Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson(7 years, 8 months ago)
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Chris Bryant
It is clear that the Russians have behaved perniciously and disgracefully in Ukraine. As the Foreign Secretary has said, their behaviour has led to many deaths, many people have been detained incommunicado, and terrible human rights abuses are going on, as well as the expropriation of assets. The Foreign Secretary regularly boasts about how well we have done in ensuring that there are sanctions in the European Union, but how will we be able to do that when we are no longer a member of the European Union?
Boris Johnson
The hon. Gentleman will know that there is to be a White Paper very soon, presaging a Bill on how we will continue to take part in sanctions jointly with our friends and partners across the channel.
US Immigration Policy
Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson(7 years, 9 months ago)
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Boris Johnson
Yes, I certainly can. If my hon. Friend has any problems, she should get on to us.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Ceausescu, Mugabe and, for that matter, Putin did indeed make state visits, but none of them was invited to address both Houses of Parliament. Whose idea was it that Mr Trump should be invited to do so? Was it the Foreign Secretary’s, the Prime Minister’s, or whose?
Boris Johnson
I like the way the Labour party is obsessing about points of protocol, but all this has yet to be determined.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson(8 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Boris Johnson)
Of course it is right that the UK and the Russian Federation should continue to co-operate and to engage in all the areas where we have common interests, but in view of the ruthless and brutal behaviour of the Russians in Ukraine and in Syria, I hope the House will agree that it is right that the UK should be in the lead in keeping the pressure on sanctions, and it cannot be business as usual with Russia.
Chris Bryant
I agree. Putin’s behaviour has been despicable: murdering his own opponents—assassinating political opponents such as Boris Nemtsov—as well as the invasion of Georgia and Crimea, and now the despicable behaviour in Syria, where he tries to draw a moral equivalence between British and American bombing of military installations run by Daesh and Russia’s and Assad’s bombing of innocent civilians in hospitals in Aleppo. This is immoral. I am not sure that demonstrations outside the Russian embassy will make any odds, but what might make a difference is if we stopped Putin’s cronies coming to London. Why on earth do we still allow those who were involved in the murder of Sergei Magnitsky to come to this country? Will the Foreign Secretary go and demonstrate against the Home Secretary to make sure she changes the rules?
Boris Johnson
I am grateful for the question, because the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out that there is no symmetry whatever between the actions of the Russians and the Assad regime, and the Americans and others on the other side. Just in the last 11 months, Russian bombing alone has been responsible for the deaths of 3,189 civilians, of whom 763 were children. In those circumstances, it is absolutely right that we should be keeping up the sanctions regime not just on Russia but on key members—key associates—of the Putin regime.
Boris Johnson
I am sorry—forgive me.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I think that Rai TV has been requesting an interview with me for some time on this matter, and that is the most ingenious interview application I have yet heard. I will certainly do what I can to assist. Italians and all nationals from EU member states can have the assurance that their status here will of course be protected, provided that there is symmetry and reciprocity on the other side.
Sport and the 2012 Olympics Legacy
Debate between Chris Bryant and Boris Johnson
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. [Interruption.] I think I have managed to hear another little squeak from the sports Minister. [Interruption.] I am sorry; I would not want to malign her. Perhaps she will agree with my hon. Friend later in the debate. In 2013, the Minister pointed out that it was a disgrace that so many schools had sold school playing fields since 2010. Why did they do that? They did it because of the problems that local authorities had. Whichever way we cut the figures, they are a disaster.
Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way? He is talking rubbish.
Chris Bryant
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then to the former Secretary of State.
Boris Johnson
If the sporting legacy from the Olympic games is as bad as the hon. Gentleman says—by the way, he is completely wrong, because as far as I know, another 1.4 million people are playing sport in this country since 2005—can he explain why, in London since the Olympic games, there has been an increase of 400,000 people playing sport? Is that something to do with the great work done by the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) as the commissioner for sport in London?
Chris Bryant
Oh dear, the Scottish National party always love to find somebody else to blame. The truth of the matter is that Scotland is run by the SNP, and that 80% of local authority budgets in Scotland are determined by the SNP in Holyrood. When the hon. Gentleman starts attacking Glasgow Council, he needs to start looking into his own backyard.
The coalition Government said they would ensure the development of the Olympic Park after the games, but here there are further legacy worries. So far, the cost of transforming the venue into a stadium ready for football has reached £272 million: £15 million coming from West Ham, £1 million from UK Athletics, £40 million from Newham Council and £25 million from the Government. The overall spend on the venue will now top £700 million for the 54,000 seat arena—considerably more expensive per spectator than the £798 million lavished on the 90,000 capacity Wembley stadium. The project is now over budget by about £35 million, which comes close to the total cost of converting the City of Manchester stadium after the 2002 Commonwealth games. This has the feel, frankly, of a fiasco cooked up somewhere between the Mayor’s office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Treasury, which is why, in the interests of transparency, I urge the Government to publish the full details of West Ham’s secret deal as a matter of urgency.
Chris Bryant
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he will agree with me on this matter.
Boris Johnson
I will agree with the hon. Gentleman on that. It was indeed a mess cooked up between the Mayor, the Treasury and DCMS: it was the Labour Mayor, the Treasury under Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown who decided to go ahead with a stadium that was completely unsuitable for the purpose.
Will the hon. Gentleman have the decency to admit this single fact? The economic legacy in east London is absolutely superb and the sporting legacy in London—it was called the London Olympics—is that more people are playing sport after the Olympics than were before.
Chris Bryant
If the people of east London felt that there had been such an enormous success due to the hon. Gentleman’s antics in the Mayor’s office there would probably have been more people voting Conservative in the east end of London, whereas I note there are quite a lot of Members sitting around me on the Labour Benches representing the east end of London. I note, and the Secretary of State should note, that the hon. Gentleman agreed with my call for the Government to publish all the details of the deal with West Ham.