Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment his Department has made of the impact of (a) UK and (b) other countries' sanctions on individual vessels on preventing Russian circumvention of oil export sanctions.

The government is committed to closing down sanctions loopholes, and cracking down on ever more desperate forms of sanctions circumvention, working closely with our partners. Tackling Putin's shadow fleet is a key part of this work. Since gaining the power to 'specify' vessels, the UK has sanctioned 43 tankers transporting Russian oil. A significant number of these vessels have suffered disruption or struggled to re-enter the Russian oil trade. Additionally, last week we announced that the Department for Transport is working alongside the Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to challenge shadow fleet vessels with suspected inadequate insurance to provide details of their insurance status as they pass through the English Channel. We have also targeted the Kremlin's energy revenues by sanctioning 9 liquified natural gas (LNG) vessels involved in the shipping of Russian LNG, including from Russia's flagship Arctic LNG 2 project.