Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of financial sanctions imposed by the Government on the Russian regime following the invasion of Ukraine.

We have now sanctioned over 1000 individuals, and over 100 businesses since Putin's invasion of Ukraine. This includes oligarchs worth £117 billion. We have also implemented freezes on 18 of Russia's major banks with global assets worth £940 billion. In conjunction with our partners, we have supported the removal seven banks from SWIFT and frozen over 60% of Russian Central Bank reserves, worth £275 billion.

The full effects of our sanctions will take time to materialise, but these targeted measures are severely restricting Russia's access to finance. They also make it harder for Russia to source imports from around the world, which have fallen by 40% since the invasion, resulting in disruption to Russia's supply chains. Russia is heading for the deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union, deeper than the 2008 global financial crisis.