Speeches by Bryant.

“Obviously the US is a mixture of processes, because you have Congress and then you have the Administration. Trying to make all that work in harmony is an important part of what we are doing. I am not aware of us being behind Congress on any particular pieces of legislation, but, again, it is a Foreign Office responsibi…”

“Can I pick a year? I am very reluctant to give a timetable, unless the Foreign Office has a timetable in mind.”

“That is right.”

“A lot of Russian banks have already been sanctioned. From the very early days, there was a large amount of disinvestment in Russia, prompted by the sanctions regime that we had instituted. I have already referred to the fact that one of the effective facilitators of the shadow fleet is the insurance mechanism, and that…”

“We moved in October and December without the Americans, but with the EU.”

“I cannot remember where we are going on that. Where are we going on that? That is for the Foreign Office, I think.”

“These are words that have been used—for that matter, so is “spring”. I hate to go back to Julie Andrews, but I have confidence that spring will come again.”

“Or you could argue that it means the legal threshold is inappropriate and needs to be changed, or whatever—”

“It was.”

“Can I say two things about that?”

“In the end, the actual timing ends up being down to the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip.”

“I completely agree. We are taking that action, and it will happen very swiftly. I am always slightly hesitant about timetables because, in my 25 years in Parliament, I have never known a Minister manage to deliver a timetable for putting legislation on the statute books that they thought they could deliver. I do not kn…”

“Just to explain, HMRC has responsibility for any goods that cross in or out of the border, hence why HMRC is here. OFSI is also Treasury, OTSI is us in DBT, and sanctions policy lies with the Foreign Office.”

“It is sort of the equivalent of the diversion that we are trying to tackle, where we sell something from the UK to a third country and it then goes into Russia—there is another version, just as is there is with oil; that is why we are taking action on crude oil that is refined in other countries, which will similarly b…”

“We are not—we have removed 99.6% of all imports. I can try to find out what the 0.4% is, if you want, but we have been about as comprehensive as possible. I have heard the comments made in previous debates about us relying on Russian oil and gas, but that is simply not the case.”

“Pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs.”

“Because it is effectively declaring our impotence in some regard, and it would also imply that we think we should sanction in this area but are choosing not to. I think it is an odd request, if I am honest.”

“It is broadly speaking at the right size. Obviously, it is going to be taking on some additional responsibilities in the near future, and we will need to review to make sure that we have the right number of people for it.”

“It is a perfectly legitimate point, and I am very happy to write to you about it.”

“I am not going to produce a list of things that we are not sanctioning—I think that would be a complete own goal.”