Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if his Department will impose secondary sanctions on Hong Kong financial institutions found to be supporting sanction evasion.

UK sanctions bind UK nationals and entities everywhere. This is different to 'secondary sanctions' which are enforced outside of the sanctioning country's jurisdiction. The UK is committed to curtail Russia's use of the international financial system to support its war efforts and have powers to target foreign financial institutions facilitating this. On 24 February we designated a Kyrgyz based bank using these powers. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) continues to keep potential sanctions designations under close review. It is not appropriate to speculate on future designations, as to do so could reduce their impact.