Saudi Arabia: Mass Execution
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Baroness Kramer
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid the noble Lord is inaccurate. If he had had only three-quarters of an hour to prepare for this, he might have the same difficulty with it. It is quite clear that we engage very strongly. I know that noble Lords will think, “Oh, he is repeating the same line again”, but the fact is that we do have very strong relationships with and are a strong ally of Saudi Arabia. The fact that we are in that position means that we can have these full and frank discussions.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister tell us whether his Government are considering sanctions against those who have been involved in the execution of children?
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness knows, we always keep the issues relating to sanctions under review, and I would not want to pre-empt anything that could happen in the future.
Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitri Kovtun Freezing Order 2020
Debate between Earl of Courtown and Baroness Kramer(4 years, 2 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Earl of Courtown
I thank all noble Lords for their contribution to this short debate. I will do my best to cover all the points raised but should I miss any out, I will write to noble Lords. The noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, asked how the asset freeze affects real property—land, buildings et cetera. She also mentioned cryptocurrencies, which she had referred to in the previous debate, two years ago. Under an asset freeze, all funds and economic resources must be frozen. No funds or economic resources can be made available, directly or indirectly, to a designated person or for their benefit. To do so may be a criminal offence. Funds generally mean financial assets and benefits of every kind. Economic resources—this relates to the noble Baroness’s point about property—generally refers to assets of every kind, tangible or intangible, moveable or immoveable, which are not funds but which may be used to obtain funds, goods or services. This includes, but is not limited to, property. As confirmed in the previous debates, crypto-assets are also covered by this.
Baroness Kramer
I do not want to create a problem for the noble Earl, because this may be outside his general scope, but where there is no public register of beneficial interests, the problem is that civil society groups—which do a lot of the monitoring on behalf of us all—cannot see through to identify whether there is abuse. In those particular circumstances, the only way to find out whether somebody has acquired property in the UK, which will be under various other names, shell companies, and whatever else, is by active intervention by UK enforcement authorities. Until we get the public register, that is limited. That was the question I was trying to focus on.
The Earl of Courtown
The noble Baroness’s point is basically about transparency. I do not have any information on that issue to hand, but I will write to the noble Baroness.
The next point was about a link between the 2018 order and the Salisbury event. As noble Lords are aware, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and the attack on Salisbury are part of a pattern of Russian aggression over the past decade, which includes its actions in Georgia, Crimea and Ukraine, and campaigns of reckless and irresponsible cyberattacks. We took a range of measures following the attacks in Salisbury, including co-ordinating the expulsion of 153 Russian intelligence officers, the largest mass expulsion in history. We continue to believe that, in conjunction with the other measures which the Government have taken in response to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, this freezing order sends a message to others who might consider committing similar acts in future that the UK Government will not tolerate such action. After the Salisbury attack, four Russian individuals were sanctioned under the Chemical Weapons (Asset-Freezing) and Miscellaneous Amendments Regulations 2018 for their roles in transporting and using a toxic nerve agent—Novichok—in Salisbury in March 2018.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, raised a number of issues relating to his thoughts on whether it was worth while going through this exercise. Obviously, Her Majesty’s Government feel that it is, but he also mentioned the Magnitsky sanctions and asked why we were not introducing the asset freeze under them. The Government have announced their intention to establish UK-autonomous global human rights Magnitsky-style sanctions, as he said. These will be coming forward shortly, once we have left the European Union—which I imagine we have.