Frozen Russian Assets: Ukraine

Helen Maguire Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for securing this important debate.

This issue matters deeply to my constituents. Kensington and Bayswater is home to a thriving Ukrainian community and is a hub for Ukrainian institutions, from the embassy and the consulate to the social club and the school. But in Kensington, regrettably, we are also at the epicentre of Britain’s historical addiction to corrupt, kleptocrat wealth—we are in close competition with my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) in that regard. In the wake of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I co-founded the Kensington Against Dirty Money campaign, alongside local community campaigners, to expose the vast sums of illicit capital hidden in luxury property in our community. As has been said, that dirty money undermines democracy both at home and abroad, and for too long kleptocrats have been able to sidestep the rules and hoard illicit wealth through opaque corporate structures.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) so much for securing this debate. Does the hon. Member agree that if the west fails to act decisively in seizing Russian assets, that simply signals to authoritarian regimes worldwide that aggression and the violation of international law come with little consequence, which will destabilise the global order and increase the likelihood of future conflicts?

[Joe Powell]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. There are things the UK can do to be the trailblazer and there are things we need to do in partnership with our international partners, and shortly I will move on to how I think we can do more on the assets specifically.

I also want to take the opportunity to welcome the personal and relentless campaign by the Foreign Secretary and the Minister in relation to sanctions, including the recent action on the shadow fleet. However, in order for those measures to be fully effective, we must ensure that sanctions cannot be evaded, and there are still loopholes that need to be closed. My hon. Friend the Minister will know that I have been following closely the progress of our overseas territories and Crown dependencies in finally following the will of Parliament by establishing public registers of company ownership, allowing us to follow the money and detect where sanctions evasion may be taking place, for example in places such as the British Virgin Islands. It also means that we need to consider incorporating trust-owned property into our registers of overseas entities, ensuring that trusts cannot be used to conceal property that could be subject to sanctions.

As we have said, our residents deserve better than living in these communities hollowed out by wealth and built on corruption, where my constituents are suffering at the sharp end of London’s housing crisis. In the next-door constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) there is the case of Chelsea football club. Over two years ago, Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club, with approximately £2.5 billion pledged to humanitarian programmes for victims of the war, yet not a single penny of that money has been spent. Those Chelsea funds amount to five times the UK’s total humanitarian assistance to Ukraine since 2022, and they remain stuck in an escrow account. That is a travesty, given that releasing those funds would not cost the British taxpayer a penny. It would save countless lives, at a time when 15 million people require urgent assistance in eastern Ukraine alone and humanitarian agencies face a shortfall of £1.3 billion.

I welcome the UK’s leadership in the G7 on securing the additional $50 billion of support to Ukraine using the profits from the holdings of immobilised Russian sovereign assets, with over £2 billion coming from the UK’s share. We have led on sanctions, we have led on freezing assets and we have led on mobilising the interest on assets, and now I believe it is time for the UK to lead a coalition of willing nations to take decisive action to seize those sovereign assets in full.