Sanctions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Cleverly]

I am going to make some progress.

I assure the House that we will use this and other sanctions legislation that we might bring forward to deter further actions and to encourage Russia to de-escalate.

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[James Cleverly]

My hon. and gallant Friend makes a point I fully understand, and I can assure him the Government fully understand it too. The pace at which we ratchet up our sanctions response in conjunction with our international partners is very much to not just send a message, although sending a message is important, but to ensure the sanctions are meaningfully felt by the Russian leadership and those people around Vladimir Putin funding him and propping him up.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Cleverly]

I am going to make some progress. Trust me, I will give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to intervene later.

We are providing political support to Ukraine. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is in close and regular contact with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and other friends and allies around the world, and I pay tribute to our ambassador, Melinda Simmons, and her team, who remain in Ukraine operating from the British embassy office in Lviv providing what support we can for British nationals still in the country.

Thirdly, we are leading on the strategic communications response to Russian actions. At every stage, working closely with our international partners, we have exposed President Putin’s plans, lies and false flags activities, and we have exposed them for what they are: a pretext for aggression and an attempt to justify what is in every respect unjustifiable. Last week I highlighted the falsehoods put forward by Vladimir Putin at the United Nations Security Council.

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[Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way now?

[James Cleverly]

I will.

[Chris Bryant]

I am very grateful. One of the problems with the Government’s argument is that President Putin has already said the whole of the Donbas is now effectively to be either independent or part of Russia. Two thirds of that territory is currently held by Ukrainians and a third by separatists. That is an incursion already. It feels as if what we have announced today by way of sanctions is remarkably puny, yet it feels also as if we are not going to do anything more if the Russians just stick with this. Does the Minister not understand the anxiety there is, I think across the House?

[James Cleverly]

I have a huge amount of respect for the hon. Gentleman, as he knows—we speak when the cameras are not rolling—but I fear he is putting his prejudice ahead of the statement I am making, because were he to listen to the points I am making and allow me to get to the point in the speech where I am explicit about this, he would understand that the UK Government’s actions are not limited to what the Prime Minister has currently announced. He will hear that we are going to bring forward further legislation to further extend the measures available to us and that we are absolutely not ignoring the fact that there has already been Russian incursion into Ukraine, which we want to halt and reverse and then get those troops away from the Ukrainian border.

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[James Cleverly]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his assistance. We are lucky that both officials in the Box and Hansard note takers in the Gallery have taken note of that individual. I remind the House that it is a long-standing convention that we do not discuss future targets of sanctions designation by name to prevent those sanctions potentially being less effective than they might otherwise be, but I can assure him and the House that that name has been noted.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way?

[James Cleverly]

I will make progress.

In response to President Putin’s decision last night to recognise sovereign regions of Ukraine as what he claimed—but we do not agree—to be independent states and to order troops into those areas, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister today announced the initial set of sanctions that with immediate effect will freeze the assets of five Russian banks. Four of those banks are involved in bankrolling the Russian occupation. They include Bank Rossiya, which is particularly close to the Kremlin, the Black Sea bank for development and reconstruction, IS Bank and Genbank.

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[James Cleverly]

I have got to progress. I will be crucified otherwise.

In addition, over the forthcoming weeks, we will extend the territorial sanctions imposed in response to the Crimean incursion by Russia to territory occupied by Russian forces in what they claim to be the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. No UK individual or business—no UK individual or business—will be able to deal with them until they are returned fully to Ukrainian control. We also intend to sanction the members of the Russian Duma and the Federation Council who voted for recognition of the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, in flagrant violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty.

[Chris Bryant]

I wholly support that if that is what the Government intend to do—

[James Cleverly]

Yes.

[Chris Bryant]

I know the Minister said that, but I am just trying to check whether he intends to do that under this proposed legislation. There is a legal argument that he cannot, not least because the statutory instrument lists what is considered to be a member of the Government of Russia and it does not include members of the Duma. However, in proposed new regulation 6(3)(a), I think the Minister is intending to include anyone who promotes a policy or action which destabilises Ukraine. It would just be helpful if he could explain that.

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there is a difference. Those in this House understand that there is a difference between a legislature and a Government. The sanctions regime under which those sanctions have been brought forward is an extension of the pre-existing sanctions regime we brought forward in response to the aggression going into Crimea, rather than this one.

We are also ready to introduce new legislation, putting in place new measures which will prevent the Russian state from issuing sovereign debt on the UK markets. They will curtail the ability of the Russian state and Russian companies to raise funds in UK markets and further isolate Russian banks—touching on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—and their ability to operate not just in the UK, but internationally.

This will not end today.

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[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am grateful to be called at this particular point, Madam Deputy Speaker. So that I do not end up repeating them, I first associate myself completely with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat).

We can do, we should do and we must do more to root out the dirty money that flows through there. That is not to blame us—in some senses it goes through New York as well—but we should collectively ensure that we target those people. I am told that Putin has squirrelled away more than $250 billion around the world through his oligarchs; they are not actually wealthy individuals, but only nominally wealthy, because it is his money, which he has stolen from the Russian state. We should seek that out and nail it down, collectively, as nations in the free world.

I say to my right hon. Friend the Minister that I appreciate the difficulty the Government are in over this matter. The Government want to play their hand carefully, and I understand that; they want to deliver such that President Putin and co. have to pull back. The question, therefore, is not whether the Government are right to want to do that—we support them in wanting to do so—but whether the means that the Government have willed to themselves are enough.

I also speak as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). We have already listed names, and I genuinely and carefully question why my Government had not done more to sanction people already, long before this final crisis erupted—people in Russia, China, the United States and around the world who are clearly identifiable as in need of being sanctioned under the Magnitsky rules that we passed. I am ready to give the Government a list, and I know he feels exactly the same. He probably has it there.

[Chris Bryant]

indicated assent.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I knew he would have it. We want to see that list actioned.

The trouble right now is that we have had the debate about President Putin and the Russians invading Ukraine as though they were about to invade Ukraine. I keep banging on about this: they have invaded Ukraine. They took over Crimea in 2014 and created this nonsense about separatists in the Donbas region, loads of whom we know to be Russian soldiers, dressed up in different uniforms and creating merry hell. There is no way on earth that they would have held the Ukrainian forces off for this long were it not for the fact that they have some very sophisticated support coming in from Russia. There is an idea that somehow the Russians are invading, but they are not—they have already invaded. Therefore, we have the right to do something about it.

The question therefore is what we do about it. In 2014 we let ourselves down: we did next to nothing. I was in Government at the time and I felt concern then, but the reality is that we did not do enough. The problem in dealing with dictators is that if we do not act early and act hard, the lesson they learn is that we will never act and we will always give way at the end. When will those lessons be learned? We have been through it time and again. Dictators have a single purpose. The problem with democracy is that we have many thoughts, many ideas and many people to bring with us, but we too should have a central purpose.

I have some questions for my right hon. Friend the Minister. Much as I really support what the Government have done, I cannot understand why we have not done much more immediately. Going now and going hard should be the way. If there are other things we are planning to do, there are many others we should be sanctioning—I mentioned one individual earlier in an intervention—and many other levers we could pull.

I do not understand—but perhaps my right hon. Friend can explain to me—why we have not driven forward on the SWIFT banking system or the trading of sovereign debt, which would affect the Russians very much. I agree that the Germans have moved swiftly, as we know, to suspend Nord Stream 2—I would like to see them end the whole idea of it—but if they are going to do more, we should be co-operating with them and going in hard ourselves this one time.

Will my right hon. Friend therefore keep this statutory instrument open so that we could even return to it tomorrow, if necessary, to add to the whole process and take it even further? We have to do more and we have to do it harder than we have done now, because President Putin will not take any lessons.

I come back to the question I asked earlier. Bearing in mind that the Russians still sit in Crimea and still have areas of Donbas, which in a way they were unofficially occupying but now have occupied, what I do not quite understand is what this first phase of sanctions is actually meant to do. I am utterly puzzled by it. Is it meant to say, “Thus far and no further”? My right hon. Friend said that it is meant to say, “Get back.” But if so, then we have to hit very hard with everything we have got, such that President Putin and his cohorts around him suddenly say to themselves, “They really mean business. They are united across the democracies.”

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[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I associate myself with everything that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has just said; I completely agree with him. Democracy is a very tender flower. We thought it was very robust and it would survive all weathers, but the truth is that it needs watering, care and tenderness. All too often, it is very easy for authoritarian regimes to trample on it and kill it.

I associate myself, too, with the comments of the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith). We have no beef with the people of Russia. The people of Russia are fine people with not only a strong culture and history, but many strong democratic traditions and understandings of what it is to be a human being and to work in solidarity with others. Our beef is with the regime; it is with Putin.

I agree that we have been recklessly naive for far too long in relation to our relationship with Vladimir Putin. It pains me—I understand why Tony Blair was doing it—that we gave him a state visit so early in his time. We wanted to press the reset button, as did Obama, and it gained us absolutely nothing; it just showed us to be weak. We have been pitiful. We have been puny. We have vacillated. We have been spineless. Quite often we have looked craven because we just want Russian money to prop up our banks, pay our lawyers and keep our consultancy firms going.

Maybe we could forgive the fact that Putin is a thieving kleptocrat—after all, most off the theft is done against his own people. It leaves his own people poorer than they were when he came to power, though. It is maybe just a matter for the Russian people that he has enriched himself beyond the wildest dreams of Imelda Marcos and Muammar al-Gaddafi put together. But three things make him truly dangerous: his territorial ambitions, his excessive use of force, and his lies and misinformation.

Just look at Beslan, where 334 hostages were killed in the end by Russian state actors, including 176 children. Just look at the Moscow theatre siege, where 130 hostages were killed by Russian state actors. Look at Chechnya—I could go on for ages—and look at Georgia. They compare the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk with the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Of course, it is exactly the same playbook: “Set up a pretext and then move in.” Look at the downing of Flight MH17. Look at the murders of Boris Nemtsov, Sasha Litvinenko, Dawn Burgess, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky and so many others.

Yes, I am angered by the naivete that I sometimes see in this country. I have seen it often in this Chamber, and I have seen it also from the left. Stop the War said:

“We oppose the deployment of British forces to the borders of Russia as a pointless provocation.”

What utterly stupid naivete. Where on earth is the condemnation of the 190,000 Russian troops on the border, the annexation of Crimea, or the snipers shooting at Ukrainian forces now? This is not just naivete; it is monumental and dangerous stupidity, and we should call it out.

I confess that I was absolutely sickened by Putin’s speech last night. The Minister cannot say it, but I can: the man is deranged, unhinged and a danger to his own people, as well as to the people of Ukraine. I said in this House in March 2014:

“A Russian friend of mine says that Putin is not yet mad. That may be true, but what will our surrendering and our appeasement do for his sanity?”—[Official Report, 18 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 679.]

We can now see what his madness has done. I am reluctant to use the word “appeasement” too often, but sometimes what has been done has felt like appeasement.

Putin’s argument about Russians and Ukrainians being one people—again, I understand that the Minister cannot say this, but I can—is the same as Hitler’s about the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler said then that he only wanted to protect the Sudeten Germans. It was a lie. Some people said so in this Chamber in 1938. Some of them laid down their life in the ensuing slaughter, and they have their shields up here. However, Chamberlain bought the lie, and the following spring Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia without so much as a by-your-leave. Be in no doubt: this is not a Russian peacekeeping mission; it is an annexation, an invasion and a declaration of war. Putin knows that it will lead to significant bloodshed on a massive scale because the Ukrainians are more determined to fight now than they ever have been. If anything, Putin’s behaviour over these years has reinforced the Ukrainians’ sense of solidarity.

Putin is not just interested in the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk already in separatists’ hands; of course he is not. He wants Avdiivka, which is metres across the demarcation line, where the Foreign Affairs Committee saw Russian snipers pointing at Ukrainian troops just three weeks ago. He wants Kramatorsk, where we met community leaders, including the local priest. He wants Mariupol, and of course he wants Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odessa—the whole of Ukraine. He wants to reshape the contours of Europe by force because he thinks that that is to be his legacy.

Of course, I support the statutory instrument and I am glad we are doing this, but today’s sanctions—the ones that have been announced today, which rely on this instrument—are wholly inadequate. I think that is the message from the whole House, and I hope the Government are hearing it loud and clear. They do not match the rhetoric of what the Government are saying, and when actions do not match rhetoric, we undermine that rhetoric and put ourselves in a worse position, not in a better one.

The banks are the small change of the Russian economy, they really are: they are shrapnel down the back of the sofa. The individuals have already been sanctioned for four years by the Americans. This really is netting in the minnows while letting the basking sharks swim freely. As somebody else said, it is taking a peashooter to a gunfight. Putin, frankly, will beat this feather duster away. He will just laugh at us. In effect, Medvedev was laughing at us yesterday, even before we announced anything, because he said that the Russians will be able to wear whatever we throw at them. It is a beautiful irony, is it not, that one of the people who will be sanctioned, when the Government are able to bring their measure in relation to Members of the Duma, is Andrey Lugavoy, who was one of the murderers of Alexander Litvinenko? Incidentally, can I just say that, if anybody has not met Marina Litvinenko, she is one of the most wonderful people who have ever walked the face of this earth?

I think a sanctions regime in this context has to go hand in hand with, first, a proper public register of beneficial ownership of property. I do not understand from the Prime Minister whether it is his intention now to introduce that, because it keeps on being conflated with various other forms. I hope that is the plan, but it has been promised for a long time, so some of us are beginning to get a little bit cynical.

Secondly, there has to be complete reform of Companies House, so that it actually has some powers to interrogate the information given to it. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said, at the moment anybody could say that they are Tom Tugendhat, or Mickey Mouse—or Vladimir Putin, no doubt—with impunity.

Thirdly, there has to be real openness about the review of the tier 1 visa scheme. The Home Secretary has cited “security concerns” about

“corrupt elites who threaten our national security and push dirty money around our cities.”

That is about people who already have tier 1 visas. As I understand it, this review is complete—it was completed some time ago—and it must be published soon. We need to understand what these tier 1 visas did, and where the vulnerabilities are in the British economy. I really hope that the Home Secretary will come to the House to do that very soon.

We need a foreign agents Act, as has been mentioned, and of course we need to reform the Official Secrets Act. We have no means of tackling spies in this country. It is almost impossible to send somebody to prison for spying in this country for the Russian Government.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Do we not need an update of the Treason Act? A treason charge can be laid only in relation to the person of the monarch, and this Act from 1351 really does need updating.

[Chris Bryant]

I agree, and on all these promises of legislation, which I think it is being suggested will come in the next Session of Parliament, frankly, we need to get a bit of a bloody—sorry, we need to get a bit of a move on, because all of this should have been in place years ago. Our report came out in 2018, the Intelligence and Security Committee report came out in 2019, and we still have not done any of this. I say to the Minister that we all stand ready to help in that process. We do feel a bit as though we are dragging him to be chased, so do not run away from us, but be chased and help us to bring in the legislation that will put us in a better place.

My final point is that I do not understand the Government’s ratchet decision at the moment. It is a complete mystery to me. There has already been an invasion and incursion, and we said prior to the incursion that we would hit Russia hard with sanctions. That is not what is on offer today. When the Prime Minister resigned as Foreign Secretary, he said that his greatest failure—his biggest mistake as Foreign Secretary—was his relationship with Russia. I think he has a long way to go to rescue what has happened today. We want tougher action and we beg the Government to introduce it.

Russia Sanctions Legislation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend will be unsurprised that I am not willing to speculate on the nature or scope of the response of the Government or our allies, but Russia should understand that, if it were to attack or present further aggression towards Ukraine, there would be a meaningful response not just from the UK but from our international allies. I will not speculate further at this time.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Minister knows full well that every single Member of this House stands foursquare with the Government alongside the people of Ukraine. We want to guarantee the territorial integrity of Ukraine. However, the Foreign Secretary told us that the legislation would be in place by 10 February, which is important because of the recess. We were also told that it would be an affirmative measure, which means that it would not come into force unless the House has voted for it.

The Minister is wrong to say that it will just happen this afternoon. It is completely autocratic for the Government to publish legislation without any opportunity for anybody to scrutinise it. Frankly, they have just been lazy. We are Johnny-come-latelies when it comes to sanctions in this area. When will we have a debate on the Floor of the House on the measure so that we can make sure the whole House sends the same message to Russia? At the moment, it just looks as if the Government are not governing anymore.

[James Cleverly]

I understand the frustration that the hon. Gentleman and others have expressed, I truly do. Our actions have been, at all stages, calibrated to deter Russian aggression and to act in concert and collaboration with our international partners. I appreciate that this House has complete unanimity of purpose in its desire to dissuade Russia from aggressive actions towards Ukraine. We are moving at pace to ensure, where possible, that sanctions regimes are in place ahead of this. We will continue to take actions that dissuade Russian aggression towards Ukraine, and we will always do so in close co-ordination and co-operation with our international allies.

UK-Taiwan Friendship and Co-operation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alicia Kearns]

I thank the hon. Lady, and I very much agree that we need a cross-Government strategy on China. However, I think she will probably hear from the Minister later some relief on that subject, because I believe that a cross-Government strategy is currently being developed. It looks as though the officials in the Box are relieved that I am saying so, but we will wait to hear about that later.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Some people have often said that China has adopted a patient attitude to Taiwan and thinks that eventually it will somehow fall into China’s lap. Is it not important that we have a cross-party, cross-House and whole-nation approach to this in the UK, and do we not have just as deep a well of patience as China?

[Alicia Kearns]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. China believes it is in the ascendancy and needs simply to wait it out until the UK and the US lose their ability to maintain an international rules-based order, and then it can occupy Taiwan. He puts it very well when he says that we too are watching and we too will wait, and we will stand by our allies. He is absolutely right that we need a cross-party approach, and I believe that under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) we see exactly that on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The current tensions in Taiwan must be seen for what they are: the direct result of the emergence of democracy and the Chinese Communist party’s own insecurity about a modern, successful and democratic Chinese society. When people ask why we should care about an island on the other side of the globe, the answer is simple. Taiwan represents the best of democracy, and the United Kingdom must always take the side of democracy and our friends who are trying to uphold its values.

Over the past few years, we in this House have watched with dismay as the Chinese Communist party has stripped away the freedoms and liberties of our friends in Hong Kong. The implementation of the national security law has transformed a vibrant and open society into a repressive, Orwellian nightmare, where a teenager faces prison for voicing slightly critical views on social media. While we all mourn the loss of those freedoms, I urge hon. Members not to fall into a state of resignation; our friends in Taiwan need more than that.

Therefore, I will discuss three areas that bind the interests of the United Kingdom to Taiwan: further economic co-operation, international recognition, and security and regional stability. The UK and Taiwan already enjoy a fruitful trading relationship: £7.2 billion of goods and services were exchanged in 2020 alone. Taiwan, as we all know, is the leading producer of semiconductor chips, the micro-engines of our modern world. From mobile phones to the fighter planes that make up the Royal Air Force, the importance of those chips cannot be overstated, but there has been a shortage in recent years, leading both the European Union and USA to implement strategies to maintain their access. We must do the same.

Sensing an opportunity, the Chinese Communist party is already moving to try to dominate this market, although I suspect it will not be able to because of the high-quality workmanship needed to create the chips. Only last year, China purchased the UK’s largest producer of semiconductor chips, Newport Wafer Fab. I opposed the takeover, as did the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I urge the Government to continue to do more to protect industries of special national interest. We cannot be selling them off. We must seek to produce, to protect our own production capabilities and to foster trading relationships with democracies that will protect supply chains.

A trade deal with Taiwan would not only ensure access to semiconductor chips, but help the UK to achieve our net zero targets without compromising on our morals. In my Rutland and Melton constituency there is a 2,175-acre solar plant proposed on good agricultural land, which is being developed by a de facto Chinese company with supply chains reaching into Xinjiang, the site of the Chinese Communist party’s genocide. I will not see Rutland’s soil tainted by mass human rights atrocities. I urge the Government to pursue a bilateral trade deal, because we know Taiwan produces quality solar panels free of Uyghur blood labour.

Taiwan is a country committed to net zero by 2050, producing high-quality green technology, and it shares our democratic morals. What better partner for a trade deal? Let us strike one and begin to develop the alternative supply chains we need to free Taiwan and to a lesser extent ourselves from economic reliance on the Chinese mainland. Let us focus on high-quality technologies and renewables. There is opportunity for us and for them.

The UK is also in the process of joining the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership. We have recognised the shift in global wealth and power towards the Indo-Pacific, and global Britain is rightly stepping up to that. As we pivot towards Asia, however, we must have someone to lean on. Taiwan could play an important role there.

We are all aware of the limitations placed on Taiwan globally: despite having the 21st largest economy and a population of 24 million, it is still barred from meaningful participation in much of the international order. Although tens of millions of passengers pass through its airports, Taiwan has not been represented at the International Civil Aviation Organization since 2014. That is illogical, and the UK must support its readmittance to that body.

Russia: Sanctions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. We are looking at all the channels that we can communicate through directly to the Russian people as well as to the Russian Government. That is something that I will look to do on my visit to Russia.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This is just weak, weak, weak. Honestly, since 2010, when the Conservatives came to power and they first started saying that they wanted to press the reset button with Putin, we have been weak, ambivalent and vacillating towards the Russian Federation. We have no quarrel with the Russian people; it is with President Putin. It does not work to try to look tough when the Government have refused to deal with the issue of tier 1 visas. It is shocking that the Foreign Secretary does not even have a proper answer to that question this afternoon. This has been going on for ages; we have been giving them out to thousands of Russian oligarchs. She still does not have an answer—maybe she will have now—to the question about unexplained wealth orders. If we cannot make them, how will this new legislation make any difference? This is far, far too late. It is not a question of whether the horse has bolted; they have invited the horse in, sat it down at the table and given it plenty to eat.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I suggest that the hon. Gentleman goes to Ukraine—

[Chris Bryant]

I have been!

[Elizabeth Truss]

I suggest he goes to Ukraine and asks the Ukrainian Government which of their allies they think is giving them the most support. The answer is that the United Kingdom has supplied more defensive weapons to Ukraine than any of our NATO—[Interruption.]

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

The Afghan citizens resettlement scheme was announced by the Minister responsible, my hon. Friend the Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), just last week. She pointed out that it is coming into place this year. We have announced an aim to settle 5,000 people in the first year of the ACRS. She also announced that, in the light of the emerging situation and the success of evacuation efforts, we will exceed that aim. The first to be resettled included women’s rights activists, journalists and prosecutors, as well as Afghan families of British nationals.

I would encourage my hon. Friend to work with the Minister for Afghan Resettlement on any individual cases that he has, but I would also say, as this question points out, that we need to support those in the country; it is not going to be possible to resettle every single case.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am sorry—this is terrible. Every single element of this was not only predictable but predicted repeatedly for 18 months and longer. Operation Pitting was a disaster. We did not actually prioritise the right people, or we have no confidence that we prioritised the right people. We have abandoned lots of people, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said. All of us have constituency connections with people who are stuck in Afghanistan, and the Minister has no means of enabling them to get to safety. We have abandoned them to a future where there is not enough food, there is not enough money to pay the bills, there is no electricity and most of the hospitals are not working properly. We have a complete disaster, and part of the blame for that lies at the Government’s door.

[Vicky Ford]

During Operation Pitting, we worked at great speed. Our armed forces on the ground worked at great speed and in great danger to evacuate around 15,000 people to the UK. That was the second largest number evacuated by any country, behind only the United States. We are supporting people in Afghanistan.

Russia

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have been united with our partners not just in the west, but in the free world. The G7 put out a very strong statement after Liverpool, being clear that there would be severe costs and massive consequences in the event of military aggression against Ukraine. That was followed by an announcement at the December European Council meeting which also made the same points, so we have seen a united front from allies around the free world. Freedom, democracy and security within Europe is vital, but my right hon. Friend makes the right point that this situation will be watched by aggressors around the world. This is about not just Europe, important though that is, but the signal we send to the rest of the world about what we do in the face of aggression. That is why partners such as Japan have also signed up to that statement, and why we are working more broadly with partners across the world to challenge this aggression and to ensure there are no rewards for this type of aggressive behaviour.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly agree that we have to stand foursquare with Ukraine. We also have to see off every kind of aggression—there are many different kinds—that comes from the Putin regime in Russia. What I do not understand is why the Government have spent so long trying to bring in the cleaning-up of the banking system in this country through a fully public register of beneficial ownership—one exists, but it is still not public—not just of companies but of property and trusts; why we still have not made all the overseas territories, where lots of Russian money is presently hidden, have public registers of beneficial ownership of all three categories; and why Ministers still allow exemptions for some Russian oligarchs in the register of beneficial ownership of companies. It seems entirely hypocritical.

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I said, we do have a very tough anti-corruption regime and we have used our global human rights sanctions regime to sanction people within Russia, including 25 Russian nationals. We, of course, continue to review that legislation.

Magnitsky Sanctions: Human Rights Abuses

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Magnitsky sanctions and human rights abuses.

It is a great delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller, and always a delight to be in the same room as you.

If global Britain is to mean anything, it has to mean a passionate commitment by the United Kingdom, in every corner of the globe, to liberty, personal freedom, a fair trial, the rule of law, freedom from torture, freedom from slavery, freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the right to a family life. Sometimes that will be inconvenient for us and for other countries. We may want strong trading partnerships with Colombia or Saudi Arabia, but we will always find it difficult to do business where human rights are trampled underfoot.

I have been banging on about all this for many years, and I will explain where it started. It goes back to 1986 when I was living in post-dictatorship Argentina. One night I was having a drink with a friend, whom I knew had had a difficult time during the dictatorship, when someone came in and sat at the next table to us. A few moments later, my friend disappeared. I presumed he had just gone to the toilet, but he did not come back for a long time. I went to look for him. He was in a shuddering mess on the floor of the toilets. I said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “That man at the table next to us tortured me for four months.” I asked him how he could possibly know that, because he had told me that he was blindfolded throughout that time.

My friend then said, “Well, the thing is, if somebody has every single day for four months grabbed you, shoved your face into a bucket of shitty ice cold water until you nearly drown, has tied you to a metal bed and applied electrodes to your tongue, the back of your ears and your testicles, and has beaten you senseless every single day for four months, you get to know not just what their voice sounds like or the smell of their breath, but the way they come into a room and sit down at a table. That’s how I know.” Ever since that day, I have thought how fortunate we are in this country to enjoy liberties and freedoms, which are guaranteed to us by our democracy and by battles that people have fought in previous centuries.

That is why I still fight today to end human rights abuses. I am proud that, in memory of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, a suite of Magnitsky sanctions is now available in British law. I pay tribute to the Government for introducing them. For me, building a “network of liberty”, to use the Foreign Secretary’s phrase from this morning, must mean more than just expanding free trade. It must mean expanding freedom. Sometimes, I have to say, it has felt like the Government have been reluctant to act. How many times did we have to urge the Foreign Secretary to act on Hong Kong? I still find it perplexing that Carrie Lam is not on any list. Why is the UK list of those sanctioned so much shorter than the US version? Do they care more than we do about human rights? I do not think so.

As co-chair of the new all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, I asked the Government to consider some names. My co-chair and I are going to be doing this on a fairly regular basis—that is our aim. It is important that we have privilege in Parliament. We do not want to abuse that privilege, but we want to be able to speak without fear or favour on human rights abuses around the world.

Let me start with China and the situation in Xinjiang, where—

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Chris Bryant]

That was very quick, but yes.

[Layla Moran]

I want to thank the hon. Gentleman for his speech and for giving way. I want to put on record the Liberal Democrats’ support for the Magnitsky sanctions. Indeed, we welcome the cross-party support on this issue, which is shown in this room.

Members will be aware that the Uyghur Tribunal is going to report tomorrow. In that tribunal, Uyghur families have given harrowing stories of what they have suffered. Does he agree that tomorrow would be an ideal time for the Minister to announce sanctions against Chinese Communist party officials such as Chen Quanguo, who, as the Communist party secretary of Xinjiang will have overseen these crimes against humanity? We all know that those would potentially amount to the crime of genocide.

[Chris Bryant]

That was pretty much going to be my next but one paragraph. Of course, I completely agree. The Uyghur population have been and continue to be subject to mass detention, forced sterilisation, forced abortion, the forced removal of children and other forms of torture. To my mind and, I think, in law, that is genocide. It meets all the criteria that are laid down in the conventions. The UK Government have so far omitted to sanction several of those most responsible for these atrocities, all of whom have been sanctioned by the United States. I understand that some of the detail on that has already been provided by non-governmental organisations to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and I am sure the Minister has that.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) mentioned Chen Quanguo. He is referred to as the architect of the human rights abuses in both Xinjiang and Tibet. He is the party secretary to the Communist party in the region. He is responsible for the mass detention, torture, and cruel and degrading treatment of over 1 million people from ethnic and religious minorities. I still find it perplexing that parts of the middle east, where there are fellow Muslims, still fail to condemn that.

The recently released Xinjiang papers confirm Quanguo’s role in directing the Government’s policies in the region and he should be sanctioned.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. The Xinjiang papers talk about Chen Quanguo and the fact he was assisted by deputies, Zhu Hailun and Zhu Changjie in implementing the mass internment of the Uyghurs. I understand the Government have sanctioned four Chinese officials, but that is not enough. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must now take steps to introduce further Magnitsky sanctions, including on Chen Quanguo, the architect of the Xinjiang genocide, and his deputies?

[Chris Bryant]

I am normally very reluctant to draw direct parallels with what happened in Nazi Germany, but when we see detention camps, people being taken away from their families and people being identified by virtue of their genetic make-up, it feels remarkably similar. If the world chooses to turn away at this point, in the end it will regret it.

There is an important point here about the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which is known as the XPCC. It is a state-owned paramilitary organisation, known for its involvement in the mass imprisonment and severe physical abuse of the Uyghurs, and its use of forced labour to produce the majority of the region’s cotton. As the recent report by the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice shows, this cotton ends up in the global supply chain and people often cannot spot that the clothes they are wearing come from slave labour.

While the UK has recognised this use of forced labour and sanctioned a subsidiary of the XPCC, it has yet to sanction the corporation as a whole, despite the fact that it controls large swathes of the region’s industries, associated with widespread labour abuses. In relation to that, it is important that Peng Jiarui and Sun Jinlong, who have both held senior positions in the XPCC and have had command control over the arbitrary detention, ill treatment and forced labour of Uyghur Muslims, should also be added to the Magnitsky list.

Huo Liujun, the former party secretary for the public security bureau in the region, oversaw the use of artificial intelligence to racially profile, track and imprison members of the Uyghur community. Recent reports indicate this same system was used to target and forcibly sterilise Uyghur women. He should also be on the list.

Let me turn to Iran. As many Members will know, Iran’s arbitrary detention, torture and ill treatment of foreign and dual nationals for diplomatic leverage over other states has escalated since 1979, with state hostage taking becoming an institutionalised part of its foreign policy. We have seen this most notably with some of our own nationals, including Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who is being held hostage in Iran and is now spending her sixth Christmas away from her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, and their daughter, Gabriella. Also, Anoosheh Ashoori has now been detained in Iran for four and a half years. Our hearts go out to them.

I understand that detailed evidence about this has already been provided to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, but let me list some people who I think should be added to the sanction list. Ali Ghanaatkar has acted as head of interrogations and as judge in Evin prison. In his role, he has been involved in the ill treatment of detainees, particularly in the use of forceful interrogations and threats, and in bringing false charges against them. He should be on the list.

Gholamreza Ziaei is the former head of Evin prison, which has become synonymous with torture and death and is where a number of British nationals, including Nazanin and Anoosheh, have been detained. As the head of the prison, he was responsible for the inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners and was sanctioned by the European Union in April this year. He has been sanctioned by the EU, but not yet by us. I think he should be on the list.

Ali Rezvani is an Iranian state media journalist for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-controlled 20:30 News. He has not only been involved in the interrogation of detainees but has revealed detainees’ interrogation files, broadcast forced confessions, forcibly detained family photos and spread misinformation regarding political prisoners, dissidents and hostages. He has peddled propaganda against victims to justify and encourage their ill treatment, thereby promoting, inciting and supporting Iran’s practices. He should be on the list.

On 25 October 2021, the military staged a coup in Sudan, overthrowing the joint civilian-military transitional Government. Since then, violence has escalated rapidly, with reports of the military torturing and killing protestors and carrying out enforced disappearances. It all sounds remarkably like Argentina. Again, I understand that evidence has been provided to the FCDO, but let me give some names. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is the leader and public face of the military coup in Khartoum. Security forces under his command targeted activists, members of resistance committees and journalists, ordering their arbitrary detention or enforced disappearance. Al-Burhan has also implemented an ongoing internet blackout, trying to prevent news of his human rights abuses from leaving Sudan. He has failed, but he should be on the list.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, is the commander of the Rapid Support Forces, previously known as the Janjaweed—Government-supported militias that committed gross human rights abuses in Darfur. Under his leadership, the RSF played a critical role in the planning and execution of the coup and has repeatedly used excessive force to beat and kill protesting civilians in Khartoum. He should be on the list. Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo is reportedly an active member of what security analysts describe as a small security council responsible for the planning and execution of the coup. The council has directed the militarised response to the protest, including the use of live fire against peaceful protestors. He should be on the list.

I turn finally to Rwanda. In August last year, Paul Rusesabagina, the subject of the film “Hotel Rwanda”, which many Members may have seen, and a vocal critic of President Kagame and a cancer sufferer, was drugged, bound and forcefully returned to Rwanda, where he has been imprisoned and tortured. I have met his daughters online, and it is a very upsetting story. A large number of international human rights organisations have recognised this case as one enforced disappearance. Two individuals are directly involved.

First, Johnston Busingye, Minister of Justice at the time of Mr Rusesabagina’s arrest and under whose authority he was detained and tortured. During a televised interview, Johnston Busingye admitted that the Government of Rwanda paid for the flight that transported Mr Rusesabagina back to Rwanda. He has since been removed as Minister of Justice and appointed high commissioner to the United Kingdom. As far as I understand it, the UK Government have still not given their agrément to the appointment. I hope they will announce today that they have absolutely no intention of doing so. He should be on a list of sanctioned individuals, not of people to be escorted to Buckingham Palace to have their credentials agreed by Her Majesty. Secondly, Colonel Jeannot Ruhunga, secretary general of the Rwanda Investigation Bureau, was also heavily involved with that unlawful kidnapping and the associated human rights violations. All these names should be added to the list of those sanctioned by the United Kingdom.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate and for his work as one of the co-chairs of the APPG. If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mrs Miller, I hope to raise the case of General Shavendra Silva, current chief of defence staff in Sri Lanka and apparently responsible for gross human rights violations including torture and extra-judicial killings. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s need to focus his remarks today, but I ask his APPG to consider that case at a further session down the line.

[Chris Bryant]

My co-chair, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), is telling me that we will, but my hon. Friend makes a really good point, which is that we need a proper process whereby we can feed into the Government all the suggestions and concerns that individual Members have from their connections with other parts of the world, and get good outcomes.

Right at the beginning of the process, I think I asked the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), something like 27 times when the Government would introduce Magnitsky sanctions. We now have them in place, but the whole idea was that there would be a parliamentary process for assessing who else should be added. We want to work with the Government to achieve that, because in the end we all share our humanity. If a child goes hungry in Botswana, that is a problem for the children of this country. If somebody is deprived of their freedom in Russia, Chechnya or any part of Africa, that is a matter for our freedom too. We all share in the same humanity.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution, and I intend to cover the tribunal later in my speech. Just last week, alongside the EU, US and Canada, we imposed further sanctions against individuals responsible for human rights violations in Belarus, under our Belarus regime. We imposed an asset freeze on a key state-owned entity in order to maintain economic pressure on the repressive Lukashenko regime.

In addition to our new human rights sanctions, on 26 April we launched our global anti-corruption sanctions regime, which gives us the means to impose anti-corruption sanctions on individuals anywhere in the world. It represented a significant step forward for the UK’s global leadership in combatting corruption around the world and promoting fair and open societies.

Since the launch, we have designated 27 individuals who have been involved in serious corruption from nine different countries. We will continue to pursue such designations and promote our values around the world, using powers under both our global human rights and anti-corruption sanctions regimes throughout the year of action, starting with the US-hosted summit for democracy taking place over the next two days on International Anti-Corruption Day and International Human Rights Day.

I recognise that Members today referred to certain named individuals, and I am sure that they will fully understand that I cannot speculate—it would be inappropriate for me to do so.

[Chris Bryant]

There is one person that the Minister could undoubtedly speculate on, because he has been appointed as the Rwandan high commissioner. Surely the Government can announce whether they or not will accept his agrément.

[Wendy Morton]

I will come to that specific case a little later. I want to cover the points about how Parliament will be consulted and be part of the process, which was raised by several hon. Members. We recognise the range of views expressed by parliamentarians on the best approach to take on the designations proposals and we are grateful for the interest that they take in that. Of course, they can continue to engage with the Government in the usual ways—such as this debate—or they can write to the Foreign Secretary.

I will turn to some of the more specific questions and countries that were raised. On Sudan, we have condemned the abuses and we will continue to press for accountability, including by considering sanctions. However, we also note the fragile situation there, following the 21 November deal which reinstated Prime Minister Hamdok as a first step back towards democratic transition.

On Rwanda, which the hon. Member for Rhondda raised, I assure him that we are following the case of Paul Rusesabagina—the hon. Gentleman pronounces it better than I do—very closely. I assure him that the Minister for Africa has raised our concerns about due process. On Kashmir, I recognise the concerns. We have raised them with the Governments of India and Pakistan.

On the Uyghur Tribunal, we welcome any initiative that is rigorous and balanced, and that raises awareness of the situation faced by the Uyghurs and other minorities in China. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are following the work of the Uyghur Tribunal very closely, and will study any resulting report very carefully. Of course, the policy of successive UK Governments is that any determination of genocide or crimes against humanity is a matter for a competent court.

We and our partners continue to press for an end to hostilities in Ethiopia, and for Eritrean forces to withdraw, and we fully support all mediation efforts. I think it is fair to say that the scale of the human rights abuses detailed by the joint investigation report is horrific. I note that the Government of Ethiopia have set up a taskforce to take forward recommendations from the report, and we will continue to consider a full range of policy options, including sanctions.

As I explained, we work very closely with our partners, in particular the US, Canada and the EU, which have Magnitsky-style sanctions legislation. We co-operate very closely with Australia, which last week introduced legislation to its Parliament that grants it the power to impose global human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, because UK sanctions are most effective when backed up by co-ordinated collective action.

The global human rights sanctions and anti-corruption sanctions regimes have given the UK new very important and powerful tools. The designations that we have already made show that we will act to hold to account those involved in serious human rights violations or abuses, or serious corruption, without fear or favour. In close co-ordination with our allies, we will carefully consider future designations under the regulations. Through concerted action, we will provide accountability for serious human rights violations or abuses and serious corruption around the world, and deter those who might commit them in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you very much, Mrs Miller. I am afraid that the Minister wound me up at the end. Why can the Government not simply say that somebody who has blatantly been involved in the drugging and illegal extradition of somebody to Rwanda will not be accepted as a representative of Rwanda to the Court of St James’s as a high commissioner? I cannot understand that. It is a very simple ask. I understand why Ministers always say, and say endlessly to us, “We don’t want to speculate about sanctions because that undermines the system.” We do not want Ministers to speculate; we want them to implement. It is quite simple.

I like the Minister enormously; she knows that I do. We want more action. Only 24% of those people who are sanctioned by the United States of America are sanctioned by this country. Why? Is it because we are more picky? Is it because we are more cowardly? I do not understand. There is no argument for it so far. I hope that in the new year, the Government will set aside a whole day for us to debate this matter in Government time, to understand how we can ensure that the UK is, and will always be, the beacon for liberty, freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the right to life.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Magnitsky sanctions and human rights abuses.

Ukraine

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 7th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

Russia is very clearly in breach of the commitments it signed up to under the Budapest memorandum through its failure to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and through its use of force against Ukraine. We remain willing to engage in consultations, as provided for under that memorandum, as we did back in March 2014 in Paris after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. Russia is refusing to engage, despite the fact that the memorandum obliges it to do so in circumstances where the memorandum is questioned.

We will stand by the people of Ukraine. We are considering extending the support we are giving to Ukraine to help it defend itself, but I need this to be clear: there is nothing in that support that could be construed as offensive or as a threat towards Russia. NATO is a purely defensive organisation and itself poses no threat to Russia.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The difficulty is that Russia under Putin has behaved with extraordinary consistency. If we look at what it did in Georgia and its activities in Greece, in North Macedonia and in Republika Srpska, in so many different places it has engaged in a deliberate act of semi-war, trying to engineer difficulties in each of those democracies. Do we not need to match that consistency with internal consistency of our own, tackling the dirty money in the British public and ensuring that the whole of our democratic and political system is safe from assault by the Russians?

[Vicky Ford]

I have been very clear, and it is very clear in the integrated review, that Russia’s actions pose an acute and direct threat to the national security of not only the UK but its allies. We maintain functional channels of engagement with the Russian Government to ensure we can make points to them on those issues, and as a fellow permanent member of the UN Security Council we engage with them, but that does not mean we do not call them out. The Foreign Secretary met Foreign Minister Lavrov last Thursday, 2 December, when she absolutely restated the UK’s support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and urged the Russians to de-escalate the situation. The Ministers also discussed Belarus, Iran and Afghanistan.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Stability and Peace

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tony Lloyd]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I agree firmly. Let us not rush into Dayton II. It has to happen and the participants on the ground have to be there, but let us do the groundwork. He is also right that we empowered Paddy Ashdown to operate as a powerful UN High Representative. We are not empowering the High Representative now and we have to return to giving that kind of power to him.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I completely agree with the points that my hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made. It seems that one of the problems, which has got worse since my first visit in 2003 and my second in 2013, is that much as we would want to create a multi-ethnic, multi-denominational constitution and structure, a lot of people’s daily lives are spent in a separate silo. Their education, healthcare and so many different elements of their lives are effectively pulling them apart. That is why we need to recreate the whole of society in a multi-denominational way.

[Tony Lloyd]

I do not disagree, but look at the progress we have and have not made in Northern Ireland. This takes time, but it is a real issue. That is why we cannot let Bosnia and Herzegovina disappear off the radar again as other crises move in and out. Belarus matters—as the Minister knows, I am deeply involved in Belarus—and I can name conflicts all around the world, but this issue in the western Balkans also matters.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I completely agree. I am aware of that case and how hard my hon. Friend has been fighting on behalf of her constituents. How on earth are we supposed to trust that the Government are dealing with the serious security threats we face or the evacuation of thousands whose lives are urgently at risk if they cannot even keep a promise to reply to emails? Quite simply, it is Parliament’s job to get answers to those questions, and the Opposition believe that we need proper tools to do it.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Is there not another issue? Lots of the people about whom many hon. Members have been writing to three Departments—let us hope that, as I think the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa said last week, we will get the reply from the Foreign Office, which will apparently be by the end of tomorrow—will now need consular support from somewhere, either in country or out of country. However, as I understand it, the Government have done nothing to make that provision available to them. Unlike what the Americans are doing, it feels like we have given in and surrendered.

[Lisa Nandy]

I thank my hon. Friend for saving me a bit of time in my speech. I hope the Minister heard that and will provide us with answers today.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly]

I will come on to how we intend to inform Members about cases that they have raised with us. If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, I will address that.

We also repatriated an estimated 500 British nationals who left Afghanistan in accordance with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office travel advice when that was changed. In total, from April this year to August, we helped over 17,000 people get to safety. I pay tribute to the troops and civilian staff who helped to make that possible, and I pay tribute once again to all those who served in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, whether in the armed forces or in other roles.

In this next phase, we are working to secure safe passage for those British nationals and eligible Afghans who remain in the country. My right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), the then Foreign Secretary, visited Qatar two weeks ago to discuss efforts to re-establish flights from Kabul airport and the wider international approach to the Taliban. International flights have now started. We secured places for 13 British nationals on the first Qatari flight from Kabul on 9 September, and 21 British nationals were on the second flight the following day. We will continue this work to help evacuate British nationals via that route.

[Chris Bryant]

I have two quick questions. First, how many British nationals does the Minister think are still in Afghanistan? Secondly, if other people—Afghan nationals—are going to be helped out, some of them will still need consular support because they will need visas or permits to travel. How do we intend that that support be given? Are we doing that through another nation state? Are we going to be able to do that from out of country? What is the plan?

[James Cleverly]

The hon. Gentleman asks about the number of people in Afghanistan. He will understand that the British Government do not demand British nationals overseas register with us. We do not demand that when they cross borders, so it is incredibly difficult—this is one of the challenges we are facing—to put a precise figure on the number of British nationals in Afghanistan, particularly, as I say, because there is no requirement necessarily for people to register with us when they cross borders.