Speeches by Bryant.

“It was.”

“I completely agree. It is one of the things that I have been committed to for a very long time. When I was a Minister in the Foreign Office, I suspended the Turks and Caicos Government because of allegations of corruption there. Oddly enough, I appointed Rob Rinder as the lawyer to deal with it. We, as a Government, ar…”

“It is always an offence to lie to HMRC.”

“I apologise—I signed it off, but it has not got to you yet.”

“It might be helpful if we wrote to you to tell you how much that happens.”

“I am afraid that you are not going to get any more out of me, Chair. It is not entirely my area of responsibility. We took a position in DBT that we were going to suspend some of the licences. The Foreign Office had made an adjudication that there was a real risk of Israel not abiding by international humanitarian law,…”

“Not in the coherent way that I think you are asking me to stand up an argument around. Of course, we have heard people make an argument for that to us, and we are not deaf.”

“We could talk about the broader policy on Israel and Gaza at some length, though that is not my particular area of responsibility. Having looked a bit at what Ireland and Spain are trying to do—I think they are really the frontrunners in this—I would say that they are struggling to create legislation that they think wi…”

“I think we need to take concrete steps—obviously in accordance with international law, which is one of the things we have to bear in mind—to counter settlement expansion. The Minister for the Middle East and I are considering how we can best effect that. I do not know whether the Foreign Office wants to say anything mo…”

“Because we are keeping it under constant review.”

“We do not have a ban on the import of goods from settlement areas. I know there is an argument for us to have such a ban, and it is one of the things we obviously keep under constant review.”

“I think that is one for HMRC. They are goods, so they are crossing a border, and therefore it is a question for Joanne.”

“I met with Amnesty as well; I had them in my office a couple of weeks ago, just before they came to see members of the Committee. To start from first principles, which is important in regard to this, the settlements are illegal and morally repulsive. That is the long-settled view of successive British Governments, and …”

“Just to be clear, it would be OFSI with the primary responsibility for that—the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation.”

“I heard that.”

“I am taking your advice, Mr Speaker: I am just ignoring that. Over the next few days back in 2011, I repeatedly called for Andrew to be sacked in the public domain—on television, on radio and in newspaper articles—citing his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the mysteriously excessive £15 million paid for his Sunningh…”

“indicated dissent.”

“I hear the points that my hon. Friend makes, and of course I sympathise with them. However, it is remarkably difficult to disentangle some of those from possible offences on which prosecutions may be brought, so I am somewhat cautious in this area, as she will hear. She will know that I can sometimes be as vociferous a…”

“Well, yes, and I also think that the truth of the matter is that we probably need more Paul Flynns. I have always been a bit sceptical about independent MPs, but I have always been very much in favour of independently minded MPs, who are one of the backbones that really allow Parliament to function effectively. I love …”

“All the Lib Dems are now trying to intervene on me, and I am trying to make a very short speech. It was meant to be five minutes, and it is now already nine minutes, so I am failing miserably. All right, I give way.”