Mr Hamish Falconer

Let me deal with why we do not provide advance comment on sanctions, and then I will turn to the domestic legal process. I hear my right hon. Friend. The reason that we do not provide commentary on sanctions is that to do so in advance would reduce their effect. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who is sitting next to me—may correct me, but I think that we have probably issued upwards of 50 or maybe even 100 sanctions in the short time we have been in government. There has been no shortage of sanctions for this House to comment on. I recognise that the two on which I have most been pressed this afternoon are of intense political interest; however, despite that intense political interest, if we were to prejudge sanctions and trail them in this House before we made them, we would reduce their impact. The same is true of the hundreds of sanctions that we have placed on Russia over the years, and it would be the same in every forum. In relation to the domestic legal process, I hope that my right hon. Friend will forgive me for not entering too deeply into hypotheticals about how a court might discharge its findings on these matters.