Easter Recess: Government Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course. Those 200 contractors for the British Council should, I believe, automatically be eligible and certainly should be able to come under the scheme we have put in place, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets the meeting he wants.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, I found it difficult this Easter to have any faith, seeing the barbarity meted out to the people of Ukraine: women tortured and raped, their children tortured and raped, and their menfolk, in many cases, with hands tied and then shot in the back of the head. All those things we know to be war crimes, but many of the worst atrocities are being committed by sociopaths working as mercenaries—paid for by the Russian Government and the Russian state, but none the less working as mercenaries. The UK still is not a signatory to the convention on mercenaries. Is it not time we put a stop to this terrible barbarity, not just in Ukraine, but in other places in the world where mercenaries from the Wagner Group operate with sociopathic intent?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. I will study his proposal on mercenaries. He has been right for a long time on Russia, and he has been vindicated.