Speeches by Bryant.

“I am grateful to the hon. Lady that she does not want to be a trade envoy. I often feel as if I am a trade envoy for Scotland, because we are often securing good deals, as we just have with the Gulf Co-operation Council, and in India. We have just done remarkably well—”

“If I am honest, I am bit miffed by the attitude of Liberal Democrat Front Benchers, because I have regularly updated them ever since the Humble Address was passed. I have been as open as possible with them, and they have privately indicated to me, regularly, that they were perfectly happy with the progress we were maki…”

“But not finished.”

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend, and that is the tenor of the conversation that has been happening. He will know that the Prime Minister has been chairing regular meetings to consider the impact of the situation in the middle east. This is undoubtedly one area where we had to take action to minimise the instabil…”

“I think the hon. Gentleman wrote the first half of that question before he heard what I had to say on the subject. I want to make it absolutely clear, once again, that up until now it has been possible for people to perfectly legally import into the UK refined products that have been processed in third countries but th…”

“The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. That is one of the reasons we thought it was important to phase the process. Because of the time lag, we needed to make it possible for businesses not to be caught in legal limbo, as it were, as a result of the sanctions coming into force today. It is probably best if I…”

“I am trying to do that here, now, live. Indeed, I went to see the BBC earlier and gave it a clip. Just to be absolutely clear, we are not suspending any sanctions. The sanctions regime in the UK is tougher today than it was yesterday, a week ago, or a year ago. I am certain that as I in the Department for Business and …”

“All roads lead to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), Mr Speaker; certainly, all urgent questions do. I was not here for the debate yesterday because I was in Strasbourg, but I feel as if I am hearing some of what was rehearsed then, and I do not want to repeat the arguments. I am grateful for the hon. Gentle…”

“We are putting an end to the import of these products from Russia. We want to debilitate and degrade the Russian war machine. The point I would make to the hon. Member is that even if we were to grant licences today for further exploration, that would not solve the problem that we have today, arising from the instabili…”

“Well, I apologise for the rhetoric and bluster, but it is my general way of doing things, so it seems a particularly cruel attack from my colleague! The serious point to make is that I am proud of what we are doing today. I am not hiding away from what we are doing, but we could definitely have communicated it better, …”

“I thought that the Liberal Democrats were in favour of moving towards renewables. Sorry, I may have misunderstood the question; if so, the hon. Member may wish to grab me afterwards. As I said, the problem about the headlines this morning was that some journalists saw half of the story, and not the whole story. That is…”

“My hon. Friend is right that we need to ensure that these sanctions are not only implemented but effective. We need—I think the previous Government felt this as well—a constant ratchet or a whack-a-mole approach to tackling any new diversion there might be that Putin might take advantage of. He talked about jet fuel, a…”

“The hon. Lady knows that I am very fond of her—”

“I am sorry, but up until today it was perfectly legal for people to use Russian crude oil that had been processed in a third country and brought into the UK. The hon. Member is inventing a saga that does not exist.”

“I welcome the hon. Member to his new responsibilities, though I must say that I really liked his predecessor—I got into terrible trouble when I tweeted that, so maybe I should not say it in the House either. It is good to see the hon. Member in his place. He makes an interesting argument and one that I would expect him…”

“Putin must never be allowed victory in Ukraine and we will do everything we can as a Government and a country to debilitate and degrade the Russian war machine. That is precisely what our sanctions regime is designed to do. We have sanctioned more than 3,300 individuals and organisations and hundreds of shadow fleet ta…”

“I am terribly sorry; I am so fond of the right hon. Lady that I think of her in a commonplace way, or should I say a common-sense way? She was, of course, the Minister for common sense—although, despite that, she never took any measures to stop the import of Russian oil into the UK when she was a Minister. Oh dear.”

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments. Notwithstanding his point that every time the price of oil around the world goes up, that is a benefit to Putin—that is one of the problems and ironies of the situation in the middle east at the moment—I would also point out that Russia’s economy is stagnating because …”

“I will try again. The point I am making is not the point the right hon. Gentleman thinks I am making. The point I am making is that, up until now, we have been doing precisely what he said. We have been allowing Russian oil processed in other countries to come into the UK without any impediment whatsoever. That is prec…”

“We have not suspended, waived or got rid of any existing sanctions of any kind whatsoever. We are introducing new sanctions. This is our latest set of sanctions. In fact, I have also been keen to try to ensure that when things are exported to a third country legally but we think they might end up in Russia, which would…”