• New UK sanctions target the daughters of President Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

• Government analysis shows more than £275 billion of Putin’s war chest has been frozen by co-ordinated UK and international sanctions in recent weeks.

• Russia heading for the deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union as sanctions hit Putin’s ability to wage war in Ukraine.

The lavish lifestyles of the Kremlin’s inner circle will be further targeted from today as the UK sanctions the daughters of President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Katerina Vladimirovna Tikhonova and Maria Vladimirovna Vorontsova, the daughters of President Putin, and Yekaterina Sergeyevna Vinokurova, daughter of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, will be subject to travel bans and asset freezes.

The UK has coordinated these sanctions with the US, in another show of global unity on action against Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. This follows the UK’s sanctioning of Polina Kovaleva, Sergey Lavrov’s step-daughter on 25 March.

These designations come into force as new analysis shows the devastating impact of the sanctions imposed on Russia’s economy in recent weeks. Sanctions imposed by the UK and its international partners are having deep and damaging consequences for Putin’s ability to wage war, with £275 billion – 60% of Russian foreign currency reserves – currently frozen.

The analysis shows Russia is heading for the deepest recession since the collapse of the Soviet Union, as estimates for Russia’s GDP growth in 2022 now range from -8.5 per cent to -15 per cent. Longer term, expert predictions suggest a continuing economic hit, with GDP growth depressed as the country is cut off from Western technology.

The Kremlin faces tough choices at home as a result of its aggression abroad. Sanctions imposed in response to Putin’s abhorrent actions have triggered rapid inflation, with average consumer prices up 8.67 per cent since the invasion.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

Our unprecedented package of sanctions is hitting the elite and their families, while degrading the Russian economy on a scale Russia hasn’t seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But we need to do more. Through the G7, we are working with partners to end the use of Russian energy and further hit Putin’s ability to fund his illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine.

Together, we are tightening the ratchet on Russia’s war machine, cutting off Putin’s sources of cash.

By freezing the assets and limiting the travel of Putin’s allies, the UK Government is sealing off reservoirs of cash funding the conflict, while also making sure those who have benefited from Putin’s rule feel the consequences.

Oligarchs and other wealthy Russians are amongst those hit hardest by the sanctions, which have drastically limited their access to luxury consumer goods and access to international markets.

The defence industry is also being targeted by Western sanctions, with the UK already having led the way in sanctioning Rostec, United Aircraft Corporation, United Shipbuilding Corporation and the world’s biggest main battle tank manufacturer, Uralvagonzavod. Sanctions against Kronshtadt, the main producer of Kronshtadt Orion drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles widely used during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will now make it harder to replace these drones.

Restricting access to assets and components will have a material effect on the speed and efficiency with which weapons manufacturers can supply Putin’s war effort.

Russia’s narrative that Western sanctions have caused the rise in global food prices is a blatant lie. We stand in solidarity with our partners across the world who have to bear the rising price of President Putin’s unilateral choice to wage war in Europe. The resulting rise in food insecurity is being felt disproportionately by the most vulnerable and we will pull every lever we have to keep markets open and protect food supplies.

The Russian leadership must immediately allow safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access and make safe passages work, enabling humanitarian aid to be delivered to besieged cities and civilians to reach safety.

Background

• Since the unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine began in February, the UK has sanctioned over 1,200 individuals and businesses – including 76 oligarchs and 16 banks with a global net worth of £150 billion and £500 billion respectively.

• Asset freeze – An asset freeze prevents any UK citizen, or any business in the UK, from dealing with any funds or economic resources which are owned, held or controlled by the designated person and which are held in the UK. It will also prevent funds or economic resources being provided to or for the benefit of the designated person.

• Travel ban – A travel ban means that the designated person must be refused leave to enter or to remain in the United Kingdom, providing the individual be an excluded person under section 8B of the Immigration Act 1971.

• Transport sanction – Recently introduced powers make it a criminal offence for any Russian aircraft to fly or land in the UK and give the government powers to remove aircraft belonging to designated Russian individuals and entities from the UK aircraft register, even if the sanctioned individual is not on board. Russian ships are also banned from UK ports.

• The UK Sanctions List is updated every time a decision is made to make, vary or revoke a designation. The list is published on GOV.UK and sets out which people, entities and ships are designated or specified under regulations made under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, and why.

Thank you Chair. Welcome Ambassador Koja, and thank you to you and your team for the detailed report on the Mission’s activities over the last year.

We recognise the difficult operating environment including those relating to the pandemic, in which the Mission carried out its work, and your achievements during this period. We note the challenges mentioned in the future outlook, and the as yet unclear implications for the region of Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine.

We appreciate the comparative advantage of the Mission in monitoring security-related developments across the country. This and your ability to take early action to address identified issues shows real value added.

We appreciate the Mission’s achievements detailed in your report and would like to focus on three specific areas – social cohesion, professionalisation of law enforcement and gender.

Firstly on social cohesion – we welcome your assistance with the Government’s National Strategy for one Society and Inter-culturalism, as well as your support to local Commissions for Inter-Community Relations, on which the Mission will provide follow up in the coming period. Education is also key here. The Mission’s support for improving integrated education, including your assistance on a concept for secondary education that will contribute to legislative amendments on anti-discrimination, gender equality, inclusion and inter-ethnic integration is highly valuable. These are all essential elements in any society. Combating hate crimes is vitally important, and we welcome your support to police officers for educational campaigns in schools to address this.

Secondly on professionalism of the police, we are pleased to note the newly adopted code of ethics designed to combat corruption and misconduct. We welcome that the Mission facilitated a study visit to the United Kingdom for staff from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to learn about the UK’s external oversight structures and police anti-corruption regimes.

Focussing on an inter-agency approach for addressing victims of trafficking in human beings and gender-based violence is essential. We welcome your training of a variety of professionals, including police officers, psychologists, sociologists and civil society organisations to protect the rights of victims and survivors, and of vulnerable migrants.

Thirdly, we commend the Mission on its activities over this period on gender. This includes on women’s leadership and empowerment to deal with serious and organised crime, as well as recommendations leading to legislative revisions which, for the first time, include a definition of sexual extortion and categorising it as a criminal offence. We appreciate the Mission’s meaningful progress in mainstreaming a gender perspective into programmatic work, and the Participatory Gender Audit, the recommendations of which will be taken into account by the Mission.

Thank you Ambassador Koja for joining us today, and please pass on our appreciation to your team.

Thank you Chair.

The government has today (Friday 8 April 2022) launched a wide-ranging £375 million package of support for innovative energy technologies that will power British homes and businesses for decades to come and further strengthen the nation’s energy security.

This includes £240 million to support the production of hydrogen as a clean, low-cost energy technology, £2.5 million of funding to develop next-generation nuclear technology and a further £5 million towards research into carbon capture.

Today’s investment will support research, development and deployment of these cutting-edge technologies and give the country the energy independence it needs, reducing reliance on expensive fossil fuels. From next-generation nuclear reactors, to hydrogen for industry, power, transport and potentially heating, the government is revolutionising the way the UK gets its energy across a range of technologies.

Yesterday’s ‘British energy security strategy’, unveiled by the Prime Minister, sets out how Great Britain will accelerate the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, whilst supporting the production of domestic oil and gas in the nearer term – which could see 95% of electricity by 2030 being low carbon.

Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said:

This investment will unlock the enormous potential of hydrogen, advanced nuclear reactors and Carbon Capture to level up the UK energy landscape and deliver for businesses and households.

High gas prices and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine have highlighted the urgent need to produce more of our energy here in the UK.

That’s why we have set out bold plans to harness clean, cutting-edge, homegrown technologies and build the energy security we need for the future.

UK government for Scotland Minister Malcolm Offord said:

Harnessing the enormous potential of low-carbon technology is at the core of our plans to bolster the UK’s domestic energy supply, for the benefit of families and businesses across the country.

This UK government backing will accelerate innovation in some of the most promising technologies, including the development of hydrogen energy and next-generation nuclear reactors. Funding for vital carbon capture research, including three projects in Scotland, will help us meet out ambitions for decarbonisation.

Government support

Today’s government support includes:

The £240 million Net Zero Hydrogen Fund, funding low carbon hydrogen production projects, with the aim of awarding funding from the end of 2022. This will advance the government’s ambition to have up to 2GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2025 and up to 10GW installed by 2030, using electricity to produce power by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The Hydrogen Business Model, which will support further investment in hydrogen production with £100 million for electrolytic projects to cover the difference between the cost of production (the strike price) and the sale price for hydrogen (reference price). Funding for this will launch this summer.

The Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator, a £26 million innovation funding programme to support UK industry in adopting hydrogen as a clean, affordable fuel source for sectors like manufacturing by demonstrating the feasibility of hydrogen to businesses and reducing the cost of switching energy systems.

A £2.5 million competition for bidders seeking to develop a UK Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR). These reactors use novel and innovative fuels, coolants, and technologies to generate high-temperature heat for industrial applications as well as for electricity to power people’s homes. Industry representatives are invited to apply for a share of this funding to develop their projects. On top of this, the Business and Energy Secretary has also announced today that nuclear regulators (the Office for Nuclear Regulations and Environment Agency) have been provided with an additional £830,000 of funding to help bring the development of UK AMRs to fruition.

£5 million government funding for accelerating Carbon Capture and Storage (CCUS) Technologies under the ACT 3 scheme. CCUS entails capturing, transporting and storing greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere meaning energy can be stored and used. ACT 3 is an international initiative between 14 countries worldwide including the UK, aimed at accelerating CCUS technologies through funding research and innovation projects and the funding will support the commercialisation of the technology so that companies right here in the UK can invest in it.

In addition to this funding, the government is also publishing a range of important documents and guidelines to support the development of these industries.

Government support for hydrogen is also being complemented by extensive private investment, including ITM Power’s announcement of a new electrolyser plant in Sheffield which will support the hydrogen industry and create 500 jobs.

More information

All of these programmes are receiving support through the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio.

In addition to the investments detailed above, we are also publishing the following.

The Hydrogen Investor Roadmap to shine a spotlight on the numerous investment opportunities across the hydrogen value chain and drive private investment in hydrogen to help boost the homegrown UK hydrogen industry built on clean, affordable power. The CCUS Investor Roadmap will be published alongside this and summarises the current engagement of government and industry, outlining further opportunities to deliver CCUS and drive investment.

The response to our consultation on a Low Carbon Hydrogen Standard, with the intention of setting a maximum threshold for greenhouse gas emissions allowed in the production process for hydrogen to be considered low carbon under the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund and hydrogen business model.

The Hydrogen Business Model to bring forward significant private investment in new low carbon hydrogen production, with government providing an initial £100 million in revenue support funded by the Industrial Decarbonisation and Hydrogen Revenue Support (IDHRS) scheme.

The response to our consultation on the Hydrogen Business Model also provides an update on the government reviews of hydrogen network and storage infrastructure requirements in the 2020s and beyond, as committed to in the Hydrogen Strategy.

The Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator

The Industrial Hydrogen Accelerator is a £26 million innovation funding programme to support the demonstration of end-to-end industrial fuel switching to hydrogen in the UK. It aims to prove the feasibility and reduce the costs and risks of hydrogen fuel switching systems.

The scope will include the full technology chain, from hydrogen generation and storage through to industrial end-use, including the integration of the components in a single project.

The projects will develop knowledge on design and implementation of industrial hydrogen systems and showcase ‘first-of-a-kind’ blueprints to enable deployment in the late 2020s.

The fund will open for applications in the week commencing 25 April 2022 and demonstration projects must be complete by March 2025. Find more information on the IHA.

ACT 3

ACT 3 is an international initiative between 14 countries worldwide including the UK, aimed at accelerating and maturing carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies through funding research and innovation projects. CCUS entails capturing, transporting and storing greenhouse gas emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.

ACT partners include the Province of Alberta, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey, UK and the USA.

The UK element of the ACT 3 programme is funded from the NZIP and will be providing up to £5 million in funding up until 31 March 2025 for CCUS developers to expand on their research. The £5 million provided by the UK will contribute to a total funding pot of around £40 million (including in-kind and industry funds), of which around £25 million is being provided by ACT partners.

ACT 3 follows on from ACT 1 and 2 which provided a total of around £58 million, where 15 UK projects were funded a total of £13 million from this pot. Some key outputs from the programme include international collaboration, dissemination of findings, and promoting the acceleration of CCS technologies towards full scale/commercialisation. Find out more about ACT.

AMR Demonstration Programme

High Temperature Gas Reactors (HTGRs) are the technology focus for this innovation programme as they optimise opportunities for decarbonising industrial heat by 2050. This was announced at the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) annual conference on 2 December 2021 by Energy Minister Greg Hands.

The AMR Research, Development and Demonstration Programme: Market Engagement was carried out during February and March 2022.

Previously, we published a prior information notice which set out our intention to publish formal competition documents for the initial phase (Phase A) of the programme in Spring 2022.