Salisbury Incident

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 12th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tone that he has adopted in his response to the statement. This is indeed a matter that should concern us all; it is a matter of national interest. An attack has taken place, and we must respond to it appropriately, as he has said. He asked about the chief medical officer’s most recent advice to those who had been in the Zizzi restaurant or in the pub. The answer to that is that, over the course of time last week, as work was being done on this issue, more information became available about the nature of the agent that had been used. That led to that precautionary advice being given yesterday. The right hon. Gentleman also asked when I would be returning to the House. As I said in my statement, we will consider in detail the response from the Russian state on Wednesday, and I will return to the House at the earliest possible opportunity.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

This, if not an act of war, was certainly a warlike act by the Russian Federation, and it is not the first that we have seen. Some in this House have stayed silent or decided to join the information warfare that that state is conducting against us and our allies, but we have seen it invade countries in the east, attack allies and attempt to kill Prime Ministers. Even now, it is backing the murderous Assad regime which thinks nothing of gassing its own people, yet the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition stays silent. Does my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time for us to call on our allies—the European Union, which has worked with us so well on sanctions, NATO and particularly the United States—and ask what they will do to assist us in this moment when we are in need?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we should be giving a robust response from the whole of this House to this incident—this act that has taken place. There have already been a number of engagements with our allies on this particular matter, and we will continue to talk to them to ensure that they are aware of what has happened on British soil and that we can talk with them about the response that we will be giving.