Salisbury Incident 2018: Update

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Tuesday 21st September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments and suggestions. He is correct in the proposition he has spoken of; there is much more to do. That is partly the purpose of my statement today, not just in providing the wider update, and rightly so, but in illustrating that the Government will not tolerate these types of malign activity—state sponsored terror that has taken place on the streets of the UK. Importantly, as a Government we have to do the right thing in protecting our citizens and our domestic homeland. He is right about this and that work will continue across the whole of government.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

I thank the Home Secretary for this statement, and for the work of the police and of the intelligence and security agencies to have brought us to this point. The Salisbury attack was a truly appalling attack on UK soil, with charges now laid against the agents of a foreign state. It should be unthinkable that this could happen and for it to come at the same time as the ECHR confirmation that Russia was behind the murder of Alexander Litvinenko is further disturbing evidence of Russia’s willingness to use dangerous weapons in other countries. I support the work the Government have been doing on this, but may I ask her specifically about the review launched three years ago into the so-called “golden visas”, the tier 1 visas, to look at oligarchs with close links to the Russian state who might be using criminal money and others? We have not heard any update on that review, so will she update the House now on what work is being done?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions and remarks. She is right to point to the whole area of the tier 1 investor visa route, which, historically, as the whole House is well aware, has led to a range of the wider issues we have just been speaking about—investments, illicit finance, corruption and a lack of transparency. The purpose of the review was to look at exactly that. I cannot provide the full update right now, but I want to reassure the House and to let it know that the whole of government is acutely aware of how these routes have previously been used. I would go as far as to say they have been abused for malign purposes—for entry into the UK to do us harm and to harm our country. That is why we will never rule out changes, which we constantly make to our immigration system and to our visas.