Part of the debate – in the House of Commons am 1:05 pm ar 8 Mai 2024.
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of the statement.
It is the first job of any Government to keep our country safe from those who wish to do us harm, not least those who wish to undermine our democracy and everything that we stand for. We pay tribute to the remarkable work of our intelligence and security services and our law enforcement agencies—at home and abroad—which strain every sinew to keep us safe. We will always work with the Government on those national security issues.
The arson attack that the Home Secretary describes was a very serious one. The charges now laid are important. We support the work of law enforcement in this case, and it is immensely important that nothing is done to cut across that criminal justice case. I simply ask for the Home Secretary’s reassurance that a investigation is under way not just into the specific offences, but into the wider context and any wider threats to our national security that might be linked with this incident.
The Home Secretary has been clear in linking these charges to Russia and we echo his strong condemnation of Russian interference and hostile activity here in the UK and throughout Europe. Repeatedly, we have seen a brazen disregard by Russia for the rule of law, for the UK, for our allies and for our domestic security. As my right hon. Friends, the shadow Secretaries of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and for Defence have made clear, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Government in our support for Ukraine. Any change in Government will not change that strong cross-party support, as we stand with our allies. Putin must be defeated in Ukraine, and Britain must stand four-square behind our Ukrainian friends.
Russia under Putin is a long-term, generational threat to the security of Europe, which requires a long-term response. As my right hon. Friend the shadow Defence Secretary said just yesterday, the defence of the UK starts in Ukraine, but as the Home Secretary has made clear, these challenges are also to our homeland security, which is why we support wholeheartedly the measures that the Home Secretary set out today. Just as we worked on a cross-party basis with the Government to pass the National Security Act 2023, so we will work closely with them in going further. May I ask the Home Secretary a few further questions about these and any further measures that the Government may be able to take and ask him whether he expects there to be a diplomatic response from Russia?
As we saw in Salisbury to an appalling extent, there is a willingness of Russian-sponsored actors to put the safety of British citizens and British residents at risk through cyber-threats—threats to undermine our democracy and our economy. I am concerned that we have known about the scale of these threats for some time, and that, in some areas, we have been too slow to respond. The Home Secretary has been too slow to rid the UK of illicit finance. He will know that concerns have been raised about prohibited imports of Russian-origin oil through third countries making their way to UK shores. Can he tell me what action is being taken to ensure that sanctions are being enforced?
The Home Secretary will know that there is real concern that the UK is still too easy for lawyers and accountants and for the laundering of Russian money through the UK that potentially aids and abets Putin’s war. The US has seized huge amounts of Russian-related assets as part of the sanctions evasion and charged more than 70 individuals in that regard. Can he confirm that no one has yet been charged with sanctions evasion in the US and set out what is being done to address the issue?
The Government said that in principle they support the seizing of Russian assets to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine, but there have been no proposals to take that forward. Will the Home Secretary tell us what is happening there? We have also still not had a full account of the scale of risk from golden visas. He will know, too, that there are threats to our democracy. The work of the defending democracy taskforce is far too limited. While the Security Minister is working on that, what engagement has the Home Secretary had, and has it been discussed at the National Security Council?
Finally, the update to the Government’s integrated review warned in March last year that
“the transition into a multipolar, fragmented and contested world has happened more quickly and definitively than anticipated.”
From the Iranian-sponsored kidnap and kill threats on UK soil to the repression of Hong Kong protesters outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester, the UK has undergone, because of behaviour not just from Russia but more widely, a fundamental shift in the threat landscape, as increasingly aggressive state actors feel emboldened to target the UK, often in co-operation with serious and organised crime. I urge the Home Secretary to look at the work that was done after the huge shift in the terror threat that we faced following 9/11 and 7/7 to draw up the Contest strategy. We do not have a similar strategy for state actors and state-sponsored threats. The work is far too fragmented. The Labour party would like to see a comprehensive equivalent to Contest. I urge him to look again at that. We will work with him on that too.