Sanctions

Debate between Robert Neill and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Long may he persist.

I support the measure before us today. The Minister knows that I and other Members have campaigned for as robust a set of sanctions as possible. I have been critical sometimes of the processes we have used to get there. Oliver Bullough wrote a splendid book that lays out why it is important to deal not only with financial instruments but with some of the people who have effectively enabled others to bypass sanctions regimes and hide their money from prying eyes in the UK.

It was a joy to hear the extremely learned hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), not least because he referred to “every decent lawyer”. I detected a characteristic wink at that point, because not every lawyer is decent, m’lud. I gently suggest—

[Sir Robert Neill]

rose—

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Now look what I have done.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I have prosecuted some less than decent lawyers over the years, so I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. But he knows just how good the English legal system is collectively, and I know he will want to recognise that.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I have great admiration for lawyers, especially those who advise me, as is occasionally necessary—[Laughter.] It is a serious point: if the UK stands for anything in the world, it is the rule of law. The hon. Gentleman and I have often had to join cause on occasions when we have worried that the Front Benches have not quite seen things in exactly the same way as we do.

I will not rehearse all the arguments, which were laid out so beautifully for the hon. Gentleman and others in the Law Society’s note. He understood it better than I did. The important point is that all British businesses should be withdrawing from Russia. It is extraordinary that any British businesses are still doing significant business in Russia. I do not wish to make any partisan points, but I think it is still true that Infosys has a substantial presence and has not managed to wind down its presence in Russia. That is worrying. Mantrac is certainly still operating in Russia, and some of the money it has earned there will have made its way into its recent £5 million donation to the Conservative party. We should be doing more due diligence about these matters.

I do not understand how Unilever can still claim that it is only selling Magnum ice creams in Russia because they are an essential item. They might be an essential item for somebody who is going to watch the “Barbie” movie later this year—that sort of fits—but in all seriousness, I honestly do not think that Unilever should still have a significant presence, or any presence, in the Russian Federation. Its remaining there is a problem. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to the point about British companies being able to advise on how to disinvest as fast as possible. If the regulations were to make that more difficult, that would be a bit of an own goal on our part.

I have some other, very minor, points to make. One is that the sanctions regime is now getting very complex. These are No. 3, the third regulations in this Session. I know that this Session of Parliament has gone on a bit—one could argue that the whole of this Parliament has gone on a bit, maybe a bit too long—but we are relying on lots of statutory instruments and secondary legislation. The amount of such legislation has grown enormously over the past 20 years, not just since 2010 but before then, and there is a danger that it is very difficult for lawyers to keep up with what the law is. Of course, there is no excuse for lawyers to say that they do not know what the law is, but none the less, these regulations came into force on 30 June—they are already in force. That is the problem with the way in which we are legislating these days. When there is a Labour Government, I hope that we will use secondary legislation much less frequently, because we need to be able to amend legislation on the Floor of the House or in Committee to make sure that Governments do not make silly mistakes.

I note the subtle difference in the exemption that exists for advice. Of course, advice can cover a multitude of sins and is sometimes designed to do so, but I note the subtle difference between the exemptions granted in the UK, those granted in the US and those granted in the EU. If I heard the Minister correctly, she attributed those to the different legal systems that exist in those jurisdictions. That may be true, but I would like her to expand on that and explain why it is necessary for us to make distinctions in that way. Otherwise, the point made by the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is absolutely right: an international law firm could just say, “All right, I’m popping over to Paris, Madrid, Berlin or wherever for the weekend, and we will do it from there.” That would be a mistake. I also think that sanctions need to be a stiletto blade, not a blunderbuss, if they are to be truly effective in peeling away support from Vladimir Putin within the Russian Federation.

In a previous debate on sanctions, I referred to the former leader of UKIP. Let me be absolutely clear: I have had no correspondence of any kind—electronic, in writing, or digital—with Coutts bank about him, or for that matter about anybody else, because I do not have many constituents who bank with Coutts. I have no idea why Coutts has closed his bank account, but I should have been more careful with the words that I used a year ago. The figure I gave was for his total income. I think he himself has stated that he was paid for his appearances on Russia Today, which is of course a part of the Russian state, and he has made clear his respect for Vladimir Putin as a nationalist. However, I do not think that the figure I gave was anywhere near the accurate figure, so I apologise if I have inadvertently misled the House. I had no intention of doing so, and I hope that puts the record straight. I had hoped that this afternoon’s debate was going to include a debate on the Procedure Committee’s report into allowing all Members of the House to correct the record, rather than just Ministers, but that option is not yet available to us. As such, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have rather stretched your generosity in making these comments.