Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for securing this important debate and for raising the shocking case that he outlined. I also pay tribute to Sergei Magnitsky, who was murdered in a squalid Russian prison cell 12 years ago. He was a brave and incorruptible accountant and lawyer who was targeted and eventually killed because he exposed a huge tax fraud involving senior Russian government officials. He had been hired on behalf of the human rights campaigner William—or Bill—Browder, to whom I pay tribute for leading a campaign that has resulted in Magnitsky legislation being passed in countries around the world.

There is no doubt that London is one of the main destinations for money looted in Russia and elsewhere. According to a 2016 report by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, £100 billion is laundered through the UK’s banks each year. Four years ago, I introduced in the Commons a Bill to introduce Magnitsky sanctions in the UK, and I am very pleased that the Government, led by the Foreign Secretary on this issue, have taken action since. However, today I will raise two shocking incidents.

The first is Lukashenko bringing down a passenger plane to kidnap a leading opposition journalist, Roman Protasevich, and the second is the poisoning and arrest of Alexei Navalny in Russia. Both of these incidents caused shock and outrage when they happened and everybody demanded some type of reaction, but here we are, months later, and the shock and outrage has diminished to indifference. In looking at what we could do, it has become clear to me and many others that Magnitsky sanctions are a tool that work but only when they are applied to the right people. In the cases of both Lukashenko and Putin, Magnitsky sanctions need to be applied to those who have provided financial support to these regimes. Before he returned to Russia, Alexei Navalny published a list of people he thought should be sanctioned if anything were to happen to him, and I ask the Minister today to set out what assessment the Government have made of that.

The Belarusian opposition have also made it very clear that a group of financiers should likewise be sanctioned for their involvement and support for the regime. The opposition has named Mikhail Gutseriev as one of the regime’s key financiers, yet he has not been sanctioned by the UK despite the fact that he is on the EU sanctions list, and the European Union is usually much more timid than we are in these situations. This omission is also a huge missed opportunity because Gutseriev has significant property holdings here in the UK. Can the Minister set out today what assessment the Government have made of the case for sanctioning him?