Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)

My Lords, I am impressed by the Minister’s efficiency. She replied positively to me on Monday when I asked for an opportunity to have a wider discussion on sanctions enforcement; I did not quite appreciate that she would deliver that three days later. It is very impressive indeed. I have had the opportunity of debating every sanction that the previous Administration and this one have put in place since the establishment of the post-Brexit regime. These Benches have supported them at each step, but we have made the case that the sanctions tool should be used more impactfully, especially on occasions where we do not believe the sanctions go far enough, such as on the repressive actions of the Georgian regime, as referenced in the Statement, and individuals within it. On Israel and Gaza, we have repeatedly called for a widening of sanctions against those within the Netanyahu Administration, who are inflicting and facilitating the infliction of a great humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. I made it my mission to see the Wagner Group proscribed and was very grateful when the previous Government did it. However, our sanctions should be chasing after Russia and, for any organisation sanctioned or proscribed by the UK, there will have to be continued action. Overall, we welcome the Statement and the review, which I had the opportunity to look at online. Fundamentally, I think it found that there was nothing wrong, but there were a number of areas where it wanted to go ahead. There was a curious line saying that the fundamental principle was “to secure international agreement across all 193 UN Member States” for sanctions. That is rather impossible when we are sanctioning quite a chunk of them. There was also a wee bit of Whitehall verbiage: we are to expect an invigorated toolkit of “capabilities, capacity, powers, and actionable intelligence to take robust enforcement” and “user-friendly guidance to a new enforcement strategy”. I look forward to them. No doubt we will debate what that means when we get them. We are promised an early settlement scheme. This is an area that has raised a slight alarm signal with me. How will this interact with what the review has said about the need to increase deterrence? It is not necessary to have deterrence if we have an early settlement scheme for those who are breaching financial sanctions. If not today, perhaps the Minister might be able to say more at a later date. The Minister referred to the £465,000 penalty for Herbert Smith Freehills for making funds available for the benefit of a designated person without a licence. This is welcome, but it is only one of five penalties since 2023, with a total amount of just £485,000. Without that £465,000, there have been only £20,000 of penalties. Is this a lack of enforcement or a stunning level of adherence to the UK sanctions regimes? I had the opportunity to look at the excellent OFSI threat assessment report, which goes into a little more detail about some of the context. I have a couple of questions, one of them linked to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Callanan. We have a number of frozen assets within the UK. On Monday, we discussed new rounds of Syria sanctions. We have £157 million in frozen Syrian assets. Given what the Minister said on Monday and what President Trump has been saying about the new Syrian President, can the Minister write to me on the status of that amount, identifying the ultimate legal beneficial owner of the frozen assets? If it is the former Assad regime, or those linked to it, then presumably we should not be offering them back. Why have we not seized those assets, which can be used for the benefit of the Syrian people, who desperately need it? On the Russian assets, we now have, as reported by OFSI, £25 billion. We on these Benches would like to see a draft Bill on what would be required under UK law to seize those assets. We do not need to wait on others, either in the G7 or elsewhere, or act at their slow pace. These assets have been frozen under UK legislation and the power to seize them will be under UK legislation, so if there need to be any changes to UK legislation, we should see what the context is, because obviously these Benches believe that Putin should not be rewarded by getting money back at the end of this process. The threat assessment report also highlighted what it said was a growing number of enablers and enabling countries. It singled out some, including, at the highest level of growth, the UAE. What diplomatic tools are we using for those countries which we know are the source of enablers who circumvent UK financial sanctions? As OFSI said, that is growing. The threat assessment report also says that there are almost certainly enablers using crypto assets to breach UK financial sanctions. Can the Minister write to me on the estimated scale of this? Have we the same approach to co-ordination with our allies to ensure that this is the case, given the very dubious means by which President Trump is using crypto assets, and the difficulty in understanding the source of the crypto assets? On China, we believe our sanctions should go further with regard to those in the Chinese Government who restrict the rights of people in Hong Kong and, in particular, those here in the United Kingdom who are operating transnational repression. It is utterly unacceptable, and I will be pursuing this further in this Chamber. Many of us had the great privilege today of meeting former President Tsai Ing-wen, when welcoming her to Parliament. She is the highest-level official of the Taiwanese Government—both current and previous Governments—who has ever visited the UK Parliament. I pay credit to the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, and others who have worked so hard and tirelessly over a number of years. The former President’s lecture to us was an inspiration, because it was about democrats fighting against repression, building up resilience and ensuring that they have support here in the United Kingdom. Our sanctions regime should help people such as her, with her great leadership, and it was a real privilege to have her in Parliament today.