Gazprom Energy

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I am not sure what point the noble Lord is trying to make here. We are not pursuing a war on the Russian people; many Russian individuals are just as opposed to this war as we are. We have a constantly evolving round of sanctions—the Foreign Secretary announced another 65 sanctioning proposals this morning—and some 1,000 individuals and businesses have been sanctioned. However, we have to be careful to differentiate between Russian state entities, those linked to Putin, and perfectly legitimate Russian individuals.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have said that Gazprom has been sanctioned and will no longer be able to issue debt or equity in the UK. Can the Minister say what that means? The British people want to be sure that no money from Gazprom is going to the Russian state to finance its vendetta against the Ukrainian people. Can the Minister categorically state that that is happening?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

As I said, it is difficult for me at this stage to comment on individual cases. However, we keep the whole sanctioning regime under constant review and new rounds of sanctions are constantly announced. It is difficult in this case because of the large numbers of essential businesses, schools, hospitals, et cetera that have contracts with Gazprom UK, but we will keep these matters under review.