Salisbury Incident Update

Lord Mackay of Clashfern Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Statement made clear, we have asked the Russian ambassador to respond within 24 hours to the questions that we have put to him, and I do not think it is right for me to prejudge any of the responses. I have made clear that we will be returning to the House once those conversations have been had and a decision is made as to how to proceed on the basis of the information received.

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)]

My Lords, I read recently that the Russians complained that they had not been shown the evidence in relation to Litvinenko’s case. I hope it is possible to show them evidence this time that should convince them of the rightness of our conclusion, although that is of course subject to other aspects that I am not aware of. But I think we ought to do our best to convince them, if they are open to being convinced, that this is true.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

As the Statement set out, we have spoken to the Russian ambassador and set out, on the basis of the evidence that we have, what we believe the two possible explanations are for what happened in Salisbury, and we are waiting to hear their response.