Sanctions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Richard Foord
Main Page: Richard Foord (Liberal Democrat - Honiton and Sidmouth)Department Debates - View all Richard Foord's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats support the statutory instruments, so my comments will be brief.
First, I heard the proposal that members of the United Russia party be subject to sanctions. That was, I think, proposed back in spring by the President of the European Parliament and should be considered for future statutory instruments.
Secondly, the Minister will know, through his involvement with the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, that the research collaboration advice team in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been very useful to the higher education sector in enabling universities to support enforcement on sanctions and export control. I hope that in any slimming of the civil service in future months—we hear about the purported cuts of 91,000—the research collaboration advice team in BEIS is not hacked back, because it is doing crucial work on the enforcement of these sanctions.