In an urgent statement last week David Morris MP questioned the Foreign Secretary about sanctions to Russia, and if these sanctions do not stop incursions into the Ukraine, then what the next steps of sanctions may look like.
Speaking in the debate David Morris MP said:
It seems to me that the current sanctions are having a limited effect in halting the incursions into Ukraine. What will happen if these current sanctions fail? Further sanctions are implied, so what would those sanctions look like?
In response to David Morris MP, Secretary of State Phillip Hammond said:
We have two levels of sanctions in place at the moment. We have sanctions targeted on individuals and companies—named individuals and companies—that include asset freezes, travel bans and so forth. Then we have the tier 3 sanctions, which are sectoral. These impose prohibitions on the export of goods and on trade with certain sectors of the Russian economy. In particular, there is an exclusion of Russian institutions, public and private, from the capital markets of the free world. We could clearly extend both lists if we chose to do so. We have to make a judgment about the balance of economic harm. There are costs to us as well as costs to Russia, so we need to target our sanctions carefully to make sure that the balance of harm is to the disadvantage of the Russians.