, Georgia or Moldova, the Russians have now threatened to withhold their payments to the Council of Europe to the tune of many millions of euros, which of course causes financial embarrassment. The United Kingdom delegation has made it plain that the Council of Europe is not for sale and its principles are not open to blackmail, but, unfortunately, money has become the driving force that has driven the outgoing secretary-general Thorbjørn Jagland and the current president of the Parliamentary Assembly, Liliane Maury Pasquier, to seek to negotiate with Russia, not over the Donbass region or Crimea or human rights, but over money. We now find ourselves in a position of grave danger. Diplomatically, the Russians expect that there will be an extraordinary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to seek to readmit Russia and to lean upon the rules committee of the Parliamentary Assembly to change the rules to make that possible. That would be an absolute outrage. It would make the future of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and its whole raison d’être very precarious indeed.

The Russians have made no move to release the sailors who were arrested on the warships that were boarded, no moves towards improvements in human rights, no movement towards withdrawal from Donbass and no movement towards a resolution of the situation in Crimea. That is entirely unacceptable.

It cannot be right that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, established after the war by Churchill, Jean Monnet and others to seek to bring an end to the twin threats of fascism and communism, should be sold out by its current leadership in this way. The new President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, needs the support of the western world, not appeasement. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will send the message very clearly through the ambassador to the effect that the United Kingdom stands resolute, and will remain resolute, in its support of Ukraine.

Cyclone Idai

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

The International Development Committee, on which the hon. Gentleman sits, is doing important work in relation to DFID’s overall approach on climate change, and I look forward to hearing what the Committee has to say. I recently gave evidence to the Committee about the £5.8 billion of international climate finance. He will be aware that that has already helped 47 million people adapt to the impact of climate change.

A lot of the work that we are doing is about ensuring that people can be more resilient to these more extreme weather events, which climate scientists predict will continue to occur. Our work was recently praised in an assessment by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which said that we showed good strategic leadership and that our work was effective. I agree that this is an important issue on which we need to focus, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we continue to play an important leadership role and to spend a significant amount of money in this area.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

One of the longer-term effects of such disasters is the loss of the livestock upon which people depend for their livelihoods and to feed their families. My hon. Friend mentioned the Disasters Emergency Committee. There is not a single animal welfare organisation represented on the DEC. Will she ensure that that shortcoming is addressed so that when people are able to return to their homes, they can also return to the livestock on which they depend?

[Harriett Baldwin]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that, long after the waters have receded, there will be an impact on the local population’s ability to continue to have successful food markets, whether that food is livestock or maize—given that it is a particularly maize growing area. There are early reports that much of the maize crop across the three countries has been damaged. This food is an absolute staple in the region, and any damage to the maize crop and the staple diet will have ongoing knock-on effects for the food resilience of the local population. We will be working with our advisers to understand the impact of that issue, and to see where there is an additional need for programming and international leadership.

Russia and the Council of Europe

Roger Gale Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I understand the time constraint, Mr Howarth, but because I am the leader of the UK delegation there are certain things that I need to say. I shall do my best to stick to five minutes, as you asked.

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell). I want immediately to express my appreciation for the collegiate attitude taken by the entire United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and for the cross-party basis on which we work in the interest of the United Kingdom.

I am particularly grateful for the support of my friend the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), who recently accompanied me to the Struthof concentration camp to lay a wreath. That was a stark reminder, in Alsace, of why the Council of Europe was founded and the principles on which it was founded by Winston Churchill and nine other countries after the war.

There is no doubt in my mind that Russia is in flagrant breach of the principles of the Council of Europe by its actions in Crimea, Ukraine and the Donbass; by shooting down a civilian passenger aircraft; by the invasion of Georgia and Moldova; by the poisoning of the Skripals; and, as has been mentioned by hon. Members, by its breaches of human rights across the piece. The list is almost endless.

I must underscore the fact that in 2014, following the annexation of Crimea, the Parliamentary Assembly suspended the voting rights of the Russian delegation, but they were not expelled. Aleksey Pushkov, the leader of the Russian delegation, stage-managed a press conference, walked out of the Hemicycle and led his delegation out of the Parliamentary Assembly. Since that time, it is the Russians who have declined to present their credentials. The idea that they have somehow been excluded is a myth. As has been said, the Council of Europe is a bicameral body and the Russians still attend and contribute to the Committee of Ministers. For reasons that none of us really understand, they have also been allowed to participate in Michele Nicoletti’s ad hoc committee.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) indicated that we took away the Russian voting rights, which is apparently why they are allowed to suspend their payments. I suspect that if Spain were to annex Gibraltar, which is a fairly direct comparison, my hon. Friend might have something to say about it. If the Spanish then persecuted part of the population of the Rock and imprisoned some of them, he might have even more to say about it. That is precisely what has happened in Crimea. The Russian Federation is clearly in flagrant breach of the terms of the convention on human rights.

Another myth, which has been said by Secretary-General Jagland and propagated by others, is that if Russia were expelled from the Council of Europe, the Russian people would not have access to the European Court of Human Rights. That is, quite simply, wrong. The Committee of Ministers has no power to expel Russia; it can only suspend. If Russia does not pay next year, the Committee of Ministers will do precisely that. That suspension, however, will not deny the Russian people the right to take cases before the European Court of Human Rights.

We are facing a straightforward attempt at blackmail. The secretary-general of the Council of Europe has realised that money is more important to him than principle and that he is not prepared to make the necessary budget savings to accommodate the loss of funding from Russia. The delegation that I am proud to lead is united in saying that principle is more important than money, that the Council of Europe is not for sale and that we will fight the proposals to readmit Russia—on its own terms and nobody else’s—in the presidential committee, the bureau, the rules committee and the next plenary session. Unless and until the Russians acknowledge the transgressions and make concessions themselves, they will not, for our money, come back into the Parliamentary Assembly.

[Several hon. Members rose—]