Russia’s Attack on Ukraine

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

We do not want to look as though we are being opportunistic in saying we could hold the conference in the UK, but I am sure many Members will have suggestions about their constituencies.

I want to make my position clear: no Russian or Belarusian athletes or sportspeople should be taking part in any sporting competitions. That is why, as I have said, I am meeting, I hope, 20-plus Ministers—my opposite numbers—this afternoon to reach a joint position with other nations, so that we can move forward on a platform of understanding that we all have the same opinion and the same approach, which will make it much easier to deal with such situations as they arise throughout this difficult period.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I want to praise the Secretary of State for what she said about our broadcast journalists, and I would perhaps add Channel 4 News and Sky News to the list she gave. I do hope she takes that into account when considering the future of Channel 4. I also want to praise what she said about my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). However, I do recall attending—and history should recall this—the best ever attended all-party parliamentary group meeting in this House when hundreds of her colleagues were mobilised to depose my hon. Friend as the chair of the all-party group on Russia because of his strong views on Vladimir Putin.

Leaving that aside, on the issue of Everton football club, Alisher Usmanov has been sanctioned by the EU for being a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Does the Secretary of State think it is acceptable that his assets are currently funding Everton football club?

[Ms Dorries]

On the hon. Member’s first point, I do not think that my colleagues hit the APPG—