Salisbury Incident

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, we do not comment on individual cases—the hon. Lady is absolutely right about that. On national security, we regularly monitor and update the actions taken to protect people and premises here in the UK based on the threat as we perceive it at the time.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

As someone who has campaigned for a Magnitsky law and who was a member of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Public Bill Committee, may I say that the Opposition amendments, though well intentioned, were flawed and can be improved on? I am extremely grateful for the co-operation of Ministers and hope that the discussions will be fruitful. Will my right hon. Friend reflect the need for our allies abroad to understand that this could easily have happened in a provincial town in France, Germany or any other country, and that we are looking for action as well as warm words of support?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, a supporter of the Magnitsky law, for highlighting the point I was trying to make earlier, which is that if amendments are to be added to legislation, we need to ensure they are workable. We need to get the amendments right. On his point about our allies, he is absolutely right: we should point out to people that this could have happened anywhere, in any provincial town or city like Salisbury.