Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is in the process of selling his London home to avoid having his assets frozen under UK sanctions, Parliament has heard.

Chris Bryant said Abramovich was “terrified of being sanctioned” and was selling his properties in the capital.

“He’s already going to sell his London home tomorrow and another flat as well,” the Labour MP told the Commons .

The Russian billionaire has an extensive property portfolio in London with some properties owned in his own name but most held by a company called Fordstam.

The home Bryant was referring to is understood to be Abramovich’s 15-bedroom mansion at Kensington Palace Gardens, which is valued at upwards of £150m.

The Russian billionaire is expected to receive bids to sell Chelsea this week with at least three parties potentially interested in buying the Stamford Bridge club.

Abramovich has denied links with Putin, who ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week.

“The government has said, quite rightly, that it wants to sanction Duma [Russian Assembly] members, and it wants to sanction members of the Russian Federation Council, but it’s not been able to do so yet,” Bryant said.

The MP for Rhondda continued: “Alisher Usmanov [a pro-Kremlin oligarch] has already been sanctioned by the EU but not yet by the UK, and I suspect he’ll be pretty soon on a UK list, and Everton [Usmanov’s company, USM holdings, sponsors the football club’s training ground] should certainly be cutting ties with him already

“Roman Abramovich – well, I think he’s terrified of being sanctioned, which is why he’s already going to sell his home tomorrow, and sell another flat as well.

“My anxiety is we’re taking too long about these things.

“Now, I’d have a suggestion on what might help. I fear that the government is frightened of letters, lawyers’ letters from all these oligarchs’ friends, [and] one way to circumvent that is if ministers just read into the record in a proceeding in Parliament, all the sanction criteria, and then they’d be protected.”