Financial Statement

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

All official development assistance announcements are handled by the Foreign Secretary. Within the overall budget, there is always contingency, and space annually for responses to humanitarian disasters that cannot be foreseen. It is not a question of squeezing other things out at all; this is part of planned spend.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I commend the Government’s action on Russian sanctions, but we cannot possibly think that this is “job done.” Mariupol still burns; children are fleeing the bombing of their home. We still have not even introduced a sanction regime that is as tough as the sanction regime on Iran. Can I urge the Chancellor to go a bit further? We need to sanction all the Russian banks, not just 60% of them. We need to tackle the trust funds, such as that recently set up by Alisher Usmanov to protect his assets in the UK. We need to tackle the families and the hangers-on, such as Lavrov’s family, who are in the UK, and we need to tackle shipping. We must do all these things for the people of Ukraine as fast as possible.

[Rishi Sunak]

I have been working very closely with my counterparts in G7 economies and beyond to co-ordinate our financial and economic sanctions, which I am more responsible for. I am highly confident that what we have done is world-leading, particularly with regards to acts on bank freezes. We are constantly in dialogue with our partners to make sure the action we take is effective when it is co-ordinated.

[Chris Bryant]

Why do you do that? It is shameful when you do that.