Incident in Salisbury

Lord Faulks Excerpts

Thursday 8th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

Obviously Porton Down is very close to where the incident took place. We co-operate in various areas but I do not know whether we are co-operating with the US on this particular issue. I can find out for the noble Lord.

[Lord Faulks (Con)]

My Lords, I think the House will understand why the Minister has to be very circumspect when answering questions about the ongoing investigation, and will appreciate that she has told the House that it is a matter of the utmost priority that the perpetrators will be sought out and justice will be served. However, the incident involving the death of Litvinenko does not provide a happy precedent in terms of the time that elapsed between his poisoning and a High Court judge finally concluding that it was the result of deliberate Russian activity. Could the Minister reassure us that, quite apart from the criminal investigation, the Home Office will take responsibility to ensure that all matters surrounding the very serious injuries—we hope that they are just injuries—to these two will be investigated, and that all the lessons from Litvinenko and other questionable incidents will be learned so as to reduce the possibility of recurrence?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I can confirm to my noble friend that all matters surrounding this will be investigated thoroughly. I cannot stress that enough, actually. On the question of Litvinenko and lessons learned, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko was a blatant and unacceptable breach of the most fundamental tenets of international law and civilised behaviour. At the time, the Government responded robustly and, following the publication of the report, we made representations in the strongest possible terms to the Russian Government and put in place asset freezes against the main suspects. For my noble friend’s information, we have demanded and continue to demand that the Russian Government account for the role of the FSB in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.