Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, back from his brief sabbatical; his contributions will continue to be welcome. I also welcome the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, many of which have been playing on my mind over the past couple of weeks, and which I will refer to a little later. On Friday, the Russian war on Ukraine became longer than the First World War. Today, it is likely that 1,000 Russians will be killed or wounded in the prosecution of that aggression. Also today, the first negotiating cluster opens between the EU and Ukraine, signalling a prospect of a much more prosperous and secure future with Ukraine in the European Union. What will assist this future is no lifting of economic and trade pressure on Russia. It is why tackling the Russian oil and energy sector—which is controlled by those close to, or who are financial backers of, President Putin—remains critical, and why these measures should be supported. Russia has, frustratingly, managed to exploit some resistance to act over the past few years, especially on secondary sanctions, and has too easily circumvented the sanctions that have been put in place. In March 2022, more than four years ago, in the Chamber I asked the previous Government to target the rouble/rupee swap that allows Russia to continue to trade in oil products by allowing countries to trade and refine and then sell on. I raised this eight subsequent times—five times during the period when the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, was an Energy Minister in the previous Government. When I challenged the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, in the Foreign Office, I always got the slight impression that the FCDO would probably have liked to have acted, but the Energy department and the Treasury were more reticent. Because of this and because I have pressed on this issue for so long and so consistently, I was genuinely delighted to see the tranche of sanctions we are considering today. I should declare—perhaps it is not an interest, but I should make it clear—that I myself am sanctioned by Putin’s Government. It is a badge of honour to some degree. These measures rightly tighten the restrictions on UK businesses involved in facilitating, providing assistance to, or providing crews, brokering services or financial services to ships seeking to circumvent sanctions. We therefore support the powers, as the Explanatory Memorandum states, for “more shipping, trade, and transport related activity in scope of sanctions, making it more difficult for Russia’s shadow fleet to obtain services and limiting UK involvement further”. I welcome the Explanatory Memorandum and I commend the Government for its clarity. After the recent news, I also strongly commend the Royal Marines and all those involved in the action on the vessel that was flagrantly passing through the channel as part of the shadow fleet. I hope that we are progressively bringing more light on the shadow fleet and acting on it. All this considerable support made me even more disappointed by the then open-ended licence to exempt a key part of these measures, to which the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, referred. The Government put in place an open-ended licence for processed oil products—jet fuel and diesel. This was met with similar disappointment by our Ukrainian friends, and the open-ended nature of the exemption was something that I found unacceptable. I spoke to and then wrote to Minister Stephen Doughty on 4 June, outlining my very serious concerns. I said that I would consider moving consideration of these measures out of Grand Committee to the Chamber, so that the whole House would be able to decide whether an open-ended licence was the correct way forward. This was not a light thing to do, because I have been a willing and enthusiastic part of the cross-party consensus on these sanctions, but I nevertheless found the open-ended nature of that measure unacceptable. I am grateful to Ministers for facilitating me meeting with cross-departmental officials on 10 June, and I received a letter on 11 June from Minister Doughty indicating that the Government had changed their mind and would bring forward an endpoint to the licence—a sunset clause, in effect. This was welcome and that concession has also been welcomed by many of our Ukrainian friends. The Minister referred to that acknowledgement today and I thank her for it. I have a couple of questions relating to it, which are linked to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster. My understanding is that any British businesses continuing to trade under this licence until the end of the year have to declare to the Government that they are so trading. I would be grateful if the Minister could say, whether today or in writing, how many British businesses are now operating under this licence. This licence should ideally not be in place, but if the Government’s intent is that there should be clarity on when the policy will end, we should have clarity on how many British businesses are operating under it. On the point from the noble Lord, Lord Lancaster, the fact that this now has a clear endpoint to it suggests that the Government have moved away from saying that they will decide on the end of the exemption based on market conditions, because they are now clearly phasing in a policy determination. Ultimately, we want to see this licence removed and revoked as soon as possible. As far as I am concerned, the target point should not be 1 January; that should be the backstop. If the licence could be removed sooner, I would welcome it and I would ask the Minister to bring a Statement to Parliament indicating that that is the case. We need these measures in place to ensure that our Ukrainian allies know that we will not allow any let-up in our support for adding even more pressure on the Putin regime, at the very point when the Ukrainians seem to be gaining some form of advantage. At this critical point, we need to turn the screw and not loosen it.