Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant

Labour — Rhondda and Ogmore

Speaking in the House of Commons on 23 February 2026

Debate

Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill

Contribution

I was not a member of that Government, and I did not support the deal that the right hon. Member supported in the first place, which gave us some of the problems we have today. I want to make sure that all the businesses across the whole of the United Kingdom are able to export. I have made the point before that just over one in 10 businesses in the UK export around the world. If we could manage to double that, it would be very good. I think something like 16,000 UK businesses that used to export to the European Union no longer do so, and I think that is an own goal. We are trying to reset our relationship with the European Union so that we can do better on exports. I turn now to the comments from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), which were primarily aimed at money laundering and some of the issues in relation to Russia. I want to make absolutely clear that we are determined to do everything we possibly can to debilitate the Russian military complex: first, by making sure that it does not have the finances available to it, because it is unable to trade in the rest of the world; and secondly, by making sure that it does not have the materiel—the kit that it needs to be able to conduct its war. That is why the UK has implemented a comprehensive set of sanctions worth over £20 billion of UK-Russia trade. In the UK’s next package of sanctions, we will introduce new sanctions on the direct and indirect export of goods from the UK to Russia, further tackling the issues in chemicals, minerals and metals that have been identified to have potential uses in Russia’s military industrial complex. We will target actors in Russia and third countries that support trade in Russian energy, including the shadow fleet vessels, refineries, terminals, and their facilitators.

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