Sanctions

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

We work with our allies around the world on names. This is an effort between allies; we co-operate and discuss the matters, and officials work on that. The idea is to continue to work with our allies to bring forward further sanctions and press for further collective action to reduce western reliance, for example, on Russian energy.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I want to pursue the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), because 23 people on the EU sanctions list are not on the UK sanctions list. There are some surprising omissions—not just the oligarchs on the Navalny list, but the commanders in chief of the Black sea fleet, of Russian aerospace forces and of the Russian navy, and the Russian Defence Minister. We need a timetable for adding these people to the list. Crucially, I want to draw the Minister’s attention to paragraph 3.1.3 of the general guidance on sanctions implementation, which states:

“The everyday use by a designated person of their own economic resources for personal consumption is not prohibited.”

I would like the Minister to look at how we actually prohibit the use of the mansions, the jets and the economic assets that these people own. I do not just want them frozen; I want them put beyond use.

[Michael Ellis]

Nothing is off the table. Everything is being considered and is open for consideration. We have rightly taken unprecedented moves, which have been extremely rare in international precedent, if not unheard of, and which go further, in many instances, than what our allies have done. We have led the way in a number of different areas. That is not to say that there is not more still to do. I accept that there is, which is why I say that nothing is off the table.

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[Stephen Doughty]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, especially in connection with the measures relating to SLAPP suits that we debated recently in the House. This is a crucial point. There is a whole infrastructure here, a whole systemic problem. What saddens me is that many of these measures were set out so clearly by, for instance, the Foreign Affairs Committee and in the Russia report, but were not introduced. I hope that the Government will now bring forward measures in all these areas. The measures do not, of course, apply only to Russia; they apply to other regimes that are doing heinous things.

Sixthly, we support wider sectoral measures, to cover insurance and reinsurance, for example, preventing UK firms from underwriting transactions with Russian entities or activity in Russia. I understand that the sanctions we are discussing today will apply to insurance and reinsurance as it applies to the specific transactions covered by these sanctions, but will the Minister tell us whether the Government are considering a wider prohibition on the provision of insurance and reinsurance services more generally to Russia and those engaging with the regime, not least given the key role that the UK plays in the international insurance market?

Seventhly, we have heard the point rightly made by one of the Minister’s own colleagues, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), about Scottish limited partnerships. May we have some urgent answers on that?

My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) raised a point about the use of assets. My understanding is that these sanctions would, for example, prevent service companies from servicing a large mansion somewhere in London in respect of, say, cleaning or facilities. Of course, the individual would still be able to make use of the asset.

[Liam Byrne]

My hon. Friend is right. There is a secondary question that the Minister needs to clear up: if a Russian oligarch has a mortgage on a mansion, is the bank that holds the mortgage legally entitled to take debt repayments or not?

[Stephen Doughty]

My right hon. Friend makes a crucial point. My understanding, which the Minister can clarify if necessary, is that it does apply to financial transactions including mortgages and remortgaging, but we need to understand this because we need to truly freeze the use of these assets and not allow loopholes.

As always, I must ask how these measures will apply to the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Will they be effective immediately in those territories or will we, or they, have to pass additional measures? We do not want a lag effect of days in those jurisdictions. I also want to ask about resourcing. I pay tribute to the officials in the FCDO sanctions unit, who are working on these matters at speed, but can I get an assurance from the Minister that their resourcing is being rapidly scaled up so that we can move swiftly, robustly and in a legally sound way? What consideration is being given to alternative routes for naming some of the individuals?

These are highly complex sanctions measures, especially in relation to the dual use of goods, and a major Government effort will be vital to ensure that there is detailed understanding across the private sector so that we can support their implementation, not least given the severe penalties outlined in the instrument and our desire for the measures to be implemented immediately and effectively. Will the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation issue urgent and clear new guidance on these measures? Similarly, will additional resources be provided to the export control joint unit to support compliance and enforcement? If we want the toughest measures, we will also need the toughest enforcement, but unfortunately many of the agencies have been lagging behind the US. They do excellent work, but they have not had the resources they need.

There are multiple reports today that troops from Belarus might have been entering Ukraine. They are unconfirmed at this stage, but we know that attacks have been conducted from the territory of Belarus. We have all previously called for wider sanctions against Belarus, and indeed the EU has laid out such sanctions. Will these measures be effective against Belarusian entities and individuals? As has been said, sanctions are important but they alone will not deal with the wider problems of illicit finance and the UK’s role as a hub for corrupt, Russia-linked money. This is a matter not just of individuals but of fixing a broken system in which poor governance, weak enforcement and a lack of transparency have allowed the UK to be a haven for ill-gotten gains. We have to take action across the board.

There is a range of additional measures, and the Minister has hinted that we might see measures relating to shipping. Again, we want to understand that these will apply globally, in the light of our overseas territories and Crown dependencies. Can he tell us when he expects additional SIs and designations to be laid? We want to work with him in co-operation, but we need to have that information in order to understand when these things are coming.

Finally, today is St David’s day, the national day of my home—Wales. I have previously spoken in this place of the strong historic ties between Ukraine and not only my home city of Cardiff but the whole of Wales. I am hugely proud of the demonstrations of support and solidarity that we have seen across Wales, including in Cardiff, as well as across the UK, and I am delighted to report that the Welsh First Minister has in the last hour announced direct support from Wales of £4 million for humanitarian and medical needs. Wales stands ready to welcome Ukrainians fleeing the conflict, just as we have done for Afghans and so many other people across the globe throughout history. I hope that a strong message goes out from this House and from across the United Kingdom that we will unite to impose the strongest measures and provide the strongest support we can to the Ukrainian people in these dark days.

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[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend and I sponsored the lawfare debate four weeks ago, and he played a sterling part—he made probably the most informative speech in the whole debate. Yes, we have to address lawfare, but it is a difficult area. There are quicker areas we can work on right now, bearing in mind that time means lives. We have to work faster than we have been.

As I said, the NCA was able to bring successfully only two unexplained wealth orders out of nine, but the truth is that it has 100 targets sitting in its files—not two or four—and it cannot pursue them. Its evidence was given to the Intelligence and Security Committee and is reflected in the Russia report, but Lynne Owens, who was then head of the NCA, said that it simply could not afford the huge legal bills that it faced. The truth is that frankly it does not have the huge calibre of skills—no agency can say that they have— that oligarchs with virtually infinite quantities of money can employ.

How can we get the Serious Fraud Office, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Crown Prosecution Service and the NCA all to use this legislation properly? First, we must ensure that the costs of unexplained wealth orders are brought under control from the state point of view. Again, we must be careful that we do not undermine the rights of ordinary citizens, so we may say that the rules will apply only to unexplained wealth orders of, let us say, more than £50 million or something like that—that will not worry the ordinary citizen—and put a cap on expenditure. We must also use the private sector. We must say, “This is a national emergency” and ask everybody to put their shoulder to the wheel and make these UWOs work properly. The NCA has a list of 100, but those of us who took part in the lawfare debate know that roughly 140 Russian oligarchs should be on the target list. Not all of them are in Britain, but they should be on the list because their money may be in Britain, even if that is not the case.

It seems to me that there is a serious issue that should be in today’s regulations. I worry about the Government moving so slowly that their prey escape them and that the people who are in effect the enemies of the people of Ukraine by proxy get away with things that we should not allow. We must fight fire with fire and beat the oligarchs at their own game.

I will pick one oligarch out. We have already seen the results of actions taken so far, with oligarchs scrambling to protect their reputations. In the newspapers in the last few days we have seen Roman Abramovich doing things to protect himself. According to the Spanish Intelligence Committee, he is the man—or at least one of the men—who manages Putin’s business affairs. That is a really important issue in considering whether he should be on our target list. He was refused a Swiss residency permit due to suspected involvement in money laundering and contacts with criminal organisations and, when his UK visa was up for renewal, he chose to withdraw his application as it became clear that he would need to explain the source of his wealth due to the changes that we introduced in 2015. I picked one, but I could have picked any of 100-plus to illustrate that there is information and knowledge—it is not a question of being unable to identify the individuals. It should not have taken a war for us to make a start on that.

[Liam Byrne]

The right hon. Gentleman is making a brilliant speech. Will he give the House his perspective on the potential weakness in the sanctions regime? Its focus is obviously on asset freezing, but while Abramovich, who is widely regarded as Putin’s cashier, has tried to take pre-emptive measures by transferring control of Chelsea football club to a charitable trust, there is a real issue that the mansions, the jets and the yachts owned by oligarchs will continue to be available for their use because the regulations do not prohibit the use of economic resources for personal consumption.

[Mr Davis]

That is true. We must also face facts on the sophistication of the targets that we are aiming at. The assets that the right hon. Member talked about—the blocks of flats, the grand houses and the yachts—are probably owned by six or seven layers of companies through various offshore entities in the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands or whatever, and it is incredibly difficult for the state to find out who the owner is. That is why these unexplained wealth orders are at least the first weapon that we should sharpen up. That is also why speed is important.

Every day we give to these people allows their advisers to develop more sophisticated tactics of concealment and distraction. In at least a couple of the unexplained wealth orders, it turned out that the state was pursuing the wrong ownership because of distraction tactics. Speed, determination, sophistication and clear targeting, which is not difficult given what I have just been saying, are critical to succeeding in this. It should not have taken a war for us to start rooting out dirty Russian money in the UK, but we are where we are and we must not wait any longer.

We must start by going after the 140 or so oligarchs who have been identified as having direct links with Putin. We must take that action immediately and make clear to those corrupt oligarchs that their money is no longer welcome on these shores, and indeed that it is unsafe while they continue to provide financial support to Putin, whatever they say in the public press. I would have liked that process to have started today with these SIs. Sadly it has not, but hopefully it will be in next week’s economic crime Bill. However, if that takes weeks as well, every single week means more lives lost, more opportunities for these people to escape justice, and a worsening of the chances of our rescuing the Ukrainian nation from the fate in front of it.

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[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Like everyone who has spoken in this debate, I support these regulations, but I want the Paymaster General to become a paymaster for taking on Kremlin paymasters with a lot more force and power behind him. We are now about to see what could be the “Syrianisation” of the conflict in Ukraine. We have seen horrifying pictures of the shelling intensifying this afternoon. We know there are Spetsnaz and paratroopers ready to drop. We know Ramzan Kadyrov has readied thousands of Chechen fighters to go in and pursue a murderous, barbarous campaign. We are on the brink now of a humanitarian disaster in Ukraine. Therefore, what we needed to see from the Government this afternoon was a step change in a plan for economic warfare, targeted to defeat President Putin.

I said to the House yesterday that we remain troubled that our neighbours are so much further ahead in targeting and sanctioning institutions and individuals. The Foreign Secretary, who is not in her place, said something very strange in response: she said that

“this is not a competition”.—[Official Report, 28 February 2022; Vol. 709, c. 726.]

Of course it is not a competition; it is an exercise in not leaving a gap through which bad people escape justice and our campaign.

The ban on trading in state bonds is in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom. The ban on import and export from breakaway regions is in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom. The sanctions on state Duma members are in place in Europe, but not here in the United Kingdom. There are 23 serious players on the EU sanction list who are not on the UK list. They are key economic players, such as Mr Kostin, the president and chairman of VTB Bank.

Missing from our list are key political figures such as Anton Vaino, chief of staff to President Putin. Missing is Mr Grigorenko, the deputy Prime Minister. Missing are key propagandists such as Margarita Simonyan. Missing, surprisingly, are military figures such as the commander-in-chief of the Black sea fleet, the commander-in-chief of Russian aerospace forces, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army and the Russian Defence Minister. I am well aware that the sanctioning business is not a competition, but I want to know from the Paymaster General why these individuals who are being sanctioned by our neighbours are not in the regulations presented to this House.

[Bob Seely]

I try to agree on this issue with almost everything the right hon. Gentleman says, but I would put an alternative argument to that point, and I am sorry to do so. People such as Gerasimov are potentially valuable because they are soldiers and can see some of the craziness of what the politicians are doing. The Black sea fleet is potentially a good target, but I would caution against going after senior military men, provided that they are seen to be credible military men. I apologise for disagreeing.

[Liam Byrne]

I am grateful for the nuance the hon. Gentleman brings to the debate. Gerasimov was not on the list I cited and I do not believe he is on the EU list either, but what disturbs me, which I have not yet heard an explanation for, is why these individuals are sanctioned across the channel and not yet sanctioned here. That deserves an explanation.

My second point is to push the Paymaster General on just what sanctioning means. We have heard a lot of rhetoric over the past week about the biggest and boldest sanctioning regime in living history, going further and faster against the Russians than ever before. Frankly, that does not say much, given the lassitude with which the Government have approached this question over the past few years.

I am seriously concerned that, whereas France is talking about taking away assets such as mansions, yachts and jets, paragraph 3.1.3 of the UK financial sanctions guidance in December 2020 does not prohibit the use of assets even if those assets are technically frozen. Are we seriously saying that we will step back and watch people such as Abramovich and Usmanov parade around the world in jets and in yachts and make use of property here in the United Kingdom because we did not tighten up the regulations strongly enough? Are we in this House seriously prepared to stand by and watch that? I do not believe we are.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Like my right hon. Friend, I am baffled by the Government’s approach. The Foreign Secretary said that she had a list that they were working through, but does my right hon. Friend agree that the action taken not just in France but, for example, in Italy, where the Italian Government have taken over certain properties, is the level of action we want to see here, and that some of these regulations are limited in what they can actually do?

[Liam Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are now seeing a sanctions gap emerge, where the UK is the soft touch, the weakest link, and the slowest to the punch. None of us in this House wants to be in this position. We all welcome the regulations that the Paymaster General has brought before the House this afternoon, but the question that we put back is: “Tell us what further power and resources you need so that we can genuinely be best in class around the world.”

[Mr David Davis]

One of the reasons the sanctions are milder than perhaps the right hon. Gentleman or any of us would like may well be the problem that in British law, the stiffer the sanction, the greater the reaction. We may well have to take action in two stages, by freezing the assets in the first instance and then sequestering them.

[Liam Byrne]

That could well be the case, but if the Paymaster General has told us this afternoon that nothing is off the table, then we in this House need to hold him to his word and ask him to come back to us with an explanation, because at the moment the regime prohibits the dealing in economic resources but permits the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to make available those resources. Personal consumption is not prohibited, according to the regulation. I guess we are asking him please to commit to us today to look at this question and bring back proposals for our urgent consideration, because I believe I speak for the whole House when I say that we will give the green light at a moment’s notice.

I want to pull together some of the brilliant contributions that we have had in this debate over the past few years and, in particular, over the past couple of weeks. If we write down the contributions that we have heard from all hon. Members, we basically get a call on Ministers for a 10-point plan to drive hard behind the powers that are being granted. First, surely it is now time for a Minister for economic warfare. This came up in conversation with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis). We are now settling into what will be a long confrontation with Russia, yet the sanctions team is in the Foreign Office, the instructions to the Bank of England are issued by the Treasury, and the Minister for Security is in the Home Office. I have been a Minister with a foot in two different Departments, and I can tell the House that it is an absolute nightmare. Surely it is now time to unite the political leadership in a single department for economic warfare that begins to take the fight to President Putin in a far more aggressive way.

Secondly, there are 12 different agencies currently tasked with taking on economic crime, and the Government, in their negligence, have not yet appointed a lead authority. Surely that now has to change. The National Crime Agency was bewildered to hear that a kleptocracy cell was being set up, as were the people in the National Economic Crime Centre. We have to do away with this nonsense and create a single lead agency that brings to this House a CONTEST-style strategy for taking on economic crime in which we prepare, protect and prevent, and pursue economic criminals to the ends of the earth.

Thirdly, there are Government reports that now need to see the light of day, starting with the Home Office’s review of the golden visa scheme. The Home Secretary has said that her ambition is for it to published. Why on earth has it not been published this week? We need to know where the weaknesses are, so let us get the facts on the table.

Fourthly, we need to resource the fight against economic crime far more seriously. Lynne Owens, the former director general of the National Crime Agency, is on the record as saying that its budget needs to double. When we consider the £100 billion-plus in economic damage to our country, surely doubling the National Crime Agency’s budget is a very small ask of the Treasury. While we are at it, we need to introduce cost capping orders in relation to unexplained wealth orders, as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) said, so that the costs of prosecution are that much smaller.

Fifthly, we need policy infrastructure such as a register of beneficial ownership of property and a proper targeting system based on our financial information. There is a group of urgently overdue laws that must be introduced over the next couple of months. We need a foreign agents registration Act, an update to GDPR legislation so that abusive data subject access requests can be stopped, and SLAPP-back laws to allow judges to throw out abuses and attempts to silence journalists such as brave Catherine Belton and Tom Burgis. We need updated espionage laws before the House as quickly as possible.

I have to say to the Government that there needs to be a ban on political donations from profits earned outside the UK. We need a regime for calling in donations from improper sources for national security assessment. Fortunately enough, the Elections Bill is in the House of Lords, and as it happens I have tabled amendments that would allow us to achieve exactly that. The answer that normally comes back—it is getting slightly wearing now—is “Just because there are people with Russian links donating to political parties, not all Russians are bad.” No one is saying that. Stop patronising our intelligence!

We have named specific individuals with links to Russia, such as Mohamed Amersi, who, together with his partner, has given £750,000 to the Conservative party, despite making millions of dollars from a deal that involved President Putin’s telecoms Minister. In case anybody is in any doubt about the gravity of the situation, let me quote from a letter from Carter-Ruck that I have been sent in defence of Mohamed Amersi.

[Mr David Davis]

Haven’t we all!

[Liam Byrne]

The right hon. Gentleman might have had a similar letter. Mine is many, many pages long and must have cost an absolute fortune. It says:

“Our client did not know, and cannot reasonably have been expected to know or suspect, that Ms Karimova was the ultimate controller of Takilant Limited”—

that was the corrupt telecoms deal that he was involved in. Anybody who was doing business in the country knew that that family were behind pretty much every major industry. Mr Amersi is many things, but he is not stupid. At the bottom of page 4, the letter goes on:

“To be clear, all of our client’s…dealings in Russia and the former Soviet Union…were entirely legitimate, lawful and transparent.”

Surely this is not the kind of individual that the Conservative and Unionist party should be taking money from. I could go on; I have made previous contributions in the House about the matter. Dmitry Leus—a man whose cheque the Prince’s Foundation has sent back—has given something like £30,000 to the Justice Secretary’s constituency party. Please stop patronising our intelligence, stop telling us that all the donations were given under the rules that existed at the time, stop pretending that we are trying to smear the entire Russian people, look at the people writing the cheques with suspect links, and pay the money back.

Let me set out the final couple of points in our 10-point plan. In addition to the five pieces of legislation that need updating, we need to update the regulation of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Many of us have heard time and again how firms such as Mishcon de Reya and Carter-Ruck abuse the legal process in order to create and inflate costs and intimidate others. Frankly, that has to stop.

As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said, it is a tragedy that it has taken a war to bring us together across the House around a plan for tackling economic crime. When the Berlin wall fell, and also on that tragic day of 9/11, I looked out on the world and thought, “We are moving into a different era”, and now I think we are moving into a different era again. We will need to rethink the way in which we fortify our frontline with Russia across the NATO territories, and we will need to get serious about taking on the cancer of economic crime once and for all. If we do that, I believe that we will ultimately prevail.

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[Robert Jenrick]

I do, and I completely understand what my hon. Friend is saying. The point I am trying to make is that we must not spend all our efforts on the individuals, although most of us would like to see those individuals punished in some way or form, and that the most important thing is to target the things that will have a real and major impact on Putin’s ability to finance his campaign in Ukraine. On the individuals, there is a distinction—as my hon. Friend has just said—between those individuals who we know through our intelligence to be directly involved in the Putin regime today and others who may have drifted away, and we should order in priority those individuals that we take action against.

My second point is that the regime we have in place for targeting individuals is clearly not fit for purpose. We were told that there was a hit list of oligarchs and that we would be taking action against them, yet days have passed and very few if any further individuals have been put on that list of sanctions. That leads me to believe that the legal bar that we have to reach before sanctioning those individuals is too high and that the group of officials doing that work is either insufficiently resourced or we do not have the right people. That is no disrespect to those officials, but we need to be able to sanction these individuals faster than we are doing today; otherwise, our rhetoric simply will not match up with reality. I am afraid that that is the situation today.

Anyone listening to the rhetoric would say that it is very strong, but the action is fairly weak. I would like to hear from the Minister what more we can do to help him and the Government to get those individuals sanctioned. As I say, it feels to me that that means more resources for the team providing the legal basis, and a lower legal test in order to sanction the individuals. If that requires changes to the legislation, let us bring them forward to the House, because there is clearly cross-party agreement on this.

My third point is that a large number of British businesses are going to be affected by the sanctions, the overwhelming majority of which are perfectly legitimate individuals and businesses in our own constituencies. I would like to see the Government bring forward some simple plain-English guidance for those businesses as quickly as possible. It is not available today. If we look online, we can see that there is not much guidance at all, and the guidance that is available is quite complex. If we are going to ask businesses, including small ones, to abide by these rules and regulations, the Government need urgently to bring forward some plain-English guidance for them.

Linked to that is the point I made during the urgent question earlier in the week, which was that in order to address a small number of seriously bad apples, we must not do anything that hurts legitimate small businesses and entrepreneurs in this country. The issue I am most concerned about there is the reforms to Companies House in the White Paper. It is a great thing in this country that for £12 someone can incorporate a company and get their certificate of incorporation within 24 hours. With that comes a serious concern about nefarious intent from those individuals who are not legitimate businesses, but before we legislate for that, I want proper reassurances from the Government that legitimate businesses will not be hurt. I do not want to live in a country where that £12 becomes £500 or where 24 hours becomes four weeks, because we all know other jurisdictions around the world, including in Europe—France is an example—where it is much more complicated and time-consuming to incorporate a business and operate it legitimately.

[Liam Byrne]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to make this point. Surely we have to get the balance right, though. I say as a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury that we have to guard against the Treasury insisting that Companies House is in some way cost neutral—that it covers its own costs. We want to have good “know your customer” checks in place, but we also want to avoid that cost being loaded on to sky-high fees. I am afraid that resolving that balance might well require the Treasury to think creatively.

[Robert Jenrick]

As two former Treasury Ministers, we both know that situation. In these discussions, I strongly urge the Chancellor not to lose the UK’s obvious competitive advantage of being a jurisdiction in which it is easy to incorporate a company. I do not want small businesses to be badly affected by these measures. We all talk in this House of our desire to help small businesses or to cut red tape, but invariably we do the absolute opposite. Tackling corruption and money laundering must not come at the expense of legitimate businesses in our constituencies.

I will leave it there, but my central point to the Minister is that our strong words are not being matched by our actions. If there is anything we can do to legislate further, I urge him to do so. We would not want the UK to be a laggard in not sanctioning the banks and individuals that we all wish to sanction as soon as possible.

Ukraine

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The lesson of 2014 is that the whole of the west failed to respond in the way that we should have done. I am afraid that it was quite wrong that, when a sovereign country was invaded and part of that country was occupied, we tried to manage the situation with various diplomatic processes, which, in the end, produced absolutely nothing except, finally, this catastrophic invasion today. We have learned a bitter lesson about how to deal with Vladimir Putin.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I agree with the Prime Minister that it seems like the curtain has now come down on the era that began in 1989. We have lived in an era of change since then, and this now feels like a change of era. In this new era, the permissive environment that we created for the Kremlin’s quartermasters to live, invest and party in London, sometimes with the Prime Minister himself, must now come to an end—[Interruption.] So let me ask the Prime Minister this: will he undertake to ensure that every visa issued to a Russian dual national is now reviewed? Where proximity to President Putin is proven, that citizenship should be stripped away.

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, we are doing that, although I think it is worth the House remembering the point that I made the other day: not every Russian is a bad person.

Ukraine

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Different countries have different priorities and considerations. It is considerably easier for us to impose economic sanctions, and it is difficult for some other countries to impose sanctions to block hydrocarbons, but I am very pleased by the progress that the German Government have made.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

This is a day of infamy in Russian history, but the truth is that we are here today because our strategy of deterrence has failed. President Putin has built an arsenal of kleptocracy—he perverts history for his pretexts, and he perverts science for his weapons—but the risk is that today’s slap on the wrist will not deter him from doing anything further. Apart from the Magnitsky sanctions, sanctions for economic crimes have not been proposed since 2014; the oligarchs listed have been sanctioned by the Americans since 2018; and missing from the list were VTB, VEB, Alfa and Sberbank. The Prime Minister has to recognise that pulling our punches does not work with President Putin. We need to punch harder, and if we are not prepared to send bombers, we should at least take on the bankers.

[The Prime Minister]

We certainly are taking on the bankers. We are hitting Russia’s financial interests, and we will continue to hit them harder.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

I thank my hon. Friend for the tireless work that he put into the Committee that scrutinised the Domestic Abuse Bill. I am delighted to confirm that all tier 1 local authorities have set up domestic abuse local partnership boards, in line with the Act, to provide them with advice on the provision of the specialist services that are such an important part of that landmark Act. I genuinely encourage all Members across the House to engage with those boards to see what they are doing for their local communities and how they are helping their constituents.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s defence of free speech earlier today, but the truth is that free speech is under attack in our courts. Tom Burgis is appearing in court today against oligarchs who are seeking to silence him. When will the Secretary of State bring forward a defence against strategic lawsuits against public participation—SLAPPs? If we want to live in truth, we need SLAPP-back laws now.

[Dominic Raab]

The right hon. Gentleman is not the only one who has raised this with me; my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has also been campaigning on it. I am very happy to look at the specific issue. The House has periodically looked at questions of libel law and we will keep those issues under constant review. As I have said in relation to a Bill of Rights, this is an opportunity to reinvent the priority attached to freedom of speech.

Speaker’s Statement

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

No one could have failed to be moved on Monday by the incredible tributes to Jack from his three children, Harry, Joe and Amy. All of us know the pride that Jack had in his family, but we felt it, too, on Monday, and also their pride in him.

Jack had that wonderful way of making you feel that everything was going to be alright. It did not matter what scrapes he had got you into, it was all going to be okay. I was lucky to work with Jack on so many campaigns. He was just so formidable on so many different things. If we despaired, he always had some good new idea to pick us up, and then he would be off running with it and we would be racing to catch him up. If we got too highfalutin, he would remind us what they were saying in the Dog and Duck. If we faltered, as all of us do from time to time, he would be there to tell us that we were brilliant and not to lose faith.

Jack was a fabulous feminist. We all saw the support that he gave to Harriet over so many decades. We heard from Amy, Jack’s daughter, on Monday that true feminism at home meant also making sure that Harriet never had to learn how to use a washing machine. I have to say that I was so proud when I heard that. I have known Harriet and Jack since I was in my 20s, and have avoided, wherever possible, using the washing machine at home, and have resolutely refused to learn to cook. I must tell Amy that she got me into a bit of trouble on Monday, because Ed, who was sitting next to me, turned and glowered at me and said, “So, it was all Jack and Harriet’s fault.” I just said that I had learned from the very best.

Jack did not just support Harriet; he supported so many of us as women parliamentarians and women in the trade union movement. One woman trade unionist told me that, many years ago, Jack had encouraged her when she was a young mum to put herself forward in the trade union movement. That would have been pioneering enough at that time, but what he also did when he spied her husband standing at the back holding their child was to find him and tell him what an incredibly important and noble job he was doing in supporting her, too.

Jack also had that amazing special ability to bring people together at a time when politics can feel so divided. We heard how, when he died, he had tributes from the five biggest manufacturing groups in Britain and also the five biggest trade unions, which is a unique reflection of the industrial alliance that he had worked so hard to bring together. In the Labour movement, he not only straddled the left-right divide, but had strong roots in both our liberal and our communitarian traditions. Unusually, his politics and values throughout his life bound together that fierce support for equality, feminism, anti-racism and individual rights, with those deep roots in community, solidarity, family and faith in the dignity of work. He brought that all together. We need more Jacks.

I was with Jack the afternoon before he died. Every conversation that I had with him that day was just pure Jack. I doubted something that I had done, but he said that it was brilliant—I am sure it was not. We talked about Christmas, and he said how wonderful his grandchildren were. He then went on to speak in a debate in Parliament and make a passionate and patriotic case for the Government to do the right thing by vulnerable Afghan refugees. As a last act in Parliament, it was entirely fitting and a demonstration of his persistent decency and solidarity.

Most of all, Jack was an optimist. He loved life and he loved people. He made lives better because he believed that things could be better. So many of us have learned so much from Jack that we will make sure that that legacy carries on.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

Jack Dromey was my mentor, my teacher, my political partner and my friend for almost a decade and a half in Birmingham. Like for many of us here today he was like a father to me; indeed, he was at school with my dad, at Cardinal Vaughan in west London, part of that extraordinary generation of second-generation Irish kids: sharp, chippy, pushing, determined to make a contribution to social justice.

It didn’t always start smoothly: my godfather, Spud Murphy, then a prefect at Cardinal Vaughan, used to talk to me fondly about having to give Jack a clip round the ear for smoking behind the bike sheds at school. But Jack was not a rebel without a cause: his cause was social justice, and he fought for it his entire life. His glorious life was one long crusade for the underdog; he fought for them whenever and wherever he found them. His campaigns in Birmingham are innumerable: he fought for more police numbers, he fought for covid families, he fought for the food bank, he fought for Erdington High Street, he fought for manufacturing jobs, he fought for the factory at GKN—and this was all just in the last week of his life.

As you will know, Mr Speaker, Jack brought a particular approach to all his campaigns. It generally started with a very, very long list of bullet points, and Jack would start off by saying, “Just three points”, and we would tease him as he got to, “And seventeenthly”, but he brought to every single one of his campaigns what he used to fondly say was a certain “je ne sais quoi”. He made sure that at the core of every single one of his campaigns were the stories, because we have all been educated in the legend of Joe and Josephine Soap in the Dog and Duck in Erdington. He also brought to all his campaigns not just the art of coalition building but incredible calm, along with persistence. He used to very proudly say that his nickname in the union was “Never snap, never flap Jack”, and he reminded me of that very often as I was losing my rag over the last year and a half.

On the last day of Jack’s life we were working together on a book about the future of our great region, the heart of Britain, and as ever he brought to that an extraordinary optimism. He put the green industrial revolution at the core of what he wrote, and this is what he wrote:

“I am passionate in my belief that change is possible. However, as my experience as an MP for a constituency with high levels of inequality and poverty, it is crucial that any change is not just ambitious in the objective of dealing with climate change, but radical in creating opportunity for all. There is much to do and little time to achieve it before it’s too late.”

I say to the Mother of the House, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the family watching today, like you we have all struggled with the shock of loss. I myself have found comfort in the words not of an Irish poet but of a Greek, who wrote centuries ago:

“Even in our sleep, pain…falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

The wisdom we draw from Jack Dromey’s life is very simple: we should all try to be more Jack. Our community, our country, and this House of Commons will be a damn sight better for that.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my colleague and friend from Birmingham, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne), and what I want to say is going to be all about Birmingham. Jack did not sound like me. He was not groomed as I was, just as a child loves their parents no matter what, to love Birmingham, because it was given to me at birth. Jack did not have that, and he loved it way more than me. He would talk about Birmingham in terms that made it unrecognisable to me. I love the place, don’t get me wrong, but Castle Vale, while I love it, is not a place of great beauty. The Aston expressway is not a thing to behold, yet when Jack talked about Birmingham and Brummies, he felt so much as if he was from the tradition of the place of my birth. I think much of that is to do with his Irish ancestry, which so many of us in Birmingham have, but there could be no greater advocate for the city of Birmingham.

I know that many people want to speak, so I will touch slightly not only on Jack being an honorary Brummie—not even “honorary”, Jack Dromey was a Brummie through and through, without question—but on him being an honorary sister. The first time I ever spoke in this building, it was Jack Dromey who sat next to me. He put his arms around me afterwards and said, “I am so proud of you. I am so proud to see you here”—mainly because I was a girl from Birmingham and he loved Birmingham. The last time I ever sat in this place with him was just a week before he died, and we had just been put on the same team together, the shadow Home Affairs team. He said to me, as I sat down from asking a question of the Home Secretary, “It is so delightful to be completely outsmarted and outflanked by brilliant women.” That came as no surprise to me. I say to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), all her family and her children that Birmingham will truly miss Jack Dromey. All the love of a sometimes not very beautiful place is with you and your family.

Sue Gray Report

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course I will keep the House updated, and of course everybody in No. 10 will co-operate with the Met to the full.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

This is surely a new low: a Prime Minister of our country forced to come here to the mother of Parliaments to plead the fifth in a criminal investigation because, if the truth were told, he knows it would incriminate him. Let me ask a simple question. If he cannot get his facts straight on whether he was at a party in his own flat, how will anyone in this House ever again believe a word he says, and how will our partners around the world ever put their trust in him?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not going to dignify that question with an answer, except to say that the right hon. Gentleman has to wait. Everything he said is completely prejudicial.

COP26

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

We have been considering this subject now for an hour, which is the normal time for a statement. As this is a historically important statement, I would like to ensure that everybody who wishes to ask a question has the opportunity to do so, but they really will have to be short questions now. I am slightly concerned about the Prime Minister’s voice; I am sure he is not concerned, but I am concerned about his voice. It would be a terrible thing if he were prevented from other things on which he has to make speeches in the near future because we kept him at the Dispatch Box for too long—[Interruption.] The Prime Minister is not concerned; nevertheless we will be as quick as possible now, because there is other business to get on to.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister probably admits that the weakest link of the deal was the lack of progress on defunding the polluters. The catchily-named GFANZ—Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero—initiative disappointed many. That now means that 1,400 of the world’s 2,000 biggest companies do not have net zero targets. Their combined turnover is nearly $15 trillion, but most pension savers are funding them, because the information is not there in their accounts. When will that great deficit be fixed?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The power of consumers, pension holders and investors is enormous. We are looking at everything we can do to encourage all companies to follow suit. Peer pressure and social pressure will have a massive influence.

G20 and COP26 World Leaders Summit

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend. It was, in fact, only a couple of weeks ago that the entire Cabinet was in Bristol with Rolls-Royce, looking at what it is doing with GKN and other companies on sustainable aviation. We are also looking actively at what we can do to support a gigafactory in the Coventry area, but obviously, there are commercial discussions under way.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

As Chair of the G7 and of COP, the Prime Minister will know that the world community is $20 billion short of what is needed for the vaccination programme, and we have missed the target of $100 billion promised for climate finance. The International Monetary Fund has given the world a shot in the arm with $650 billion of special drawing rights, which the Prime Minister helped to push for. The UK has been given £20 billion, more than the entire community of low-income countries put together, but why are we being so slow and sluggish in recycling that money back to the IMF so that it can be put to good use? We are behind France and America; we are a laggard when we should be leading.

[The Prime Minister]

What we are doing is putting hard cash into supporting countries around the world. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the SDRs. We are looking at that as well, but we are prioritising cash up front.

International Aid: Treasury Update

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Programme motion
Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab) [V]]

That was a great speech and it is a pleasure to follow it.

The House does not need a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury to lay out how today’s motion is a con job, but I shall explain it anyway. The Red Book published at the most recent Budget shows that public sector net debt will not fall until 2024 at the earliest, but there is no way that a Chancellor or Chief Secretary would ever make a judgment about whether it was falling sustainably on one year alone, which means that this cut is now forecast to stretch way into the next Parliament. Yet the sums we are talking about are just 0.14% of the national debt stock. This comes at a time when we are putting up defence spending by £24 billion yet cutting aid spending by £4 billion. We are boasting about our soft power superpower status and then slashing into the budget that delivers that soft power. A country’s values are judged by its budget, and this aid cut tells us everything we need to know about this Government’s priorities.

The second point is that this aid cut will cost lives and it will cost livelihoods. The Prime Minister sailed into the G7 very proud of his declaration that he wanted to jab the world and make sure that, by the end of next year, the world would be safe from covid. However, by the end of the G7, the IMF said that we were about $23 billion short of what we needed for a global vaccination programme. This aid cut will not help that; it will hurt that effort to jab the world.

Moreover, we have a significant problem now getting the world back on its feet after this pandemic. The IMF thinks that we need about $200 billion extra in spending to protect the world against covid and $250 billion of extra investment—climate-friendly investment—to help safeguard the recovery. How will this aid cut help with that great global project that we must attend to in the years ahead? It will not; it will damage the world’s efforts to get there and it will damage our efforts to help persuade others to get to that big target.

It is 36 years to the day since we celebrated Live Aid, an example of how we in this country set out to lead the world to help the world’s poorest. On this day of all days the Government are set to surrender that leadership. We cannot have a rules-based order if we have a Prime Minister who continues to shred the rules. This is a renegade act by a renegade Government and I will be voting against the motion tonight.

G7 and NATO Summits

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend. I did see something this morning about some paper or other that means absolutely nothing to me. Our objective is to go forward with the road map and bring back the freedoms we love.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The original Atlantic charter made a commitment to banish from the world “fear and want”—curiously missing from the redraft—but the Prime Minister’s ambition to vaccinate the world by the end of 2022 is the right one. The IMF’s assessment of the deal done on Monday, however, is that two thirds of the grant financing needed to vaccinate the world is still missing—that is $23 billion. The question for the Prime Minister is: where is that money going to come from and when?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that the G7 and the west are making huge progress. These vaccines were only invented six months ago, or a little bit longer. We are making incredible progress in distributing them now. The ambition that we reconfirmed in Carbis Bay was to vaccinate the world by the end of next year, and that is a pretty rapid pace.