The instruments before us were laid under the powers provided by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018—also known as the sanctions Act. These instruments came into effect at midnight last night.
As stated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, we have announced the largest and the most severe package of punitive economic and trade sanctions that Russia has ever seen in response to Putin’s pre-meditated, pre-planned and barbaric invasion. We will continue to ratchet up the pressure, working in concert with our allies around the world. We have already imposed sanctions on Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, five Russian banks, 120 businesses and a long list of Russian oligarchs. Taken together, this targets assets worth hundreds of billions of pounds. Throughout, we have worked with our allies, including to agree to remove selected Russian banks from the SWIFT system and we have agreed to target the Russian central bank, but we will go further. I want to say to this House that we will continue to stand with the Ukrainian people in their heroic efforts to face up to unbridled aggression and that nothing is off the table.