Contribution
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Batters, on a superb maiden speech, which impressed everyone in this House. I particularly liked her remarks on food and nature. British farmers can grow more food and we can also do nature recovery; the two are not mutually exclusive. I may be one of the few in the House who is not surprised at the noble Baroness’s powerful speech- making because, for the last six years, I was the deputy chairman of Natural England, and at times I felt that her powerful rhetoric was targeted against us as we sought to implement some of the ELM schemes. Nevertheless, she made a very powerful contribution to this House and she will be an excellent replacement for the late Henry Plumb in my opinion.
I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have supported, in various ways, the amendment I put before the House. In particular, there was powerful support from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. I thank her and my noble friends Lord Banner and Lord Kempsell for their very strong support. I have now had to change my opinion on a matter. I always believed that no one under 50 could make any worthwhile contribution in this House, but the two noble young Turks behind me have proved me utterly wrong.
I am also grateful to those who gave some sympathetic support, including the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, and my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns. Please do not tell my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, but I have to praise the two Lib Dem spokespersons who gave qualified support; they support the concept of what I was trying to do.
I must say to my noble friend Lord Balfe that of course, like many others, I profoundly disagree with what he said. But I admire and respect the fact that he said it in this House. While we may disagree with him, we respect his right to speak. It is something that other institutions outside this building could take note of—to let people speak their minds, even if we profoundly disagree with them.
I will pick up on just two points he made. First, he said that the Council of Europe, of which I was a member, expelled Russia. I voted for that to happen, but I was agonising about it. I like Churchill’s expression that jaw-jaw is better than war-war. I thought that maybe if we kept the Russians inside, we could communicate with them. But what they did in Ukraine was so evil that I voted to have them expelled. The noble Lord also made the point that by expelling Russia we deprived 135 million Russians of the right to go to the European Court of Human Rights. That is true, but a fat lot of good it did them when they did have the chance to go, because Russia never implemented any of the decisions of the court.
Secondly—I am coming to my conclusion—the noble Lord asked who was calling the shots. Well, it will be President Trump calling the shots on how much money the United States gives in military aid to Ukraine. He will call the shots on what non-military aid the US gives to Ukraine. But he will not be calling the shots on the immobilised Russian assets, because America has hardly any of them. Over 90% of those assets are held by the EU and United Kingdom. So, while he might dictate other measures, he cannot stop the EU and the United Kingdom taking this permissive power to spend that money.
I will not breach the conventions of the House by regurgitating the points I have made, but I just want to clarify one thing. My amendment is not calling for us to immediately confiscate those assets and start spending them in Ukraine. We cannot do that in any case because the Council of Europe—I think it is the Government’s policy as well—wants to see an independent fund. When the assets are confiscated, they will be transferred to that independent fund to then be given to Ukraine and spent on reconstruction.
We do not have that fund yet. My amendment is simply calling for us to take the permissive power so that, when the time comes, in conjunction with our allies—I am not asking us to confiscate that money tomorrow—we will not have to pass any new law; we will have the permissive power to use that money in the defence of Ukraine. That is the only point I wanted to stress and clarify. As I said at the beginning, I am not in the business of delaying this Bill any further. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.