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UK Relations with Russia

My hon. Friend is of course right. A little later, I will talk about some of the historic precedents in British-Russian relations and about how important sending over the right level of person is to the way in which Russia views its bilateral relations with the UK. The Prime Minister met Medvedev only at the G8 summit. I would not want anyone to think that I was being excessively political, because our relations with Russia are too important for that, but I would contrast the current Prime Minister's approach with that of his predecessor. Tony Blair made sure that he was the first western leader to meet Vladimir Putin when he took over from Boris Yeltsin in 2000. Indeed, Blair flew to Moscow in March 2000, while Putin was still only the acting leader, and two weeks before the general election that made him President. The status quo is very odd. Even at the height of the cold war, there was engagement with Russia. Indeed, one could argue that the engagement led by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher 20 years ago was a key part of the background to the fall of the Berlin wall. We are talking about two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council effectively having no bilateral relations at the highest level. There are only 10 sets of bilateral relations between permanent members of the Security Council, and I would put good money on the fact that UK-Russia relations are the absolute worst. If the Prime Minister were ever to meet the Russian Prime Minister, which issues might need to be debated from the British point of view? The first would be progress in investigating the heinous murder of Alexander Litvinenko in November 2008 and other incidents that put UK-Russia relations in a deep freeze at that time. Second would be the continued detention without proper trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and others in relation to the break-up of Yukos. Third would be the continuing downgrading of the BBC Russian service at the World Service, partly thanks to actions taken by the Russian Government in recent years. Fourth would be operations of the British Council in Russia, and fifth would be Britain's conflicting and often counter-productive approach to visitors' visas for Russian nationals. I could talk about Georgia, energy security, Chechnya and Russian espionage in London, but I will leave those topics for others to come in on. Similarly, I will not discuss the issues on which UK-Russian co-operation might bear real dividends, such as Iran, North Korea and non-proliferation. Let me put our relations with Russia in a little context. Russia is going through quite grave economic problems at the moment. Its GDP is set to fall by 11 per cent. this year, unemployment is 9 per cent. and rising, there is 15 per cent. inflation and bankruptcies are increasing. Rather incredibly, the Russian rouble is about the only currency against which sterling has appreciated in the past 12 months, so bad is the state of the Russian economy. Corruption remains a major issue, IKEA has announced that it is pulling out of the country and so on. On the political side, matters could be worse, but they have not really improved in the past three years, and I am sure that others will examine recent activities on the political front and in civil society. The first of the specific issues that I want to raise is the aftermath of the Litvinenko affair. Despite words of protest, no progress appears to have been made. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister whether, and if so how recently, requests to extradite Mr. Lugovoi have been submitted. I would also be grateful to hear of any other progress that might have been made in solving the murder of this British subject. As we know, Mr. Litvinenko's widow, Marina, petitioned the coroner in 2008 for an inquest. She did that against the advice of the Foreign Office, which feared that such a move might prejudice any future trail of Mr. Lugovoi or others who might be accused of the crime. Given that the Foreign Office thought at the time that a trial might happen, it would be helpful to hear what progress it is making. On the ongoing detention of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev over the collapse of Yukos, the background to the case has been well documented in previous debates in the House—notably on 10 March 2004—so I will not recount the full story. However, Mr. Khodorkovsky is on trial again for more or less the same alleged offences for which he was tried in 2004. So far, he has served four and a half years in prison camp No. 13 in Kamenokamsk in Siberia, which is close to the city of Chita—a grim part of Siberia, I can tell you. According to Mr. Khodorkovsky's interview in The Sunday Times on 13 September 2009, which was secretly transmitted to the west, the court proceedings—we should bear in mind that he is on trial for the same offences that he was tried for and convicted of in 2004—saw him locked inside a 1.5 tonne bullet-proof glass case. When he is not being taken to court, he is in his cell, where he spends 23 hours a day in less than five square yards of space with three to eight men. Ironically, he told The Sunday Times that the rules on his detention were relaxed only for the year that he spent in a penal colony—the quality of detention there was actually better than what he has at the moment. From time to time, there has been a lot of interest in Mr. Khodorkovsky's case in the House. Indeed, the most interesting early-day motion on the matter—early-day motion 2176—was tabled on 23 October 2007. Remarkably enough, it was tabled by the Minister, who is responding for the Government. As I mentioned, we were previously officers of the all-party group on Russia, so I know of his strong and genuine interest in Russian human rights. His EDM bemoans the incarceration of Khodorkovsky and""calls on Russia to eschew totalitarianism and more securely to embrace democracy, the rule of law, political plurality and freedom of expression and peaceful assembly"." I say, "Hear, hear!" to that. The US Senate and the Bundestag have tabled similar motions. We deserve an update from the Minister on the progress that he has made on his EDM and on ensuring that the Khodorkovsky case has been properly raised in the short time that he has been in his post. It is essential for him to tell us that the Foreign Secretary will raise the case when he travels to Moscow next month. I hope that he will publicly condemn the latest trial and that the British ambassador will visit the trial before the Foreign Secretary's visit. Either way, I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on what actions he has taken. I want briefly to examine the ongoing controversy surrounding the BBC Russian service, which I raised at some length in a debate on the World Service last December. As we know, the Russian Government closed down a lot of the joint ventures with local Russian FM stations, and the BBC Russian service—at least the radio service—has never recovered. I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what further proposals there are to launch the Russian language TV service that has been talked about at the World Service. Does the Minister also share my concern about some of the editing on the BBC Russian service and about the way in which the service fails to challenge official Russian Government viewpoints? In recent weeks, for example, there has been intense debate on Russian websites about the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, but the BBC Russian service has not even mentioned the issue, let alone attempted to analyse it. It seems that certain topics are still too sensitive to be touched. Similarly, the service's April 2009 interview with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, is an incredible bit of reading. So positive was it for the Russian Government that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the first to publish it, on its website. It is just a series of about eight one-line questions, to which each answer is about five paragraphs from Lavrov, putting forward the official Russian viewpoint. He comes out with some incredible stuff, and at no point was any of that challenged by the BBC Russian service. He says that Russia is""an undeviating protector of international law"." He attacks the colour revolutions in the post-Soviet era, saying they are""not merely examples of gross human rights abuses"—" the revolutions, not the background to them—and accuses them""also of trampling upon the norms of ethics and morality."" At no point did the interviewer challenge any of those views or opinions.