Amesbury Incident

Lord Benyon Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her support and her comments and join her in stating again that the whole House wishes the victims a very speedy recovery. I very much welcome her questions, which I shall try to respond to in turn.

The right hon. Lady asked, perfectly correctly, for reassurance that this incident is not connected in any way to the areas that were decontaminated after the original incident back in March. We are very comfortable that that is not the case—and that is not just the view of Ministers on their own; it is the view of experts, especially the decontamination experts. They are clear that the decontamination exercise was successful, as is Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, and we are happy to say that those areas are all safe. We are also comfortable that, from what we know, in this particular incident neither individual contracted or came into contact with the nerve agent at any of the decontaminated areas. That is our belief.

The right hon. Lady asked whether there was any more information on the connection between this incident and the original incident. That is of course the main line of inquiry for the police, for obvious reasons, but as she alluded to—it is worth restating—none of us should rush to prejudge the outcome of the investigation. As more evidence and any information comes out, we will of course share that with Members and with the wider public.

The right hon. Lady rightly raised the issue of resources, and I can reassure her on that. In fact, one of the main things that we discussed at the Cobra meeting earlier was ensuring that all the necessary resources are made available, as they were back in March. We wanted to make sure that that applied to everyone involved in dealing with this incident, but particularly local police, CT policing and the security services. I am comfortable that any resources required will be provided and any further requests will be met. That will be a priority for us.

The right hon. Lady mentioned the impact on the local area, and she was right to do so. People local to the area were heroic in their response to the original attack and have united, together as a community, and sent a clear message of support for each other. At the time of the original incident, there was a lot of support from the local council, Wiltshire Council, and from local political leaders, including my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen), who contacted me at the moment he knew about the incident to ask about further support. We are looking at what more can be done. We will meet the leader of the local council, Baroness Jane Scott, and talk about precisely that, and we will also talk about, as the right hon. Lady mentioned, local businesses, many of which were just starting to recover. Whether they are high street shops or part of the local tourist trade, we want to make sure that their business is as unaffected as possible, so we are looking at what further support we can provide to them. The right hon. Lady was absolutely right to raise that point.

The right hon. Lady asked about local health expertise. The Department of Health and Social Care is of course making sure that if any extra resources are required, they will be provided to the health services. It is particularly important that, given that it is where the victims are, Salisbury District Hospital has all the support needed. My current understanding is that in respect of the two victims in this case, the health professionals in the hospital were able to use some of the experience that they gained from March’s incident in their approach, which meant that the right type of medical support was provided earlier than it perhaps would have been otherwise. There is considerable local expertise, but of course if more needs to be provided, it will be.

Lastly, the right hon. Lady asked me about an update on the police investigation into the original case. That investigation is of course ongoing and involves CT policing, local police and the security services, but it would be inappropriate for me to say anything further on that at this point.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

We can be sure that this incident will be used by Russian state misinformation campaigns to try further to obfuscate what happened in March. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital that we counter that through a steady drumbeat of telling the truth about what happened in March and of giving as much information about this incident as we can, when we can?

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point. He will know that the Russian disinformation campaign has already begun. As soon as this news was made public yesterday, we saw that, certainly on social media. For that reason and many more, it is important that, as more evidence of what happened emerges, the UK, together with our international allies, presents that to the public and makes it very clear and very factual.