Sanctions

Bob Seely Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am going to make a little progress and then I will give way. Sanctions announced by the UK and our allies are already having an impact. Yesterday, the rouble dropped 40% of its value, before closing 25% down; central bank interest rates have more than doubled, from 9% to 20%; international businesses are quickly divesting, as we have been hearing in the media; and the rouble is now trading at about a quarter of what it was when Putin took power. That will have an impact on the institutions that prop Putin up and that prop his cronies up.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I appreciate all that my right hon. and learned Friend is doing, but we are talking about the cronies and not the institutions as well. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is right; I do not see why we cannot just use privilege in this House to name some of the three dozen “dirty oligarchs”. Why can we not use privilege? What law firms and lawyers are holding this up? How much money—how many billions of pounds—will have fled the country by the time we nail these people down?

[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.

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[Stephen Doughty]

It will clearly be necessary for us to propose and potentially impose measures for quite some time—for a number of years, according to the explanatory notes—and we have agreed to work with the Government on that. Obviously, as I have said, we hope that they are acting robustly, deeply and broadly now. It is crucial to send a very strong signal, not least given what we have seen. I certainly hope that Russia turns around and ends this illegal invasion, but at the moment we have to send that very strong signal.

Thirdly, there are some exemptions in the legislation, and it is not clear on the surface why they apply. For example, there is an exemption for correspondent clearing services relating to aviation assets. Can the Minister explain the reasoning behind that? There are other exemptions that clearly make sense, relating to humanitarian affairs and extraordinary circumstances, and I can understand why they are there, but can the Minister provide a fuller explanation?

Fourthly, the Government have previously referred to an intention to limit the deposits that can be made by Russian nationals. Do they still intend to introduce such a measure, which is not part of the package that we are discussing today?

Fifthly, we think that there are additional things that the Government could do. For example, the US immediately introduced a ban on all imports from Donbas regions controlled by Russia. Have the Government considered that? We have also proposed a ban on the export of luxury goods, comparable with what has been in place against Syria. If that were undertaken with our partners and allies, it could have a major effect in putting

the squeeze on those around Putin who enjoy their luxury lifestyles.

[Bob Seely]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept, in the context of a wider set of points, that there is a significant argument for doing more in the legal field? Should we do more about protection against the abuse of libel law, abuse relating to the Data Protection Act, and the need for a foreign lobbying Act? The economic crime Bill and this statutory instrument are not the end of a process; they should be the beginning of a process to clean up our society. It is shocking that we have got ourselves into this mess.

[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.

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[Mr Davis]

The right hon. Lady makes a point that will be made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) and others, and I have a lot of sympathy, but we have to be careful that we do not take away ordinary citizens’ rights—indeed, the proper rights of any individual—in how we deal with the lawyers, the accountants and so on.

Particularly in the lawfare area, a huge industry of enormous margins and enormous profits has been developed by various law firms, in particular, that have developed the tactics for defeating the Government’s imposition of proper laws.

[Bob Seely]

My right hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) raise a very important point. CMS took instruction from a Ministry of the Interior official who was actually a front for organised crime in the Magnitsky case. Should organised crime have legal representation? Yes. Should foreign organised crime have legal representation? Potentially. Does foreign organised crime have the right to hire companies such as CMS to try to use lawfare to attack freedom of speech and Bill Browder in this country? I would argue not, and that is the debate we should be having.

[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.

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[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). I will talk a little about enablers, but it might be helpful to talk a little about oligarchs as well, and I will try, just from my own experiences, having lived in Ukraine and having tried to keep abreast of what was happening in the Soviet Union when I lived there and since, to talk also about the role of oligarchs in Russian hybrid war. I will talk a little about the statutory instruments and give them some context, if that will be helpful.

I think it is pretty depressing that it has taken a major war in Europe for us to take economic crime seriously. We have been waiting on this Bill since 2018, and there is no excuse why it has not been on the statute book for 20 years, frankly. Previous Conservative Governments have failed—I am delighted that this Government are doing the right thing; I am not criticising this one—previous coalition Governments have failed and, frankly, previous Labour Governments have failed. I just do not understand how we have got ourselves into the mess we are in now.

Obviously I am going to support these regulations, the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill and whatever else the Government put up, but I stress to them that this is the beginning of a cleaning up of our legal system and finance system—this is not an end, but a start. We do not know how much money has flowed through our country using offshore accounts or Companies House. Our banks were not responsible for this corrupt flow of wealth—some of the worst in history. It was the Danish, German and Swedish banks that were responsible for that, but it is UK companies that they used.

I also say to the Minister that, as well as the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, we need a foreign lobbying Bill and amendments to libel law and data protection law. We need to do more on SLAPPs—strategic lawsuits against public participation—where aggressive lawyers seek to intimidate campaigning groups, journalists and the like. We also need an espionage Bill.

We must toughen up the Solicitors Regulation Authority. I am told by whistleblowers working for the big companies that they do not do proper client checks and that “know your client” checks are non-existent for some of them. Some actually have a list of people that they specifically do not do those checks on because they know that they are inherently corrupt and inherently criminal. What on earth has happened to some of the major legal firms in this country that means that they specifically avoid “know your client” checks because they know that they will have to turn that client down if they do because those clients are corrupt, criminal or linked to organised crime? I am afraid to say that that is pretty shocking.

I note that some oligarchs are now distancing themselves from President Putin. Fridman, Deripaska and Abramovich have all come out with rather woolly statements in the last couple of days. I am sorry, but I don’t buy it.

[Layla Moran]

Does the hon. Gentleman not find that it rather sticks in the throat that Mr Abramovich has been going around saying that he is an envoy of peace and claiming that he is somehow brokering peace between Ukraine and Russia, given his former involvement in the matter?

[Bob Seely]

The hon. Lady brings me to a point about how oligarchs work. To go back to Ukraine, somebody such as Dmitry Firtash, who is now wanted by the Americans, was set up by Gazprom and Putin. He was given sweetheart deals to import vast amounts of cheap energy into Ukraine. The vast profits that he garnered from those sweetheart deals gave him a good life but, more importantly, he funnelled that money into buying up chunks of east Ukrainian industry, effectively as a front for the FSB, the former KGB. Critically, he also used it to purchase politicians and to fund the pro-Russian political parties in eastern Ukraine.

When it comes to oligarchs, therefore, it is important to understand that we are talking about an economic model within hybrid war. Of all the tools of hybrid war, if hon. Members read the Russian characteristics of war, they will see that the first characteristic of the Russian military doctrine is that there is an integrated military and non-military strategy. So they have their troops, paramilitaries, front organisations or assassins, but with that they have the politics, economics, culture, religion and even sport—sport matters very much.

When it comes to oligarchs, we are talking about not just obscenely rich people who are mates with somebody, but a structure of control and power, whether that is in eastern Ukraine or in the United Kingdom, primarily to facilitate vast money flows to tax havens or to intimidate and silence the western media into not reporting on those people. There are a series of outcomes to that, so I thank the hon. Lady for the intervention.

I return to Abramovich, Fridman and Deripaska. If they were so keen to smarten up their act—they are clearly scared of what might happen—I would like to know why, as of only a few weeks ago, they and their London lawyers were all abusing data protection Acts or libel law to target and intimidate individuals, such as Chris Steele and Catherine Belton, HarperCollins and others. At the end of last year and even this year, they have continued to intimidate a free press. They were enabled, and I make the point that it is not only the oligarchs but their millionaire servant class of enablers who enable the billionaire class of oligarchs who enable the neo-fascism that we see in Europe.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech today, his past work in the area and his knowledge of it. Is the issue not also close to home in his party? A co-chair of the Conservative party has a business with, as I understand it, an office in Moscow with 50 people in it whose job has been to facilitate those oligarchs and others and to use their money around the world for expensive travel and other things. Should people such as him not question what they have done to support Putin and his regime?

[Bob Seely]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a really good point. I do not have anything against Ben Elliot; he is a decent enough character. Do I think it is great that Hawthorn does PR for oligarchs? No, I really do not. Do I think it is great that there are Members of the House of Lords, whom we are not allowed to name—God knows why—who have set up their strategic advice so we know nothing about their clients, or who advise Russian oligarchs and their companies? No.

Do I think it is great that we have had a former member of the Scott Trust, Geraldine Proudler, who has represented the organised crime interest that killed Magnitsky? No, I do not. Do I think that there are advisers to the current Leader of the Opposition who have very questionable records when it comes to advice to oligarchs? No, I do not. Do I defend any Tories in that space as well? No, I do not.

What worries me is that, as well as having a very obvious commitment to not hurting the City of London—putting our national interests ahead of the City of London would be awful: it would never do—we build up a quiet collection of very powerful individuals who then effectively gently corrupt our system. I am sure they may be acting in the best interests, but, collectively, they have to be careful.

I think it was in the 1930s that Michael Foot wrote “Guilty Men”. In the past 10 years there have been guilty men and women who have done a really bad job of facilitating the agents of fascism, and those people are going to start coming out of the woodwork. It would be better for many of those people to consider their positions now, rather than becoming the targets for the media and people such as ourselves.

[Mr David Davis]

This is not my main point, but I just point out that it is not just Britain; after all, the chairman of Gazprom and the former German Chancellor is another such example.

The point that I want to bring my hon. Friend to is his question about the lawyers. I do not feel that I responded properly to his intervention about the professions involved here. It seems to me that professional bodies themselves have to look very hard at the issue. We also have to make sure that the law is enforced. What he is talking about—people ignoring the origin of the money being paid to them—is actually a breach of the law that those people understand.

[Bob Seely]

I do not want to abuse privilege, but, to put it bluntly, I have been told of law firms that do not carry out client checks. I have been told of law firms that are effectively complicit in breaking the law. I have been told of law firms that are knowingly taking from organised crime, but doing it through a front. I will not start naming names now, but people are coming to me and telling me about this stuff—they are telling others here as well. It is a very serious that our legal systems have become so corrupted.

When it comes to solicitors, certainly in the Belton case, there is John Kelly at Harbottle and Lewis; Geraldine Proudler at CMS; Nigel Tait at Carter-Ruck—how often should that company have been mispronounced—which represents the interests of Rosneft; and Hugh Tomlinson QC, who represented all of them. Tait is also going after Charlotte Leslie for another client, as I think some here have mentioned. We have to wonder about the reputations that these people will end up with in a few years’ time, even if they are behaving as well as they might—I am being careful in what I say. Perhaps they are really lovely people, but perhaps their amorality will really begin to bite their reputations in a way that will be uncomfortable.

I just wonder: how on earth have we allowed this to happen? I would love an answer from a lawyer in Government. A free press should be intimidating kleptocrats and criminals. Why have we got to this position in our society—a free society, the mother of Parliaments—where we have kleptocrats, criminals and oligarchs intimidating a free media? We have a coalition not of the willing, but of the woeful. Oligarchs, Putin’s henchmen, team up with amoral lawyers—we know the oligarch model. We heard that from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne). Just a few weeks ago, they told us how these firms set up a one-stop corruption shop to offer a form of legalised intimidation to silence not only their rivals, but journalists and authors.

There is also an unstructured, unregulated private eye business that is now collecting kompromat on people in this country. Do not get me wrong: people have the right to advice and legal representation, but that is being abused very badly in our society at the moment. To make the link with Putin, when it comes to the Belton case Catherine Belton says that the legal cases against her started two months after the Navalny video of Putin’s palace, when Navalny quoted from her book. As if by magic, a few weeks later three oligarchs, completely coincidentally, attack her to try to silence her and try to bankrupt HarperCollins and intimidate it into withdrawing the book.

[Sammy Wilson]

The hon. Gentleman is outlining a damning case against those who facilitate. Does he accept that as long as we have a system in the United Kingdom where, as has been described in this House today, those with bottomless pockets and billions of pounds can use them to defend their ill-gotten gains, it will be a one-sided battle when it comes to the more limited resources of those seeking to expose them?

[Bob Seely]

I completely agree, and the right hon. Gentleman is completely right. I am going to carry on for no more than a minute or 90 seconds, Mr Deputy Speaker. One of the most frightening things that I have read about our society was in the Intelligence and Security Committee report. In that, the head of the National Crime Agency said that it has to think carefully about which cases it can take on, because it is so costly and risky to take on some of the most powerful and, frankly, wretched people, who are lawyered up with these amoral lawyers who seemingly do not care. They have no moral concept of what they are doing but are happy to take the vast sums that these people are willing to pay to scupper the legal processes in this country, prevent the people’s will from being done via Government and prevent justice from being done. There are beginning to be elements of state capture, in extreme cases, in some of the things that are happening.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is also alarming when companies such as Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation can take individuals who work for organisations such as the Serious Fraud Office to court for having the audacity to lead an investigation into ENRC, and use SLAPP orders and litigation to weigh down not only the SFO, but the individuals who work for it? Surely we need to offer them our protection.

[Bob Seely]

We absolutely should, and the hon. Gentleman makes another really important point. The lawyers go after anything and everybody they can to try to destroy them in any way they can. One of the most awful things I read was that Mishcon de Reya was in the process of financially destroying that Maltese journalist Galizia before she was physically destroyed. How awful is that? How much reputational damage are these people willing to endure for the bonuses they make? We are not talking about these people as individuals or as companies enough. We need to do that more.

[Neale Hanvey]

I have been listening intently to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but surely there must be some remedy and solution. I would be very interested in his view on what practical steps we can take collectively to shut down these loopholes and stop these sharp practices.

[Bob Seely]

There are lots of them; there are too many for me to go into, because I am genuinely trying to wind up my speech, Mr Deputy Speaker. The best way of doing that is to use privilege to get these oligarch names out on the Floor of the House, so that we do not have to worry about being sued for what we say about them and so we can get the sanctions out, rather than have them cart their money off to God knows where. We can cap costs in NCA cases. We also have to get the crime agencies talking much more holistically.

To round up, I seek a public inquiry into what has gone wrong in the past 10 to 15 years, because this system is becoming rotten at so many levels. I am talking about the amount of money; the corruption to some of the standards in the legal firms; and some of the former politicians—on the Opposition side and ours—who are, in effect, the public spokesmen for these people. It is wrong and there is progress to be made. I support these measures but they should be a start, not an end.

[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.

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[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

As I am speaking at a late stage in the debate, much of what needed to be said has already been said, so I will not repeat any of it. Let me instead make three brief points.

First, what really matter now are those things that have a systemic impact on the Russian economy and on Vladimir Putin’s ability to finance the war in which he is engaged in Ukraine. We must be careful, as a House, not to fail to see the wood for the trees and go down the rabbit hole of interest in individuals and oligarchs. That is of course important, and I will return to it in my second point, but it will not make a material difference in the short term. Many of those individuals are not close to Vladimir Putin today. Many of them left Russia or are dual nationals. The situation is highly complex. I will return to that in a moment, but what really matter, and will make a serious impact, are the measures that have, broadly speaking, been put in place over the last few days.

Like a number of Members on both sides of the House, I was disappointed that, when we had a debate on this subject towards the end of last week, the initial package of measures was very limited indeed, but now we find ourselves in a position where the UK, broadly in concert with our allies, has brought forward significant measures. For some time I advocated the move on SWIFT, and we were told that that was unlikely to happen. It has happened, and I am pleased that the UK played a significant part in advocating it, although I find it disappointing that it has been done in a partial manner. I wish that we could move to a point at which SWIFT is turned off from Russia more substantially, if not in its entirety, and I suspect that that is the UK Government’s ambition, but it is being held back by some others, particularly European allies, who rely on it to remit payments for oil and gas to Russian entities.

I think the sanctions that were put in place against the Russian central bank were by far the most significant that we have imposed as an international community, because part of the effort put in by Vladimir Putin over the last two or three years was to build up £600 billion of foreign currency reserves. The fact that half of that is based overseas, in foreign banks and foreign central banks, is extremely important and material, if we can truly freeze those assets and prevent the Putin regime from accessing them. I warmly support those changes and hope that they are effective; we will all have to follow events to see whether they really are in practice.

I am still not certain why the UK has not sanctioned all the major Russian banks. There are still some that we have not sanctioned, and I should like to hear a good answer to the question of why that is. There may be an answer, but I do not see it. There are vested interests across Europe; for example, some major banks in Russia are owned by SocGen—Société Générale, the French bank—so it is quite clear to me why the French Government would not want to sanction that particular bank, but I cannot see a good reason why the UK Government would not want now to sanction all the Russian banks, which is something that we could do quite quickly. I should be grateful if the Minister could, on this occasion or in future, make it clear why we are not doing it.

When it comes to individuals, as I have said, I am sceptical about the impact of this in the short term. The term “oligarch” is bandied around, and there is a spectrum of those individuals, from people who are clearly gangsters to people who made money out of Russia in a way that none of us would regard as legitimate, but who are now quite distanced from the Putin regime. It will make very little difference in some cases, and in fact I suspect that Vladimir Putin will find it highly amusing and satisfying to see those individuals being punished.

[Bob Seely]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I fully understand that he is separating the institutional from the personal. The term “oligarch” is bandied about far too much, but does he accept that while the institutional stuff will hurt the Russian state, by targeting those people who remain close to Putin, we will then target him, especially if they remain the oligarchic facilitators of some of his overseas policy, which is effectively a parallel Kremlin policy to the official state?

[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.