UK Foreign Secretary apologises after wrongly accusing Labour MP of supporting 'cumbersome amendments' to faster and harder sanctions

• UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss accused a Labour MP of supporting amendments to a 2018 bill.
• Truss said Chris Bryant had backed changes to legislation to make sanctions harder to bring in.

Liz Truss, the British Foreign Secretary, apologised to a Labour MP on the House of Commons's Foreign Affairs Committee after incorrectly accusing him of supporting amendments to legislation that she said made it harder to bring in sanctions.

Truss apologised later in the session to Chris Bryant, who also chairs the Commons Standards Committee. Bryant told Insider that Truss was "about as well prepared" for the Foreign Affairs select committee hearing "as she was for (Sergei) Lavrov".

Truss claimed Bryant supported "cumbersome amendments" introduced by "lawyers and peers" in the House of Lords that "put a very high bar on our lawyers being able to look at this stuff [introducing sanctions]." She said that Bryant had "warmly welcomed" the amendments to the bill in a debate.

"We have a very cumbersome sanctions process because all of those amendments had been added," she said.

"You're on the record, Chris, for supporting those amendments," she added.

Bryant has called for sanctions to be brought in faster and against more Russian oligarchs with links to the Putin regime, as UK government officials work on drafting the paperwork and building the case against individuals to be sanctioned. He has proposed using Parliamentary privilege to expedite the process.

But Bryant told Truss he had not spoken in that debate and had not supported those amendments.

"I didn't say - I supported the amendments to introduce the Magnitsky sanctions, I was one of the people who had been arguing for them for many, many years. What you've just read out is not in Hansard [the record of Parliamentary debates and votes], so I hope you'll correct the record. I didn't speak in the third reading debate," he said.

"Well, we can. I've been told you did. So I can get the details," Truss replied. Bryant reiterated that he did not speak in the debate.

"I'll get my officials to check up on that," Truss said, before apologising 25 minutes later in the session.

"I have now heard from my officials that Mr Bryant did welcome the bill but not the amendments, so I want to correct the record on that subject. I am sorry, it was wrong in my notes, Mr Bryant. I apologise. I will ... it was written wrongly in my notes, I do apologise."

Bryant later thanked Truss for her apology, and noted his speech of May 1 2018 was "remarkably good".

"On that day, there was an amendment to that bill, which was to create a register of ownership of overseas entities, which you voted against then. But I'm glad that you will be voting in favour of it today", Bryant said, referring to legislation going through Parliament on Monday to bring in a register of overseas entities. Insider spoke with Joseph Powell at the Open Government Partnership about the legislation on Friday.