Oral Answers to Questions

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I join my hon. Friend in thanking all those businesses, but I also thank all the charities and individual families up and down the country who have shown the traditional big-heartedness that makes this country so great. My hon. Friend will, of course, be aware of the new sponsorship scheme, for which 100,000 people have applied. Working with businesses is particularly valuable, not just in allowing those who come here to gain access to work but in helping them to integrate into society as confident members of our community.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q4. I am sure the Deputy Prime Minister will agree that when it comes to judging a person, it is often done by the company they keep. When it comes to tennis, the Prime Minister enjoys both the company and the backhanders of Lubov Chernukhin. When it came to celebrating the election victory, he prioritised the party hosted by the former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev. The Prime Minister counts a great many others—such as Victor Fedotov and Alex Temerko—as friends. Can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us what first attracted the Prime Minister to the billionaire Russian oligarchs?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I was not quite sure where the hon. Gentleman was going at the beginning of his question, but I can tell him that the Prime Minister is not just a very social individual—[Laughter.] He also wants this country to be open and outward-looking to the world. We were the Government—he was the Prime Minister and I was the Foreign Secretary—who introduced the Sergei Magnitsky sanctions, which include human rights sanctions, asset-freezing and visa bans. Those have been applied not just to Russians when we have evidence of wrongdoing, but to the murderers of Khashoggi, the persecutors of the Myanmar minority, and many others. It was this Government who did that, not the Labour party.