KEIR STARMER HAS called for the UK’s parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to look into the decision to grant Russian-born media mogul Lord Evgeny Lebedev a peerage, as he claimed it is a “matter of national security”.
The Labour leader’s comments come as the Sunday Times reported that security services withdrew an assessment that granting a peerage to the Moscow-born son of an ex-KGB agent posed a national security risk after the Prime Minister Boris Johnson personally intervened.
Lebedev was nominated for the peerage by Johnson in July of last year.
Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Starmer said he was “very concerned” about the reports surrounding Lebedev and insisted the case should be referred to the ISC as it goes to “the heart of national security”.
He said: “I’m very concerned about that story, because it goes to the heart of national security and there’s at least the suggestion that the Government and the Prime Minister were warned that there was a national security risk in this particular appointment.
I think, in the circumstances, what the appropriate thing is for the Intelligence and Security Committee, which is a cross-party committee in Parliament that can have access to confidential material – I think this case should be referred to that committee so they can look into this story.
“This allegation – which is very serious because, of course, it’s a matter of national security – I hope the Government will answer it today.”
Lebedev has long been a friend of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Shortly before he became Prime Minister, Johnson was pictured in at an Italian airport in July 2019 while returning from an event in Lebedev’s converted castle near Perugia.
Lebedev also worked closely with former editor of the Evening Standard and former chancellor George Osborne.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner yesterday referenced Johnson’s friendship with Lebedev.
“It is clear that Boris Johnson has never been serious about taking the tough measures needed to eradicate Putin’s influence in Britain, and his friendships raise questions about his failure to act. This government’s dangerous links to Putin’s oligarchs are putting us all at risk,” she said.
Comparing the #RussiaSanctions (from Bloomberg) pic.twitter.com/qmCtZ2nUr8
— Dave Keating (@DaveKeating) March 4, 2022
Labour has criticised the slow of the UK government’s actions in targeting Russian money in London. A plan for foreign-owned property to be registered within six months should be reduced to 28 days, Starmer has said.
Strict
Speaking on the same programme, Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab suggested Lebedev, who owns the the Evening Standard newspaper alongside The Independent, went through a “very strict and stringent” process when he was granted his peerage.
Raab said he did not know the facts of the case but claimed the peerage appointment process had been “applied very rigorously”.
He said: “There is a strict and stringent process when anyone is granted a peerage. I don’t know the facts of the case, I wasn’t involved in it. But I do know that it was applied very rigorously in this case.”
He added: “This was done properly and correctly, and we have procedures and systems in place to make sure it is.”
Lebedev told the Sunday Times that “all” of the allegations in its report were incorrect and the questions did not “merit an answer”.
Last week, he appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the invasion of Ukraine, through the Evening Standard newspaper.
President Putin, please stop this war. https://t.co/9mLgBY2jWo
— Evgeny Lebedev (@mrevgenylebedev) February 28, 2022
The peer said: “I plead with you to use today’s negotiations to bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end.”
In a statement published alongside a photograph of a paramedic performing CPR on a girl injured by shelling, Lebedev said: “On this page are the final minutes of a six-year-old child fatally injured by shells that struck her Mariupol apartment block on Sunday.
“She is still wearing her pink jacket as medics fight to save her. But it is too late. Other children, and other families, are suffering similar fates across Ukraine.
“As a Russian citizen I plead with you to stop Russians killing their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
“As a British citizen I ask you to save Europe from war. As a Russian patriot I plead that you prevent any more young Russian soldiers from dying needlessly. As a citizen of the world I ask you to save the world from annihilation.”
- With reporting by Rónán Duffy
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