Minister of State for Industry and Economic Security (): The Government is
announcing today that it will create a new unit - the Office of
Trade Sanctions Implementation - within the Department for
Business and Trade to improve the implementation and enforcement
of trade sanctions.
Over the last year, the Government has implemented sanctions
against Russia unprecedented in scale and scope. In total, the UK
has sanctioned over £20 billion worth of its 2021 trade in goods
with Russia. We have also banned the provision of a range of
professional and business services that are crucial to Russia’s
economy, including accounting and audit, advertising and public
relations, architectural services, engineering services,
management and IT consulting, and legal advisory services. The UK
is a world leader in services trade, and Russia has high levels
of dependence on skills and expertise from G7 countries. Our
services sanctions will degrade Russia’s ability to maintain,
upgrade, and modernise its economy over the medium-term, thereby
reducing the revenue available to finance its war machine.
The new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will play a
pivotal role in ensuring that these sanctions, but also those
across twenty-three other UK sanctions regimes such as
Afghanistan, Belarus, North Korea, Iran, Lebanon and Syria, are
effectively implemented and enforced.
The new unit will support businesses to comply with UK trade
sanctions as well as investigate potential breaches. The Office
of Trade Sanctions Implementation will have a range of civil
enforcement tools including the ability to levy monetary
penalties. The Government will make regulations to provide the
framework for these monetary penalties. Where the Office of Trade
Sanctions Implementation investigates and potentially finds more
serious breaches, it will refer these to His Majesty’s Revenue
and Customs or other agencies for criminal enforcement.
The Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation will be an important
addition to the Government’s sanctions enforcement capability. It
will work closely with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which
will continue to enforce trade sanctions where goods (and
ancillary services) cross the border in line with its role as the
UK’s Customs Authority; with The Office of Financial Sanctions
Implementation in His Majesty’s Treasury, which is responsible
for financial sanctions as well as the oil price cap; with the
Department for Transport, which leads on transport sanctions, and
with the Home Office, which is responsible for immigration
sanctions and for modern slavery.
The creation of the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation is a
key part of how government is delivering the Economic Deterrence
Initiative announced as part of the refresh of the Government’s
Integrated Review, published in March this year. This funding is
from the Conflict, Stability and Security Fund, and administered
by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, which is
responsible for overall foreign policy on the use of sanctions.
It will strengthen our tools to respond to and deter hostile acts
by current and future aggressors, including by building expertise
across government to design, implement and enforce sanctions for
maximum impact.
Further detail on when the Office of Trade Sanctions
Implementation will be operational will be shared with Parliament
at a later date.
