Sanctions

Alyn Smith Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

I always remember that nobody criticises a speech for being too short, but I think I can excel myself today on this one.

We support these measures and have called for many of them ourselves. If they came to a vote, which I trust they will not, we would support three and abstain on the fourth. I was very glad that the Minister outlined the detail. To make a couple of general comments, we warmly welcome the expansion of the definition of “associated with”, which has been abused. We are dealing with some of the slipperiest and best-advised people, and this is an evolving situation, so we are glad to see that evolve, too. We are also glad to see the further restriction on land interests, which is of key relevance to Scotland. The tightening of energy sanctions is also significant for us, given our energy footprint. We warmly welcome the tightening of those sanctions.

I would, though, also raise my concern, as a more general point, about the use of third countries and brokers in, effectively, laundering Russian energy assets, which we have seen. We have seen reports of India in particular refining various products and their being sold on, so that needs further attention. I would also welcome a reassurance, which I have asked for before, that all these measures will be properly tracked through the overseas territories, because all of us are, as I say, tackling deeply slippery people who are good at exploiting loopholes. We need to ensure that what we do does not accidentally create loopholes, and the overseas territories should be part of that.

We support these measures, but I am conscious of the hurt to the UK economy as well. Under the impact assessments, we are looking at the best part of half a billion pounds-worth of hurt to the UK economy. A number of UK companies that have acted in good faith are suffering from these measures through no fault of their own, so there should be greater consideration to making UK Government support available for those companies on a case-by-case basis. Several companies are suffering through this and need more support than they have received.

More generally, we will come back to this—these are not the last SIs that we have seen on this subject—but I would also like a discussion about what we will do with the assets so seized and the money so sequestered. We have previously heard calls for a Marshall plan to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine. That is not legally easy—I acknowledge that fully—and it is outwith the scope of these sanctions, but having a purpose to which we will put these funds would give urgency and legitimacy to these sanctions, and also a bit of urgency to reaching the destination point, which is the reconstruction of a whole and sovereign Ukraine. We support these measures.