Sanctions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I agree that we need to continue to do more on sanctions. We are working night and day, including with our allies, to get tougher sanctions, the full ban on SWIFT payments and the full asset freeze on banks, which we want to introduce in the next few days, as well as targeting the oil industry and the gas industry, which is ultimately the most important thing because it is funding Putin’s war machine.

As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said at Home Office questions, we are creating a new Ukrainian humanitarian route to enable families of British nationals to come to the United Kingdom. It will mean that an additional 100,000 Ukrainians can seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom.

Through the export support service, the Department for International Trade will be helping businesses. The Secretary of State for International Trade will lay out more details in due course.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)]

Further to the latest announcement that Switzerland, Japan and other democracies are joining to impose sanctions, what more can we do to convince other democracies that have not condemned this atrocity or implemented sanctions to do so?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is right. There is nobody in the world lining up with Vladimir Putin and his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but we need more democracies and more sovereign nations to stand up, because we cannot have a world where might is right and international law can just be ridden roughshod over.

We in the Foreign Office and Ministers across Government are making those points to our counterparts around the world, but this is where I think parliamentarians can help: many people in this House have good contacts with overseas Governments. We need to encourage those Governments to stand up and put sanctions in place. I had a call this morning with some Foreign Ministers who had never put sanctions in place before but are now considering it. There are many more who are on the verge of imposing sanctions. I strongly encourage Members across the House to get on the phone to those Ministers and those Governments, because this has created global outrage and we need to see that reflected in complete degradation of the Russian economy.