Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will set out the (a) number of civil servants and (b) budget devoted to (i) developing targets of individuals and companies for sanctions under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, (ii) designating individuals and companies under that Act; and (iii) implementing enforcement and global application of designations made under that Act in (A) each of the last three years and (B) as at 28 February 2022.

The UK Government has already put in place the largest package of sanctions in our history in response to Russia's unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine. We have sanctioned Putin and Lavrov, Russia's defence industry and a growing list of oligarchs. As the Foreign Secretary said in the House on 28 February, we will impose further sanctions on oligarchs and Duma members and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has tripled the amount of people in its sanctions department to make that happen.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's sanctions department leads on the development of the UK's autonomous sanctions regimes, working closely with other departments across the FCDO as well as officials from other Government departments across Whitehall. Officials in sanctions department work together with officials across the FCDO and other government departments in the development of targets of individuals and companies for sanctions. In 2021 the UK designated 160 individuals and entities across 13 regimes. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI), part of HM Treasury, is the authority for the implementation of financial sanctions in the UK.