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UK Relations with Russia

I will not take another intervention yet; I want to move on to another point. I recently met Peter Horrocks, the new head of the World Service, and found him much more amenable than his predecessor at the time of the Lavrov interview. A number of us in this House take an interest in what happens at the BBC Russian service and we look forward to a flourishing future for it. I want briefly to turn to the issue of visas. I was recently reminded of the effectiveness of the removal of visa rights from individuals, or sets of individuals, in dealing with different Governments. I am told—I believe reliably—by a former senior member of Boris Yeltsin's Government that effective action was taken at an EU level against up to 500 members of the Nashi organisation, by ensuring that they did not receive visas for the Schengen area. Nashi, hon. Members may recall, is a pro-regime irregular group that was prominent in the very nasty harassment campaign against the then British ambassador in Moscow in 2007. My information is that Estonia cancelled the visa rights of 500 Nashi members, and that that had a knock-on effect in a number of EU countries. I believe that that those close to the present regime fear removal of visas for their visits to London. That could be a very effective move in, for example, putting pressure on Russia over other issues that I have discussed. By contrast, our visa policy towards other, more humble, Russian citizens is sometimes shameful. Since I applied for the debate I have been doing a lot of research on the number and nature of Russians refused visas to this country. I have had representations directly from and on behalf of such Russian citizens. The number of visa refusals of Russians, as a percentage of the global total, has risen relentlessly from 3.3 per cent. in 2002-03 to 6.8 per cent. in 2008-09. Now Russian refusals rank fifth in the world, after India, Nigeria, Pakistan and China—all countries that are more populous than Russia. Some 10,035 visa refusals were made in the last financial year. I shall not go into detail about some of the cases that have been raised with me, but many of the refusals affect academic and cultural visitors. Those would seem to be precisely the sort of people we should encourage to come from Russia to this country. However, I shall mention one case, which I found particularly shocking—that of Sergei Mironenko from the Memorial organisation, which documents Soviet era oppression. He is the leading editor of documents from the Stalinist past, and was refused a visa to attend the 2009 London book fair. I am not in a position to tell the House everything about that gentleman's background, but two others from his group were refused visas as well, and I should be grateful to hear the precise reasons for that. A visa was also recently denied to Yevgeny Tsymbal, a well known maker of documentary films, who has regularly been invited by Queen Mary college as an academic visitor. There has been a surprising number of instances where precisely the more democratic-minded Russians have been the ones whose visa applications have been refused. I was delighted when my great aunt from Vladivostok was granted a visa and came to my wedding in 2005, but I sometimes ask myself whether four years later she would get the same treatment. It seems to me from statistical and anecdotal evidence that the visa situation for more ordinary Russians is rather difficult. I have a final thought that I want to end on. I mentioned that I would talk a little about the historiography of UK-Russia relations, and I want to contrast two incidents from the past, to suggest how those might provide pointers to approaching a proper relationship with Russia today. The way not to approach matters was shown in the summer of 1939 when Britain explored the possibility of a rapprochement with Soviet Russia, but unfortunately dispatched a middle-ranking naval officer, by sea, to conduct the negotiations. I believe that my information is correct, although I did not quite have time this morning to check it. It took the delegation, at that critical time, three weeks to arrive by boat in what was then Leningrad. I do not for a moment say that the Soviets were a natural ally of this country, then or later, but if the mission was to seek an alliance with them, that seems to have been a rather poor way to go about it. The Soviets, not unreasonably, contrasted the behaviour of the British towards them with their behaviour towards Hitler the previous year, when the then Prime Minister flew out at pretty much a moment's notice to Munich. They drew the inevitable conclusions about whether Britain was serious about an alliance or relationship with Russia. The other lesson is from 25 or so years ago, when Margaret Thatcher, who was of course resolute in her approach to the Soviets, nevertheless engaged. She flew to Moscow. She did not take the 21-day boat. She was even cheered by Muscovites in the streets of Moscow on her walkabout. That sort of example, and the recent examples of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, shows the importance of engagement and resolution in dealing with Russia. We must have some hopes for the Foreign Secretary's visit, and I await the Minister's views with interest. We should have no illusion, however, that it is a substitute for talks at the highest level. If Obama and Merkel can do it, surely our Prime Minister can finally summon up the courage to do the same, meet Putin and have substantial talks.