The chairman of the British parliament's foreign affairs committee said on Monday the nerve agent attack on a former Russian agent in southern England looked like state-sponsored attempted murder and he expected Moscow to be blamed.

Lawmaker Tom Tugendhat said the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, looked "awfully like it was state-sponsored attempted murder".

Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a meeting of the country's National Security Council later on Monday to discuss the incident.

"We're expecting the prime minister to make an announcement soon and frankly I would be surprised if she did not point the finger at the Kremlin," Tugendhat told BBC radio.

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