Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

May I start by saying that I take serious exception to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), who I see is just about to leave the Chamber? She complained about us spending an afternoon talking “laboriously” about process. It is process that is on the face of the motion that the Leader of the Opposition has brought to the Chamber today, and that is what we are debating. That is because of the hon. Lady’s party. I am more than happy to spend an afternoon talking about process, because that is what we are here to do.

I speak in this debate on privileges with a unique perspective—one garnered from almost 15 years of experience working in a highly regulated sector, with responsibility for managing financial crime and reputational risk at two FTSE 100 firms, accountable for decisions made in managing conflicts of interest, promoting ethical codes of practice, training staff on when to do the right thing, testing the effectiveness of whistleblowing regimes and completing enhanced due diligence on individuals who posed heightened risk. That experience was gathered in the UK, the US, India, the UAE and elsewhere. I also speak as a recently departed member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who sat in Portcullis House only in November and quizzed Sir Chris Wormald, the former Cabinet Secretary, and Sir Olly Robbins, the former permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, when they gave oral evidence to the Committee in the light of the sacking of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington.

Let me say first that my thoughts are with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein’s terrible crimes. Nothing we say or do today can take away from the unimaginable hurt and pain that that man caused and continues to cause for victims, survivors, and their friends and families. Today and all days, we must remember them and do all that we can to support them in their continued fight for justice.

Secondly, I will confine my remarks to the specifics of the proposed referral to the Privileges Committee in the motion today. Mandelson’s appointment, what was recorded in the proprietary and ethics team’s due diligence report, and the UK Security Vetting process have all been debated on numerous occasions in this place already, and there remain live reviews under way that I do not want to preclude in any way.

Thirdly, the Prime Minister has rightly recognised that appointing Mandelson as ambassador to Washington was a mistake. Mandelson’s behaviour has been contemptible, and we are in no doubt on the Government Benches that he should never have been appointed. It was a mistake for which the PM has faced significant opprobrium, and there have been consequences for him—let us not forget that.

The honest truth is that we are all fallible. The PM made an error of judgment. For that, he rightly apologised in the House last Monday and sought forgiveness. As I will set out, to suggest that he has in any way misled the House is a political fabrication anchored not in truth but in a smokescreen of political mendacity that supposes a cock-up somehow equates to a conspiracy.

The Opposition moved a motion to have the Prime Minister referred to the Privileges Committee—something that has not happened since Boris Johnson’s referral back in the early part of 2022. That case and the matters being debated today are like chalk and cheese. Johnson was referred to the Privileges Committee for the most egregious of lockdown breaches: partying in No. 10, in breach of the rules, while we all made daily sacrifices to contain the virus; denying that he had breached the rules; and then doubling down on his denials.

Reading back through the Committee’s 108-page final report from 2023 gave me flashbacks, especially in recalling that Johnson misled the House on no fewer than six occasions, that he misled the Privileges Committee, that he breached confidence, that he impugned the Committee and undermined the democratic processes of the House and—perhaps most importantly—that he was complicit in a campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee. I mention all that not to advance a political argument but rather to warn Conservative colleagues that the country has not forgotten what took place the last time the Privileges Committee convened to consider a PM’s conduct, and to advise them to take heed of that history.

[Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is speaking wisely of the time when Boris Johnson was before the Privileges Committee. Does he believe the House should remember that that Prime Minister lost an anti-corruption champion, who resigned over the issue? Conservative Members would be well placed to remember what happened when the Privileges Committee found misdeeds and wrongdoing on the part of that Prime Minister.

[Phil Brickell]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. He is a noble campaigner on cleaning up the House and the public sector more broadly.

The Opposition’s motion supposes that the PM may have misled the House due to statements he gave in this place about due process and about pressure. This is a complex topic. Given the forensic demolition of the motion by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis) with reference to pressure, I will focus my remarks on due process.

Before I speak more pointedly to process, as flagged by the Opposition, let me say this: I have no special access to information and I have not spoken to any of the individuals concerned regarding Mandelson in any way, shape or form since the Humble Address. I offer only my analysis based on the documents we have been given and statements made to the House by the Prime Minister and others when giving evidence before Parliament.

I speak as a Member of the House who is determined to drive up standards in public life, to improve the integrity of our system of government and to work constructively with Members of all political persuasions to improve the standing of politics as a force for good in the country at large. That is why only last week I met the Ethics and Integrity Commission to give formal input into that body’s workstream to tighten rules about financial disclosures, lobbying and the operation of the business appointment rules as they relate to Ministers and senior civil servants. But first, let us consider ongoing proceedings.

On 4 February, the House passed a Humble Address relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as His Majesty’s ambassador to Washington DC. It directed Government to

“lay before this House all papers relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment…including but not confined to the Cabinet Office due diligence which was passed to Number 10, the Conflict of Interest Form Lord Mandelson provided to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office…material the FCDO and the Cabinet Office provided to UK Security Vetting”

as well as, among others,

“all information on Lord Mandelson provided to the Prime Minister prior to his assurance to this House on 10 September 2025 that ‘full due process was followed during this appointment’”.

Subject to agreed redactions for national security and international relations purposes as agreed with the Intelligence and Security Committee, the first volume of material was published by the Cabinet Office on 11 March.

Last Tuesday, the Foreign Affairs Committee took evidence from Sir Olly Robbins, the former permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. On Thursday, the Committee heard from Catherine Little, the civil service chief operating officer and permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office. Earlier today, the Committee heard from Sir Philip Barton, the previous permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, as well as from Morgan McSweeney, the former chief of staff at 10 Downing Street. There is also a separate live police investigation being undertaken by the Met into Mandelson, which the Cabinet Office will be keen to avoid prejudicing. It will require a delicate balancing of information to ensure that detectives are able to conduct their vital work without it being in any way overshadowed by ongoing parliamentary inquiries.

This brings me to the reasoning for today’s debate brought by the official Opposition. The first limb is due process. To the best of my ability, my understanding is that the Opposition contend that due process was not followed, first, because UK security vetting took place after Mandelson’s appointment and, secondly, because his vetting decision was not escalated for discussion with No. 10 or the Cabinet Office.

On the sequencing of events, let me set the record straight as I see it. When the Cabinet Office published its first volume of material after the Humble Address, it included a file note dated 11 November 2024 and marked:

“Official Sensitive—Personal and Staffing. Advice to the Prime Minister, Options for His Majesty’s Ambassador Washington.”

In that note, written to the PM by Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary at the time, it is laid out in very clear language that one option was a political appointment, as was undertaken when Ed Llewellyn was appointed as HM Ambassador Paris by David Cameron in 2016 and as HM Ambassador Rome by Boris Johnson in 2022, for which there was a clear process to go through. To quote Lord Case in that note to the PM:

“If this is the route you wish to take you should give us the name of the person you would like to appoint and we will develop a plan for them to acquire the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential Conflicts of Interest or other issues of which you should be aware before confirming your choice. A letter is then needed from the Foreign Secretary to the PUS to FCDO formalising the decision to make a political appointment.”

That was in November 2024.

Simon Case’s note was followed up by another note dated 11 December 2024 from the PM’s principal private secretary, Nin Pandit, noting that due diligence had been sought from the propriety and ethics team in the Cabinet Office on Mandelson—checks which were conducted by PET on 4 December 2024. After that, the PM’s chief of staff discussed Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein and noted that the PM’s director of communications was satisfied with Mandelson’s responses to questions about contact. Importantly, this was before further information came to light in September of last year, when it was identified that those responses were not truthful.

[Dr Luke Evans]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Phil Brickell]

I am going to make some progress, if that is okay—[Interruption.] I am in the flow of things and I am not halfway through yet, so I have a long way to go.

The PM’s PPS flagged that the relationship between Mandelson and Epstein would be gone over with the Prime Minister by his private office, and the principal private secretary noted that after a decision to proceed was made, only then would a decision be made as to when to make any appointment and announce it, and when the new ambassador would take up post, subject to a letter from the Foreign Secretary to the permanent under-secretary at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, followed by approval by the King and then agrément being obtained from the US Administration.

Correspondence from No. 10 to the permanent under-secretary at the FCDO, and from the FCDO PUS at the time, Sir Philip Barton, to the King’s private secretary, was disclosed in the first volume of material published following the Humble Address, which testifies to this sequence of events having taken place. On 20 December 2024, the private secretary to the permanent under-secretary at the FCDO emailed Mandelson congratulating him on his appointment and noting his onboarding, including regarding his “clearance”, which the head of the US and Canada Department of the FCDO noted on 23 December 2024 was an important “first step”.

When Sir Olly Robbins came before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 3 November last year, he said in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson):

“as is normally the case with external appointments to my Department and the wider civil service, the appointment was made subject to obtaining security clearance.”

Moreover, Sir Olly confirmed in that very session:

“we also went through the standard UK national security vetting process for DV… I am absolutely confident that UKSV undertook the process in precisely its standard way, doing all the checks it would expect to do, and we had ample time to assess and decide on the basis of its work.”

In reference to the remarks by the hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), it was worth noting for the record that it was confirmed to the Foreign Affairs Committee that the high-risk concerns in SV were not Epstein-related.

[Sorcha Eastwood]

Does that make it better?

[Phil Brickell]

I am correcting the hon. Member on the points mentioned here; I am not here to talk about the process—we will come on to that shortly.

Chris Wormald, the former Cabinet Secretary, noted at the same session on 3 November that

“the normal thing is for the security clearance to happen after appointment but before the person signs a contract”

—as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) mentioned—and

“takes up post. If we are recruiting a permanent secretary or similar from outside the civil service, that is normally what would happen: the security clearance process would happen after the announcement of the appointment but before the person takes up post, and the appointment would be subject to the security clearance being granted.”

Mandelson was issued an FCDO employment contract with a start date of 3 February 2025. Section 17 of that contract, entitled “Security Clearance”, was explicit:

“You must obtain the required level of security clearance as soon as possible and maintain the required level of security clearance throughout your employment.”

Dated 30 January 2025, Mandelson’s offer of fixed-term employment with the FCDO confirmed his

“security clearance has been confirmed by Vetting Unit and is valid until 29 January 2030.”

I will not be selective in referring to evidence given to this House that favours one view or another, so let me be clear: Olly Robbins mentioned in his letter of 21 April to the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee that the then Cabinet Secretary at the time of Mandelson’s appointment being proposed, Simon Case, recommended—the operative word—in November 2024 that vetting should have been completed before an announcement was made. But in the very same letter of 21 April, Robbins was also explicit in confirming that:

“When the Prime Minister informed the House that the proper process had been followed in respect of NSV, he was correct.”

Moreover, on the topic of vetting, Robbins stood by the letter he wrote with the Foreign Secretary to the Foreign Affairs Committee on 16 September 2025, in which he confirmed:

“Ministers…are not informed of any findings other than the final outcome.”

He went on to state in his letter on 21 April:

“This position reflected long-standing practice and guidance, and correctly constrained our ability to share information beyond the vetting process then or later.”

He noted that the FCDO

“completed DV to the normal high standard”;

that he, Robbins, met the director for the estates, security and network directorate and was briefed orally that Mandelson was

“a ‘borderline’ case, leaning towards recommending that clearance be denied”;

that the highest risks “could be managed and mitigated”, as recommended by ESND; and that UKSV acknowledged that the FCDO may wish to grant clearance. Robbins also confirmed that UK Security Vetting

“did not ‘fail’ Mandelson and FCDO did not ‘overrule’ their decision”;

that a risk-based decision was arrived at by the FCDO, taking into account the feedback from UKSV as a result of the full vetting process having been gone through; and that

“DV clearance is a risk judgement.”

Sir Olly was clear in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee recently that no direct communication took place between anyone in No. 10 and himself, that the interaction between UK Security Vetting and the Foreign Office was “entirely standard”, and that clearance was granted subject to mitigations agreed following an FCDO security department assessment that could address the highest risks associated with Mandelson.

Take the remarks from Cat Little, civil service chief operating officer and permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office, in her oral evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. She was clear in her remarks last week:

“My view is that due process was followed, and if I might explain why I believe that, it is because the process, as I have outlined to the Committee, is that UKSV makes a recommendation and the Foreign Office makes a decision as to whether to grant DV. That is the process, and that is the process that is agreed with the Foreign Office.”

Furthermore, Cat Little was clear about vetting in her oral evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee:

“I do have access to a number of emails that have been disclosed recently to me… What I can see is that there is a senior official from the Government Security Group who goes back to the Foreign Office security team and advises two things: one, that this is a decision for the Foreign Office, and two, that they would advise that developed vetting is sought.”

She went on to say that

“the Prime Minister did not know about the UKSV conclusion, and he did not know which specific risks were identified at the time of appointment.”

Only this morning, former Foreign Office permanent secretary Sir Philip Barton told the Committee that he was confident that the appropriate process was carried out.

Those are not my comments, but those of senior civil servants—a former Cabinet Secretary, two former permanent under-secretaries of the FCDO and the current permanent under-secretary at the Cabinet Office—and they all stand in direct contract with the motion before the House. They are all of the view that proper process was followed. I know whose words I would rather believe. Their remarks chime with those of the Prime Minister, who said:

“for a direct ministerial appointment, it was usual for security vetting to happen after the appointment but before the individual starting in post.”—[Official Report, 20 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 24.]

Opposition Members might object to the process—they would be right to do so—but it was set out at the time of the appointment, and it was followed by the Cabinet Office, the FCDO, UKSV and, ultimately, the Prime Minister. As the Minister ultimately accountable for the decision, the Prime Minister has rightly changed the process so that appointments can be confirmed only once vetting has been completed. He has rightly appointed Sir Adrian Fulford to lead a review of security vetting to ensure consistency across Government in the way decision makers are informed of concerns ahead of appointments.

The Prime Minister has rightly set up the Ethics and Integrity Commission and tasked it with improving processes around lobbying, the revolving door between Government and the private sector, and financial transparency. I commend him for those steps and for his commitment to introducing as soon as possible legislation allowing for the removal of disgraced peers—that is the right thing to do. I trust that the legislation will obtain support from across this House.

Only yesterday, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister confirmed that

“the Cabinet Office will have passed to the ISC all the material it has processed as part of the Humble Address and judged to be prejudicial to national security or international relations. This has amounted to over 300 individual documents. It includes a number that are relevant to the processes of Peter Mandelson’s security vetting, too.”—[Official Report, 27 April 2026; Vol. 784, c. 588.]

We expect the second tranche of documents under the ambit of the Humble Address to be published after Parliament returns following Prorogation.

As mentioned in yesterday’s ministerial statement on progress on the Humble Address, outstanding documents are either with the Government awaiting publication, with the ISC, or with the Metropolitan police, given the ongoing criminal investigation into Mandelson. The last time a Prime Minister’s conduct was referred to the Privileges Committee was during the covid pandemic. Boris Johnson was under investigation by the Metropolitan police for repeatedly partying in No. 10 during lockdown. He then misled the House by saying that rules had been followed when they had not. The police had issued fixed penalty notices for breaches of covid-19 regulations.

I have mentioned the Cabinet Office’s vital ongoing work to review the documents within the remit of the Humble Address, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s work to review proposed redactions, the Foreign Affairs Committee’s public evidence sessions, and the wholly separate police investigation. My question to the Leader of the Opposition is: why bring this motion now? Why bring this motion when we have not had the full disclosure of the documents within the ambit of the Humble Address, including the private messages, WhatsApps, and the additional minutes and file notes that were not published in volume one back in March. Why duplicate the work that is already being undertaken by the Cabinet Office and the ISC under the Humble Address? Why not wait until after Prorogation, when the full documentary evidence is available, to determine whether a Privileges Committee referral is warranted? Why not wait until all relevant witnesses have given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee? We are only just digesting the evidence given today.

The Leader of the Opposition makes much of due process in her motion. My retort is simple: due process ought also to be followed in getting to the truth. Let all the documents be released, and then let this House determine the facts of the matter. The cynic in me would say that today’s privileges motion is nothing but a bare-faced political stunt by the Conservative party, which, with just over a week to go until the local elections, is clutching at straws. It politicises the important review process that is under way across Government and Westminster. Hard-working and dedicated civil servants are working alongside Ministers to ensure that the Humble Address is fulfilled as quickly as possible. My first obligation is to this country above all else. I owe it to my constituents to outline my rationale and my way of thinking, as I have done. I will vote with the Government today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

We discussed this issue directly at the Berlin conference. I agree with the hon. Member. To be honest, I think that the international community has failed the people of Sudan. The war continues in the most horrendous circumstances. We have urged anyone who can to put pressure on the RSF and the SAF, and they must allow humanitarian access to people who desperately need it.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Businesses in my constituency including trailer manufacturer Indespension are labouring under a mountain of repetitive, costly and unnecessary paperwork because the last Government failed to negotiate a regime for mutual recognition of conformity assessments. What progress has the Foreign Secretary made, with the Paymaster General, in removing the Brexit barriers to trade that are holding back British businesses abroad?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)]

My hon. Friend raises an important question on behalf of his constituents. Our long-term national interest, and indeed the interest of businesses in his constituency, requires a closer EU partnership anchored in common understanding. We are tackling trade barriers, and we are working hard on these issues with the Paymaster General. We continue to discuss the challenges faced by manufacturers on both sides, as well as trade and co-operation agreement implementation, at the trade specialised committees. We will have a chance to discuss many of these issues at the further summit that we will have later this year.

Ukraine: Non-recognition of Russian-occupied Territories

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[Alex Sobel]

I deeply thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. It is absolutely right that the most vulnerable children on this planet are Ukrainian children in the Russian-occupied territories, and Ukrainian children who used to be in the Russian occupied territories but who are now falsely imprisoned in Russia, either in camps or through false adoption by Russian parents, including members of the Russian Government. There is no greater symbol of how monstrous Russia is than its treatment of Ukrainian children.

Ukrainian civilians in the temporarily occupied territories are being abducted or unjustly imprisoned by Russia on a massive scale. At a minimum, several thousand Ukrainian civilians have suffered this mistreatment. Let me guide hon. Members through Russia’s systemic abuse of the Ukrainian civilian population in the temporarily occupied areas.

First, there is persecution, including the creation of blacklists and the monitoring of the activities of individuals who are associated with civic activism. Secondly, there are arrests in the temporarily occupied territories, which means detaining individuals expressing views that are deemed inconsistent with Russia’s position. Thirdly, there is deportation and forcible transfer, with the use of official and unofficial detention sites in over 30 regions across Russia and Belarus to forcibly transfer detained Ukrainian civilians. Next, there are enforced disappearances. Following deportation, many civilians disappear, and their location and condition remain unknown to their relatives. Finally, there are unfair trials and illegal imprisonment. After some time, often years, civilians are brought to court, where they receive a sentence on fabricated charges, mostly relating to terrorism or espionage, which is straight out of the playbook of Stalin’s Soviet Union.

The United Nations has identified more than 100 sites that have been used for these activities since February 2022, located in every occupied Ukrainian province and across Russia and Belarus. Frequently, ad hoc prisons were set up in seized towns, where police stations, Government buildings, basements, schools and industrial sites were used to detain perceived dissidents. Some of these facilities have become notorious. In Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been occupied since 2014, prisons such as Izolyatsia gained a reputation for the use of electroshock torture and beatings. Since 2022, similar filtration camps and makeshift prisons have proliferated across the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv regions.

Today, the Holocaust Memorial Day debate is happening in the main Chamber as we speak. I do not draw parallels with the Holocaust lightly, but the secrecy surrounding these torture camps, in which Ukrainian civilians are persecuted, cannot be overlooked. Ukrainians have been through the Holodomor, the Holocaust and now, Russian occupation. Ukrainian identity is being continuously eradicated, both physically and mentally.

During Russia’s invasion, 664 cultural heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed. Moscow has made it clear that nowhere is immune from missile strikes, even close to NATO territory. Looking outside the occupied territories, at the live targeting of the Lviv region, we have immense fears for the civilian population. Journalist Jen Stout highlights that one of the reasons why Lviv’s historic city centre is so unique and was designated a UNESCO world heritage site in 1998 is that it survived both the first and second world wars intact, unlike so many other central European cities.

Haemorrhaging Ukrainian culture through the killing, forcible kidnapping and removals of civilians and children, and the obliteration of their historic landscape is not the only way in which the Russification of temporarily occupied territories is being carried out. Ukrainian teachers from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions report that after the occupation they were banned from teaching Ukrainian and using the Ukrainian curriculum, and are required to accept the new system. Those who refused faced persecution, threats of violence and detention in the centres that I described. Many people have been forced to go underground or leave their homes to preserve their identity and safety.

Returning to the atrocities being committed against children, it is alarming that there are points of view about how these atrocities are not ongoing. Overcoming that disinformation with the credibility of non-recognition of Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine is essential. We cannot allow Russian misinformation to win.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Ukrainian language education has been banned, cultural heritage sites have been destroyed and children have been transferred to Russia under the guise of evacuation, as has been mentioned. Does my hon. Friend agree that those acts demonstrate that occupation is not merely territorial, but an attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, and that that makes the policy of non-recognition all the more vital?

[Alex Sobel]

Absolutely; Russification is the central policy of the Kremlin. It is happening today in the occupied territories, and we need to ensure that it ends and does not spread through the rest of Ukraine. That is why the self defence of Ukraine is so important.

Many of the abducted children have lost their parents, who have either been jailed in the detention centres I discussed earlier, or killed by Russian forces. Russian families come to the occupied territories of Ukraine, abduct the children of detained or murdered parents and take them to Russia. Some Members may have heard the interview on the BBC’s “Ukrainecast” in December about the so-called Russian “children’s rights commissioner”, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the allegedly unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children. She gave an interview in October on Russian talk show in which she openly discussed a child she claimed to have “adopted” from Mariupol. She described how Philip, a young Ukrainian boy, was reluctant to accept a Russian identity. She described how he spends his time—in Moscow, in her home—on Ukrainian websites and singing songs in Ukrainian, but also how she managed to “gradually” change his mindset to the “way things were”. Those abducted Ukrainian children will consequently be militarised and indoctrinated, and used as troops against their own people.

Those atrocities, along with the disinformation fed to Russian troops about how they are “liberating” Ukrainians by occupying their territories, needs to be called out consistently by the international community. The policy of non-recognition of Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine can help with that process. Temporary occupation, regardless of duration, is illegal and does not confer any territorial rights upon the occupying power. Journalists who have tried to document events have also become victims of torture and repression. Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna was abducted and died in Russian captivity after a prolonged secret detention with signs of violence.

An expert mission report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe found that the arbitrary deprivation of the liberties of Ukrainian civilians has been a “defining feature” of Russian-occupied territories since 2014. These reports underscore that the perpetration of seven particular crimes against Ukrainian civilians by Russian authorities violate international law and likely amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity. These seven interlocking crimes against humanity, which illustrate what I have spoken about today, are: persecution, illegal detention, deportation or forceable transfer, enforced disappearance, torture and other inhumane acts, sexual violence, and illegal imprisonment. They mutually reinforce one another to disable dissent and consolidate control over areas that Russia has illegally occupied during its war of aggression against Ukraine.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Alex Ballinger]

Yes, I will continue.

The strategic logic is straightforward. Diego Garcia’s location, infrastructure and operational utility are indispensable.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

On the security of the base, does my hon. Friend recall the visit to Washington DC that I think we both went on last year as members of the Foreign Affairs Committee? We spoke to many American interlocutors, including State Department officials. Over the course of an entire week in the US capital, not a single US interlocutor disagreed with or opposed the deal before us.

[Alex Ballinger]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. This treaty has been through the interagency process in America and has support across the system. Colleagues may have mentioned the President changing his position, but the US system is much wider than that, and I do not think we should we should base our long-term strategic and security interests on Truth Social posts.

This House should reject Lords amendments 1, 5 and 6, support the Government’s sensible procedural amendment 4, and pass this Bill in a way that protects national security, rather than gambling with it.

Arctic Security

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

As a proud member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, I thank the Foreign Secretary for her visit to our Marines at Camp Viking in Norway, and for her unequivocal stance in support of collective security with NATO at its heart. I welcome the Rycroft review of foreign interference in our politics. In the context of NATO and Arctic security, does the Foreign Secretary agree it is vital that we get to the bottom of the role that Russian money plays in trying to subvert our public discourse on these hugely important issues?

[Yvette Cooper]

I know that my hon. Friend and others have been raising this issue, particularly about the hybrid threats from Russia. There are the direct threats we see in the Arctic, but also broader hybrid threats, which range from sabotage—of undersea cables, for example—to foreign interference, including information interference. The Foreign Affairs Committee is doing an important inquiry into this issue, and I look forward to its conclusions, but we have substantially increased UK sanctions to address some of the interference threats.

Ukraine

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I have been complaining at home recently because the heating broke down, and I felt that was not being taken seriously by my other half. It was minus 1°C, I was really cold and I had been moaning about it for a week. Then it was pointed out to me that right now in Ukraine, in Kyiv, it is minus 12°C, although it feels like minus 16°C, and overnight it will be minus 17°C. To stop myself moaning, I have put the temperatures in London and in Kyiv on my phone.

I keep remembering that in Kyiv ordinary men and women are having to battle against the cold, and their infrastructure is being deliberately attacked by Putin to try to undermine their morale. What happened on Monday night? There were 293 drones and 18 missiles in a bombardment. Air defences shot down 240 drones and seven missiles, but there was damage to critical civilian infrastructure in Kyiv and across Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk.

There are now several hundred thousand households without any power or heating. There are 500 high-rise tower blocks where people are really cold, and they have acute shortages of electricity. The Russians are doing this on purpose. This is not proper warfare. This is such a basic thing—you are not supposed to target civilians when you are at war; it is against the law. When you are at war, you are at war, so go for the combatants; do not go for the children, nursery schools and housing estates. Do not bomb blocks of flats. That is not right or proper; it is illegal, immoral and wrong.

The people are exhausted. They are about to hit their fourth year of being at war with Russia, but what is so amazing is the strength, focus, fortitude and bravery of these people, which has absolutely hit me in the heart when I have talked to Ukrainians. They are absolutely determined to keep their country Ukrainian, and they will not allow the Russians to win. No matter how hard it is, how cold it is or how many people are lost, they will continue to fight. They stand resolute, and we stand with Ukraine and with those brave people.

On the Foreign Affairs Committee, we have had the honour of not only visiting Ukraine, but having a number of meetings with the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Committee. Its members have varied over the years. During the most recent meeting, the chair was the only person we could see. I joked about it to start with—I was going, “They ought to turn the lights on.” What an idiot! They do not have any lights or any power. The members were talking to us from their cars, because they could put on the heating and a light in their car and talk to us that way. That was how we had a meeting with the Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Committee, but the members of the Committee showed up and told us what they had to say. We stand with Ukraine—this bravery!

There are many things that we can do. I am really encouraged to hear that we are bolstering the work that we need to do when it comes to the shadow fleet. If anybody does not understand it, the shadow fleet is a fleet of ageing ships of obscure ownership that are uninsured and often environmentally unsound. They are being used to transport sanctioned Russian oil products to get around the oil price cap.

I hope that we can find legal grounds for deploying military assets against the shadow fleet under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 and do insurance spot checks on false-flag ships, some of which were expelled by the countries for which they used to wave the flag and claim they came from. Some of those countries do not even have a shipping register, yet the ships still claim that they belong to those countries. If the ships are not insured, we can really take action, and I am glad to hear that we are going to step that up. That sort of sanction busting must stop.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

On that point, two tankers from the shadow fleet were scheduled to go through the channel earlier today. The shadow fleet exists solely to keep money flowing to the Kremlin, while threatening maritime safety and environmental security. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the UK Government should be mindful of other aspects relevant to this debate as we continue to pursue the shadow fleet that allows Putin to wage his unwarranted and unlawful invasion?

[Emily Thornberry]

I agree completely. We need to be as creative as possible when it comes to the shadow fleet, and there is always more that we can do. The Foreign Affairs Committee and many of its talented members are always available to give as many suggestions as the Government wish to hear. One thing that worries me is that it is all very well having creative ways of imposing sanctions, but they are only as good as their enforcement. When I push the Government on exactly how much effort they are putting into enforcement and how much investment is going in, I am always concerned that although those sanctions may look good on paper, things may be slipping through the net. We need to ensure that we mean what we say, and that we do it.

There are a couple of other issues that I would like to briefly cover. First, although there is a hot war going on in Ukraine—that is one war that is going on in Europe—we are all agreed that Europe is also at war with Russia on another basis. That is the new hybrid warfare, the sort of warfare that is more difficult to identify, whether Russia is subjecting us to sabotage, cyber-attacks, or misinformation and disinformation. We are at war with Russia, and it is trying to undermine our democracies and our countries. Nowhere is that clearer than around the Black sea, which is of huge strategic importance to Russia. The countries around the Black sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, have all been subjected to a level of hybrid warfare that we need to look at, not just because we need to be of assistance to them—we are all in this together—but because that is a portent of what could happen to us.

Yesterday, the Committee heard from Ana Revenco about the ongoing hybrid warfare that Moldova is subjected to. It is at the forefront of hybrid warfare; it faces cyber-attacks, illicit financing schemes, prolific information manipulation campaigns and political rhetoric espoused by Kremlin-linked actors. Some of us in the Chamber might be thinking, “We already have some of that—in fact, we probably have all of that”, but we only have it at a low level. However, we are heading for elections, and elections are always a time when a democracy is at its most vulnerable. We must not be complacent, but I fear that sometimes we are. We are a great democracy; we have been going for a long time, and we think, “Oh, it’ll be fine”, because of course we are an island. If, like Finland, we had Russia right on our border, we would have a very different attitude, but in modern times, whether or not we have a land border, Russia can still try to influence our democracy by undermining us. If we open our eyes, we can see that there is ongoing disinformation that is trying to undermine our democracy right now, and the problem is that the public are not alive to it. The last thing anybody ever wants to admit is that they have been lied to and they have fallen for it. Trying to explain to them afterwards that they have done so is just impossible, so we need to ensure that we counter that disinformation right now.

For the Russians, Britain is the No. 1 enemy in Europe. Looking at their rhetoric and the sorts of things they say about us, it is Britain they loathe more than practically any other country. I am proud of that, but we need to be mindful of what it means for our country. The Russians believe that we are responsible for triggering the second world war and many subsequent conflicts. In today’s context, that is projected on to the war in Ukraine, where Britain is portrayed as not merely a supporter of Kyiv, but the architect and main driver of the conflict. Listening to some of the things their secret service has been openly saying about us, it is as if everything that is happening in Ukraine is down to us—I wish it were, but the rhetoric is definitely against us. They advance a conspiratorial vision in which Britain is acting as not just Ukraine’s ally but the mastermind behind a proxy war, persuading Europe to fight to the last Ukrainian. The chairman of the state Duma even alleged recently that we were orchestrating specific incidents, such as the shelling of Belgorod, close to the Ukrainian border. So it goes on. Russian propaganda routinely accuses the UK of being involved in terrorist attacks and acts of sabotage targeting Russia, or Russian nationals. The allegations include the poisoning of Litvinenko, the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic sea—it seems that all of this is down to us—and the terrorist attack committed by Islamists at the Crocus City Hall.

Russian propaganda continues to point the finger at Britain. It used to be America, but for some reason America is not in Russian sights so much any more, and we are. In a way, we should be proud of that, but we need to be mindful of it, and we need to stick together and stand with Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine—the Ukranians are fighting the war for us, and we continue to give them every support—and we should be proud of that. I am proud of the fact that in this country and in this House—with the exception of those who are not present in the Chamber this afternoon—we are united behind them. We remain united, and we must remain united until the end—until victory. Slava Ukraini!

--- Later in debate ---

[Phil Brickell]

Will my hon. Friend give way on the topic of sanctions?

[Alex Sobel]

I will.

[Phil Brickell]

My hon. Friend is a tireless champion for the UK-Ukraine relationship, including through the 100-year partnership. Does he agree that it is worth commending the Government for the action that has been taken in the past month on issuing a licence through the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation to move the £2.5 billion of Chelsea football club proceeds that have remained frozen for four years now? That money could be used to support the victims of conflict, including in Ukraine. Will he join me in calling on the Government to move faster on unlocking the more than £700,000 of assets that belong to Petr Aven, one of Putin’s closest oligarch friends? They have been frozen for quite some time now by the National Crime Agency and could also be used to support the Ukrainian people.

[Alex Sobel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It has taken too long to see that Chelsea money. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) talked about the aid convoys. Imagine what they could do to support Ukraine, the generators we could buy and the energy infrastructure we could build with the billions from the Chelsea sale.

Human Rights Abuses: Magnitsky Sanctions

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important debate and I am pleased to see the Minister in his place. He has already heard plenty from colleagues in the Chamber on sanctions, and I hope that today’s debate will provide further food for thought.

Effective sanctions regimes for human rights violations and corruption speak to who we are as a nation—a nation that stands up for the rule of law, that respects international law and that says, “Wherever and whoever you are, if you persecute individuals, plunder your country’s resources or embezzle from your own people, there will be consequences.” The reason we are having this debate today to my mind is not to call for some shiny new instrument to hold the world’s criminals and the corrupt to account; rather it is to call for better use of the world-leading tools that we already have to deny the human rights abusers and kleptocrats access to our financial system, professional services and property market.

I want to focus on two particular threats: first, what I see as the inconsistent and inadequate use of Magnitsky sanctions against serious human rights abusers, particularly in Georgia and Hong Kong; and secondly, the failure to enforce sanctions properly, allowing evasion, secrecy and professional enablers to undermine the entire regime.

Let me begin with Georgia, because Georgia is a country that should be moving closer to Europe, not sliding backwards into authoritarianism for the benefit of Moscow. Yet since the highly disputed parliamentary election of 26 October 2024, that is exactly what we have seen: all branches of government and state institutions now captured by Bidzina Ivanishvili and the Georgian Dream party; civic space crushed; independent media and civil society organisations targeted under a new foreign agent law—legislation that comes straight out of the Kremlin playbook; and peaceful protests met time and again with violence.

The UK has rightly sanctioned some individuals responsible for violent attacks on journalists and protesters, and that is very much welcome, but as the Minister knows, I do not feel it is enough. The omissions are glaring. Most notably, the UK has failed to sanction Bidzina Ivanishvili, the individual widely regarded as exercising decisive influence over Georgia’s political direction.

[Lloyd Hatton]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the current situation in Georgia is not dissimilar to what we have seen in other central and eastern European countries and beyond, where Russia seeks to have greater political influence and control and has mission creep? Unless countries such as the United Kingdom push back against that early, Russia will continue to infringe and extend its tentacles into political life in countries such as Georgia?

[Phil Brickell]

My hon. Friend is quite right about the spheres of influence that Russia seeks to exert across central and eastern Europe.

Ivanishvili could be sanctioned under any number of our regimes—Magnitsky, global anti-corruption or even the Russian sanctions regime given his reported links to the Kremlin and his blatant kowtowing to Moscow. Just this morning, I was made aware that Georgian Dream has increased state financing for the Kulevi oil refinery, which Reuters has reported received its first shipment of Russian oil last October. The refinery itself is linked to Vladimir Alekseev, first deputy chief of Russia’s GRU. That seems to be an obvious route for sanctions violations, and I hope it will be added to Ivanishvili’s rap sheet. I know the Minister will be unable to comment on individual cases, but can he at least confirm that Ivanishvili’s supposed status as too big to fail due to his alleged personal importance to the Georgian economy does not preclude him from being sanctioned by this country?

I will come to the United States later, but our allies across the Atlantic sanctioned Ivanishvili on 27 December 2024 for undermining democratic processes on behalf of, or for the benefit of, Russia. I certainly do not suggest that we follow the US in every aspect of foreign policy, but it is correct in applying that designation. Sanctioning cronies and underlings can make an impact, but let us be clear that the fish rots from the head. My fear is that our silence on Ivanishvili sends the wrong message to would-be kleptocrats around the world.

Let me turn to Hong Kong and the ongoing repression there, which is of keen interest to me and the valued community of Hongkongers across my Bolton West constituency. The dismantling of Hong Kong’s freedoms is unacceptable. Since the imposition of the national security law, we have seen the systematic criminalisation of dissent: independent media shut down, civil society organisations dissolved, elected opposition figures jailed, and fundamental freedoms erased in all but name. This is textbook human rights abuse.

The case of Jimmy Lai, who has already been mentioned, symbolises that injustice—a point I was reminded of by constituents of mine who used to work with him back in Hong Kong. As a British national, a publisher and a peaceful advocate of democracy, Jimmy Lai has been imprisoned for years for exercising rights that we regard in this place as fundamental. He now faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars under a law designed to silence free speech, not to deliver justice. Of course, I welcomed the Foreign Secretary’s strong condemnation of Jimmy Lai’s sham trial last month, but words alone do not protect political prisoners. If Magnitsky sanctions are to retain any credibility, they must be used against those responsible for the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and for the persecution of individuals such as Jimmy Lai. That includes officials who designed, implemented and enforced the national security law and those who have overseen its use to crush free expression and political participation.

That brings me to a wider point. We are entering a period in which the United States cannot always be relied on to apply evidence-based sanctions. In that context, the UK cannot simply wait for Washington to lead. We must be prepared to act where the United States will not. We should also not be afraid, as critical friends, to point out where the US gets it wrong. I asked the Minister earlier this week at the Foreign Affairs Committee for his response to Trump’s sanctioning of two British citizens for seeking to, as Secretary Rubio sees it, “coerce” American tech platforms into suppressing free speech. Does the Minister agree that that is dangerous nonsense?

That brings me to my second theme: enforcement. Increasing designations alone is not enough. Sanctions without enforcement are no sanction at all; they are just suggestions. We now have a vast and complex sanctions architecture—Magnitsky sanctions, Russia sanctions and anti-corruption sanctions. Since Putin’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, we have had a massive boost in our own sanctions capacity and seen a huge undertaking in the private sector to keep up, yet enforcement in the UK remains worryingly weak.

We know that sanctions are being evaded. We heard earlier about Roman Abramovich reportedly transferring his UK property empire to his children just weeks before being sanctioned—the very same individual who is now being represented by the Conservative shadow Attorney General over a dispute with the Jersey Government on the source of his wealth. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) outlined forensically, if the Opposition are serious about standing by Ukraine, they cannot have him as their top Law Officer, serving in the other place and attending shadow Cabinet meetings. It is simply incredible. Does the Minister agree that Lord Wolfson’s position in the shadow Cabinet and attendance of those meetings is now completely untenable?

The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has concluded that it is “almost certain” that UK lawyers, estate agents and property service firms have helped clients evade asset freezes. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton) outlined, in the past year OFSI has imposed just three fines for breaches of the UK’s sanctions regime, totalling just over £622,000. That is a rounding error compared with the scale of wealth at stake, and it is simply not a credible deterrent. All the while, there have been no breaches of Magnitsky sanctions in the past year.

This issue is acute in the British overseas territories, where low policing capacity and high financial secrecy create ideal conditions for sanctions evasion. There have been some laudable efforts in the OTs to enforce sanctions. However, I have too often been made aware of civil society organisations submitting detailed evidence of Magnitsky sanctions breaches in the overseas territories but receiving no meaningful response at all from those jurisdictions. Will the Minister assure me today that he will ensure that British overseas territories that receive such detailed allegations will act on them?

We must tackle head-on the scourge of corporate secrecy in offshore financial centres linked to the UK. If we are to ensure that our sanctions bite as much as possible, there is an urgent need for those overseas territories that continue to drag their feet—including the British Virgin Islands—to finally adopt fully public registers of beneficial ownership, as they have promised time and again but failed to deliver. As an interim step, the Minister will agree that individuals with a legitimate interest, including journalists and civil society, must have meaningful access to beneficial ownership information. Without that transparency, asset freezes cannot be enforced effectively. I look forward to the update on this issue promised earlier this year in the Government’s new anti-corruption strategy, but can the Minister provide any further information on timelines—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to bring his remarks to a conclusion, because we have another debate to follow, and we still have the Front-Bench spokespeople to come.

[Phil Brickell]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Transparency is the name of the game here, so will the Minister confirm whether his Department has looked at publishing comprehensive data on assets frozen within UK jurisdictions, broken down by asset class, including assets held by individuals, state- owned enterprises and states themselves? The reason I ask is simple: Parliament cannot assess the effectiveness of our regimes if it cannot see the full picture.

Let me end with this. Magnitsky sanctions are one of the most powerful tools we have to defend human rights, but they work only if they are used consistently, enforced rigorously and connected clearly to accountability and reparations. If the UK wants to be a global champion of human rights, it must stop being a safe haven for those who abuse them and start ensuring that sanctions mean something on paper and in practice.

Venezuela

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

Let me reiterate our strong support for the Greenlanders and for Denmark. Greenland is part of the kingdom of Denmark, and its future is for them to decide, not anybody else, notwithstanding any of the things that we have heard the US and others say. We are very clear about that. I have raised this issue internationally, and we will continue to do so. We are very firm in our view on this point.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

My constituents do not mourn the removal of Nicolás Maduro, who oversaw the violent repression of his people, a fraudulent presidential election and horrific human rights abuses for many years, but they are alarmed about the unilateral regime change sought by the Trump Administration in order to access Venezuelan oil resources. Two wrongs do not make a right. What measures is the Foreign Secretary taking to support Opposition leaders, including 2025 Nobel prize winner, María Corina Machado?

[Yvette Cooper]

Our country has particularly strong relationships with the Venezuelan Opposition as a result of the work of our chargé d’affaires and our embassy in Venezuela, which we have maintained when other countries have not maintained theirs. As I have said, that puts us in a particularly significant position, in terms of being able to support a transition to democracy, which is what we have always argued for. That is exactly why I have spoken to María Corina today. We will keep in close touch, so that we can recognise, as a first step, their call for an end to political repression in Venezuela, which must happen.

Financial Transparency: Overseas Territories

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the impact of financial secrecy in the Overseas Territories on UK communities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. Before being elected to this place, I dedicated almost 15 years of my working life to tackling financial crime at two major UK banks. That work took me across the globe to the USA, the United Arab Emirates and often to India, so I like to think I can speak with some authority about financial secrecy overseas and how it impacts us at home.

For a number of people watching this debate, the contents of my speech will make for uncomfortable viewing, so let me be clear from the outset that my objective is not to criticise the overseas territories writ large—far from it. Some have shown a real commitment to transparency, which I commend them for, and others have a zealous determination to work with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to drive through much-needed reforms, but are hampered by a lack of local expertise. But other overseas territories seem insistent on blocking change at every opportunity, and it is those that I wish to focus on.

Hon. Members might ask, “What connects the sun-kissed beaches of the British Virgin Islands with the rain-soaked streets of Bolton?” What do my constituents care about shell companies, trusts and the veil of financial secrecy that a number of our overseas territories seem quietly content to provide? The purpose of today’s debate is to challenge the notion that what goes on over there has few ramifications for our daily lives over here. Financial secrecy in our overseas territories has real-world consequences for my constituents, businesses and Britain’s standing in the world. Journalists including Nicholas Shaxson and Oliver Bullough have outlined how the UK’s overseas territories have systematically undermined the global economy by creating a shadow banking system—“Moneyland”, to use Oliver Bullough’s parlance.

In a number of our overseas territories, low levels of taxation and substandard levels of transparency have attracted the world’s crooks and kleptocrats like moths to a flame. Money laundering, fraud, bribery, tax evasion: regrettably, many of the scandals we read about are likely to involve a financial structure in the British overseas territories. It is an enduring embarrassment going back many, many years, and it undermines our global reputation.

In 2016, 11.5 million documents detailing financial and attorney-client information relating to 214,488 offshore entities were leaked—the now-infamous Panama papers. More than half the shell companies exposed in that leak from Panamanian offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca were set up in the British Virgin Islands. That leak revealed the sheer scale of the dark economy, which allows the rich and powerful to store their assets offshore, out of sight of the taxman, law enforcement or the press. From the likes of the former Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili to the more than 30 Mossack Fonseca clients blacklisted by the US Treasury, roughly $2 trillion passed through that firm. In 2017 came the Paradise papers, with another 13.4 million documents from firms, including from Bermuda, the BVI and the Cayman Islands, then the 2020 FinCEN files, followed by the 2021 Pandora papers. Each leak tells a story about unfairness, about how those who can afford to find ways to avoid paying their fair share can do so, and about how the world’s crooks and kleptocrats cleaned and stashed their dirty cash. Each leak exposed the role played by the UK’s own overseas territories in enabling assets to be hidden.

So what is the impact on UK communities? I will focus on three areas where there is a direct, tangible impact on the UK: first, inhibiting growth; secondly, threatening national security; and thirdly, damaging our standing in the world. Sustainable economic growth and good-quality public services require the tax that is owed to be collected, whether it is from a small business in Westhoughton in my constituency or from oligarchs who have decided to make London their home—nobody should be above the law. The Chancellor has already made good progress on closing the £44 billion tax gap by hiring 5,500 new compliance staff, incentivising whistleblowers and committing to a 20% increase in the number of tax fraudsters charged each year.

Those are all noble endeavours, and I applaud them, but financial secrecy continues to erode our tax base, because when money that should be taxed is hidden offshore, it is the honest British taxpayer who ends up footing the bill. It harms His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ ability to collect what is owed, it fuels unfairness in our system and it leaves less for our stretched public services. There are too many cases to list, but I will endeavour to go over some, such as brothers Michael and Stephen Hirst, who evaded over £3.2 million in tax by routeing profits through companies they secretly controlled into Gibraltar and the British Virgin Islands.

But it goes deeper than that. Illicit money flowing through opaque companies registered in our overseas territories does not stay offshore; it finds its way into our UK property market. That distorts it, according to the National Crime Agency, and hinders people’s attempts to get on to the housing ladder. Transparency International UK has identified over £11 billion in suspicious wealth invested in British property, more than half of which was routed through shell companies in our overseas territories. Behind those faceless firms are the likes of Bangladeshi businessman Shafiat Sobhan, Pakistani tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain and Azerbaijani banker Jahangir Hajiyev—individuals accused or convicted of grand corruption who saw London as the safest place to stash their gains.

That money even floods our high streets. If we walk down any high street in the UK, we will see a proliferation of vape shops, candy shops, Harry Potter shops and barber shops. Not all of them have unscrupulous owners, but some are used as fronts for money laundering and tax abuse. As London Centric recently reported, these practices are often enabled by opaque corporate structures in offshore jurisdictions.

[Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree with the National Crime Agency that if it had open and accurate data on who owned and controlled those businesses, its operations would be much more effective? Those businesses are often linked to overseas territories, so the National Crime Agency cannot find their real owners and crack down on them.

[Phil Brickell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his passionate campaigning on this issue. He is absolutely right that we need more transparency to support our law enforcement agencies to tackle this issue, and I will come on to that now.

I pay tribute to the brilliant enforcement work undertaken by the National Crime Agency through its Operation Machinize. Just last week, police visited a number of addresses in my constituency, seizing £17,000-worth of goods in the process. I applaud the work of our enforcement agencies, but as I will explain, these tireless professionals need more support in their work.

Elsewhere, financial murkiness causes friction for British businesses. When I worked in finance, we would often conduct “know your customer” checks and hit a wall, because a trust or a corporate service provider was incorporated in a secrecy jurisdiction. The beneficial owner was always elsewhere. Every time we spoke to law enforcement, journalists or civil society about dirty money, the same names came up: the BVI, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. It is farcical.

Banks, lawyers and accountants are on the frontline of anti-money laundering checks. Collectively, they spend over £38 billion a year on financial crime prevention—the equivalent of £21,000 every hour. A good-quality public register of beneficial ownership would make their work cheaper, faster and, frankly, more effective, unlocking the growth potential of our world-leading financial services sector.

On national security, since Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine, the UK has quite rightly been at the forefront of the global sanctions regime against Putin. I commend the Minister for his personal leadership in ensuring that it is Putin and his cronies who pay for their unlawful war. The overseas territories have played an important role in enforcing those sanctions, freezing over £7 billion in Russia-linked assets. Indeed, initiatives like the Cayman Islands’ Operation Hektor, which has frozen £6 million of assets, deserve recognition.

Enforcement is only as strong as the weakest link. If opaque corporate structures allow sanctioned individuals to move assets through nominee companies, the whole system is undermined. That is why full beneficial ownership transparency is not a bureaucratic nicety; it is a national security measure. Opponents will say that UK law enforcement agencies have access to this information, but many agencies are critically underfunded and simply do not have the capacity to keep up the bewildering game of whack-a-mole that they play with bad faith actors.

Transparency International UK has identified around £700 million-worth of UK property linked to sanctioned Russian oligarchs that went unflagged in the UK’s register of overseas entities in 2022. Among them is a vast Hampstead estate valued at up to £300 million, reportedly owned by Russian chemicals magnate Andrey Guryev. Reports suggest the property was originally acquired using a company based in—you guessed it—the British Virgin Islands. I asked my friend Yaroslaw Tymchyshyn, chair of the Bolton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain how he felt about this. He said:

“The government needs to seize all Russian assets which should be used to fund the Ukrainian war effort. It irks us that the oligarchs are living the high life in the west, whilst the Russians continue to bomb and use drones to kill civilians, including children.”

What should I say to him?

Elsewhere, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has reported that since February 2022 more than a quarter of suspected sanctions breaches have involved intermediary jurisdictions, including the BVI and Guernsey. This level of financial secrecy allows sanctioned elites and hostile actors to hide their wealth, undermining Britain’s sanctions regime and weakening our ability to deter aggression. When dirty money flows unchecked through our financial system, it erodes the credibility of our foreign policy, drives up the cost of energy and food, and ultimately fuels Putin’s brutal war in Ukraine.

In addition, criminal gangs involved in drug smuggling, people trafficking or protection rackets need to launder their ill-gotten gains into the regular economy. The financial secrecy afforded by the overseas territories gives the perfect cover to dodgy accountants, lawyers and corporate service providers. Edin “Tito” Gačanin, a Dutch passport holder but a Bosnia and Herzegovina native, was convicted last year of trafficking drugs from South America into Europe. It has been alleged that Gačanin is connected to the infamous Kinahan cartel, one of Europe’s most notorious organised crime gangs. As reported by the BBC, that cartel has flooded UK streets with drugs and guns over two decades. According to an investigation by The Times, in order to avoid US sanctions, the Kinahans recently sought anonymity using jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, the BVI and the Isle of Man.

Even organised fraud finds shelter in the overseas territories. Just last month, the Foreign Secretary rightly announced sanctions on a global scam network led by Cambodian citizen Chen Zhi, who allegedly used BVI companies to launder profits. Those profits were reportedly routed into a £12 million mansion in north London, a £100 million City office block and a string of luxury flats, while victims across the world were left penniless. Even when the authorities do catch fraudsters, financial secrecy in our offshore territories inhibits our ability to hold criminals to account.

Covid fraudster Gerald Smith was prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office, but tried to use a BVI company to obstruct the seizure of a flat he owned to avoid paying compensation, resulting in a direct loss to the taxpayer. He still owes £82 million—and he is not alone. Just this summer the SFO told the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, which I chair, that 25% of all cases that it is currently investigating have links to the overseas territories.

A final point on national security: I am gravely concerned that secrecy jurisdictions open a back door into our politics. The FinCEN files reveal that in 2016 the husband of Lubov Chernukhin received more than £6 million from Suleiman Kerimov, who was sanctioned in 2022 by the UK for his connections to Putin. Kerimov used a BVI company to conceal that payment. Lubov Chernukhin has donated more than £2 million to the Conservative party since 2012.

I have additional concerns about the Electoral Commission’s capacity to keep up with cryptocurrency donations, which Reform has reportedly already begun accepting. Indeed, the crypto platform Zebec sponsored a panel at Reform’s party conference on “Strengthening the Rule of Law: legislative reform?”. Zebec is, unsurprisingly, ultimately controlled by an entity registered in the British Virgin Islands, as reported by The Observer. Protecting our democracy from foreign interference is made all the more difficult by crypto firms involving themselves in our politics while hiding behind the veil of corporate secrecy, enabled by our overseas territories.

We come on to international leadership. Financial secrecy in jurisdictions under the Union flag does not just damage our economy; it damages our credibility. The UK rightly prides itself on being a global leader in the fight against economic crime. We have made real progress with the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and the register of overseas entities, by boosting the powers of Companies House, and with the Treasury’s recent welcome announcement on reforming our anti-money laundering framework.

Next year, when the UK hosts the countering illicit finance summit, the Government will have a chance to show further leadership, but the UK cannot credibly call on others to improve transparency if the jurisdictions flying our flag lag behind on beneficial ownership. Our diplomats work tirelessly to promote British values overseas—the rule of law, fair competition and integrity in public life—yet, when investigative journalists, non-governmental organisations or foreign Governments look into global corruption cases, the trail often runs through a British overseas territory. That damages us and weakens our hand in international negotiations, giving cover to regimes that would keep their elites’ wealth hidden.

What needs to happen? In 2018, MPs led by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) and the Government’s anti-corruption champion, Baroness Hodge, successfully secured an amendment to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. I pay tribute to them for their tenacious campaigning over many years. Their amendment required all overseas territories to introduce registers of beneficial ownership by 2020. That deadline slipped to 2023, and then to 2025—another deadline that was largely missed.

The UK’s overseas territories are a valued and integral part of our British family. Their ties to us are deep, and their prosperity is something we rightly cherish. They are our partners in defence, trade and increasingly in tackling the great global challenges of our age: climate change, migration and the rule of law. But being family means being honest, and I am afraid to say that certain jurisdictions have not covered themselves in glory by obfuscating, delaying, ignoring and frustrating the will of this Parliament. It is not acceptable. Missing deadlines sends a “terrible message” to the world, according to the current Deputy Prime Minister, in response to a question I asked him earlier this year when he was before the Foreign Affairs Committee.

This speech is not lazily tarring all overseas territories with the same brush. Far from it: Gibraltar, Montserrat and St Helena have delivered and deserve praise. The Falkland Islands are on track to implement by mid-2026 and are engaging constructively with the UK Government. Bermuda has made positive noises, although there is still room for improvement in its recent statement on next steps under its Beneficial Ownership Act 2025.

Elsewhere progress has been slow and patchy. The British Virgin Islands, in particular, remain a serious concern. Transparency International UK has warned that the British Virgin Islands’ proposed company register framework is not compatible with global transparency standards, with journalists being granted information on only a subset of data, rather than the beneficial ownership that they record, even baking in a tip-off for people being investigated, giving them a chance to object to their information being shared with a journalist. The Cayman Islands have also been slow to move from consultation to implementation. Although some good work has been done, substantial areas remain, including exorbitant costs and an unreasonably high threshold for granting applications from civil society and journalists.

The fact remains that some of the largest financial centres under the British flag are still operating secretive structures that enable tax evasion, sanctions evasion and kleptocracy. Occasionally, capacity restraints are cited. The UK Government rightly have an obligation to step in and provide technical support. There is also a suggestion that some jurisdictions do not want to fulfil their promises, lest they lose their competitive advantage.

To those naysayers, I say that the UK has an obligation to help its overseas territories to diversify their economies. It can be done, as in the case of the Isle of Man, where considerable work is under way to invest in offshore wind. Let me be clear: transparency has not hindered economies elsewhere. The UK has had a fully public register for years, and the sky has not fallen in. Research commissioned by the UK Government estimated that corporate transparency reforms produce data worth up to £3 billion to the public and private sectors. Look at Gibraltar, which has continued to grow, driven by insurance, gaming and fintech, even after introducing full beneficial ownership transparency.

I have a number of asks of the Minister. Last month, the Prime Minister’s anti-corruption champion, Baroness Margaret Hodge, visited the BVI to understand what progress it is making towards fully open registers of beneficial ownership. What update can the Minister give us on that visit? With November’s Joint Ministerial Council rapidly approaching, will he remind those overseas territories that continue to delay the implementation of publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership, with the maximum possible degree of access and transparency as per last year’s joint communiqué, of their commitment?

Concerningly, the 2024 JMC communiqué contained the following line:

“We note the UK Government’s ambition that Publicly Accessible Registers of Beneficial Ownership (PARBOs) become a global norm and its expectation that Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies implement full PARBOs.”

Will the Minister confirm that the overseas territories and the Crown dependencies are still expected by His Majesty’s Government to implement fully public corporate registers? If legitimate-interest access filters are an interim step, what assurances can he give me that journalists, civil society organisations and others with a genuine interest will have open and repeated access to company data in the overseas territories? Finally, will the Minister meet me and Yaroslaw from the Bolton branch of the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain to reassure him that the Government are doing all they can to bring an end to Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine, including by enforcing economic sanctions in the OTs?

My speech does not seek to undermine the important constitutional relationship between the overseas territories and the UK. I welcome, for example, the £7.5 million recently provided by the UK to Commonwealth member Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa, alongside $1.2 million from the Cayman Islands. But partnership brings mutual obligations, which must include the shared commitment we have all made to openness, integrity and accountability, because every pound laundered through a BVI shell company and every mansion bought with stolen public funds is a stain on our national integrity.

Cleaning up this system is not just an act of international justice; it is a patriotic duty. We cannot build clean foundations for growth while our financial system remains a refuge for dirty money. Public, accessible and verifiable registers of beneficial ownership are not a burden; they are our competitive advantage. They enable cheaper due diligence for firms and cleaner supply chains for investors, they protect small businesses by making procurement fairer and fraud harder, they strengthen our economy by rooting out corruption before it takes hold, and they give the British people confidence that when they pay their taxes, buy a home or open a small shop on the high street, the system is fair and honest.

The autumn Budget is scheduled for 26 November. After her Budget speech, tradition dictates that the Chancellor will go to the Two Chairmen for a well-earned gin and tonic. That pub, which I hasten to add is not accused of any wrongdoing, is owned via the Isle of Man and leased to Greene King, which is itself owned via the Cayman Islands. I think that encapsulates just how out of hand the shadow financial system has become.

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[Phil Brickell]

I thank all Members who contributed to this well spirited, genuinely cross-party debate, including my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax: the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell), my hon. Friends the Members for South Dorset (Lloyd Hatton), for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), and my predecessor as the chair of the APPG, my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell). I also thank my hon. Friends the Members for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt), the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and, for their thoughtful and impactful cross-party contributions, the hon. Members for Witney (Charlie Maynard) and for Fylde (Mr Snowden).

I especially thank the Minister for responding to the points that were raised. I know that he will continue to be a resolute champion for greater transparency in the overseas territories. I will do everything that I can to support him in that endeavour. I welcome his points that this issue is a personal priority for him; that the anti-corruption strategy on which he is working is genuinely cross-departmental with the Home Office and the Treasury; that elected leaders in the OTs will have heard and seen the cross-party strength of feeling here in Westminster today; that he has met Baroness Hodge on the subject of the British Virgin Islands—I will continue to support him in work in that jurisdiction—that the expectation around fully public registers of beneficial ownership has not changed; and that they have to function effectively. It is not just a case of having them in place; they must be properly implemented.

I acknowledge that the Minister recognised the scale of secrecy, particularly in the BVI, and the impact that has here at home. That is an important issue. As I outlined, financial secrecy in the UK’s overseas territories has real consequences on the streets here in Britain. Ultimately, this debate has been about fairness: fairness for the honest taxpayer, fairness for law-abiding businesses and fairness for every community that wants a level playing field. I look forward to working with colleagues from across the House, with Ministers across Government and with the anti-corruption champion to ensure that we are able to deliver fairness for everyone.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the impact of financial secrecy in the Overseas Territories on UK communities.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Committee of the whole House
Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Morton]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Chairman, and to speak to the amendments that stand in my name and in the names of other right hon. and hon. Members, as we open this Committee of the whole House to debate Labour’s Chagos surrender Bill.

It has been more than a year since the surrender of the Chagos islands was announced, with the Prime Minister, the then Foreign Secretary—now the Deputy Prime Minister—and the Attorney General waving the white flag of surrender and putting the demands of their left-wing lawyer friends above the British national interest. Since then, Labour has denied this House a vote on the whole treaty under the 21-day process in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, and has kept details secret from us.

Over in Mauritius, the Prime Minister of that country has been bragging about how he squeezed concession after concession after concession out of Labour. It is shameful that we have found out more about the treaty from debates in the Mauritius Parliament and statements by its politicians than from Ministers accountable to this House. It has been five months since the Prime Minister of this country signed away £35 billion of British taxpayers’ money, stumbling through a press conference rather than coming to this House to face scrutiny and challenge.

At a time of serious fiscal challenge for the public finances, Labour has imposed a £35 billion surrender tax on our country—money that could fund public services here in Britain or support an easing of the tax burden. Instead, it will be handed over to a foreign Government who are using this resource to cut taxes for their citizens. Not only is it shameful, but Ministers have tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the British people by using accountancy methodologies and valuations to try to show a far lower cost. Even then, it is an extraordinary figure of £3.4 billion. The Chancellor may struggle with numbers, but the British people do not. They can add up, and they see what the real cost of this is. On top of that, Ministers still cannot tell us from which budgets in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence the money will come.

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Is the simple truth not that this deal is cheaper than what was proposed by the Conservative party in government, and actually has more protections baked into it?

[Wendy Morton]

I think the hon. Gentleman needs a little memory check, because we did not propose a deal.

The British Chagossians, some of whom are watching from the Gallery—I pay tribute to them for their dignified and strong campaigning over many, many years—have been betrayed by Labour. Their rights have been ignored, as have their fears, leading to hundreds fleeing Mauritius and coming here. Labour’s surrender Bill, as presented, does nothing for them. It does nothing for the marine protected area—one of the most important and largest marine environments in the world—which has been protected while under British sovereignty and has become a centre for scientific research and development. That is at risk, and promises and aspirations announced by Ministers to ensure that it continues are not reflected in the Bill.

Shockingly, Labour’s surrender Bill as drafted does nothing to safeguard, defend and protect our national security. Labour is surrendering British sovereignty and territory to a country that is increasingly aligned with China.

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[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend is 100% right. This goes to the heart of the Bill. There are so many unanswered questions, which Conservative Members have been raising time and again. For example, how likely are we to be able to extend the base? What will the structure of the negotiations be? What conditions could Mauritius impose, given that it will have our negotiators over a proverbial barrel? How watertight is the first right of refusal?

[Phil Brickell]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Wendy Morton]

I will make a little more progress.

What happens if the base is not secured? Will it need to be decommissioned? How could we prevent an adversary inheriting our fixed assets? What is the role of the United States in all this? These are serious matters, and the House needs serious answers. The purpose of the amendment is to secure those answers.

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[Graham Stuart]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point. That is at the heart of it. There are so many questions but one question is: why? Why would a deal like this be done by the Government? He puts forward a credible case as to why it might be.

[Phil Brickell]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Graham Stuart]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman, who is not brave enough to speak fully but is prepared to intervene, can tell us why he would like to vote, if only he was given the chance, to give £35 billion to Mauritius and hand over a sovereign British base to someone in strategic partnership with China.

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[Phil Brickell]

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can enlighten me on which of the amendments he is speaking to. New clause 4, which his party tabled, mentions coral, fish stocks, molluscs and ocean acidification in the marine protected area. Even the cynic in me is somewhat flabbergasted by the official Opposition’s apparent interest in environmental and climate change all of a sudden, given their desire to ride roughshod over the Climate Change Act and frack our countryside.

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On the Environmental Audit Committee, we recently called for an end to bottom trawling because of the damage it does to the marine environment.

[Phil Brickell]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Sammy Wilson]

I will in a minute, but let me finish this point. Yet here we have a Bill that does not give any long-term security to one of the pristine marine environments. Indeed, we are handing over responsibility for it to a Government who could not even get a boat to put a flag up, yet we are supposed to believe that they will be able to protect the marine environment if foreign countries attempt to destroy it by doing deep-sea trawling, bottom trawling and so on. I would have thought that the environmentalists on the Government Benches might at least have asked some questions about the treaty, or would have supported some of the amendments that seek to do that, yet we find that is not the case.

This is a bad Bill. It will have long-term implications for our country financially and it will have long-term implications for those people who felt that perhaps there was an opportunity for their rights to self-determination to be granted. They have not been. Of course, there are also dangers to our long-term security.

I will finish with this point. I have no doubt that the Minister will repeat the point he made. Sure, the Americans support it—as if the Americans always make good strategic decisions. They do not. Given the time tonight, I know that you would stop me, Madam Chairman, if I started going through some of the bad strategic decisions the Americans have made that we and the world have lived with and their consequences. Just because the Americans—for short-term gain or short-term interest—have supported the deal, let us not say it is okay. It is a bad deal. Amendments were made to try to improve the Bill. The shame is that those amendments were not debated. The Bill goes contrary to the beliefs of many Members on the Government Benches. Unfortunately, I suspect the Bill will go through with a huge majority.