Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The false narrative is that, somehow, NATO is surrounding Ukraine, when only one 16th of Russia’s border is shared with a NATO member. It is also a false narrative to say that NATO, as some sort of single entity, looks to expansion. People seek to join NATO often as a result of other issues. The question for the Kremlin is why so many countries have sought that membership.

On what I am doing to counter that information, I think we all have a role to play. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has engaged the media, and I will continue to do so as well. This House had an extremely good debate on the subject, and I listened to many Members’ speeches. I urge anyone who has not read the debate, to read it. It is important to call out the false playbook. I also urge right hon. and hon. Members to read the article written by President Putin himself in July last year in which he exposes his real views towards the people of Ukraine.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Lots of people spoke in the debate last Thursday about the hybrid warfare that Putin is effectively waging against the west at the moment. Is the Secretary of State for Defence convinced that the UK is doing enough to tackle the dirty money that comes from Russia into London? Is he convinced that we are doing enough not just on the misinformation that Russia perpetuates here, but on the number of dodgy companies that are functioning here?

[Mr Wallace]

The hon. Gentleman will know from my time as Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime that I was always pushing to do more—and there is always more to do. The unexplained wealth orders were one step, but more transparency and more rigorous checks in places such as Companies House are also important steps. I think that he is right that Russia goes after a whole range of our vulnerabilities. Perhaps, in the way that we function as an open liberal society, we should make sure that we protect those places and not just the more obvious places, such as the military.