Sir Julian Lewis: Before the Minister pointed it out himself, I was going to acknowledge his long and honourable record of opposing the killer in the Kremlin when he was on the Opposition Back Benches. I have no reason to believe that he has changed his mind, but does he agree with me that this complex issue has been handled very, very clumsily, to put it mildly? Would it not have been better to have made a statement, rather than having to respond to an urgent question? Were the Ukrainians given this quite complicated explanation in advance? Will he not concede that if we had not embarked on quite such a doctrinaire journey against further drilling in the North sea, we might not have been put in the position of having to make such an unsavoury and unpalatable decision?

[The Minister for Trade (Chris Bryant): The one bit of the right hon. Gentleman’s remarks that I completely agree with is that we have handled this clumsily. That is entirely my fault, and I apologise to all hon. Members, because I think we have ended up giving the wrong impression of what we are trying to do. We are trying to strengthen the regime, not weaken it. We are not waiving any sanction. From today, and for the first time, we have legislation in place that means that it will be illegal to import Russian goods that have been refined in a third country, including India, Turkey and elsewhere. I disagree with the other points he made, but I am grateful for his nice comments about me.]