AS THE minister responsible for the Investment Security Unit at the Cabinet Office, Nusrat Ghani has a crucial role to perform in ensuring that the UK’s responses to global threats is backed up with actions. The Investment Security Unit is responsible for identifying, addressing and mitigating national security risks to the UK arising when a person gains control of a qualifying asset or qualifying entity as set out in the National Security and Investment Act. The unit was moved from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to the Cabinet Office in the February 2023 government restructuring, but Ghani, a minister of state at the Department for Business and Trade, continues to be responsible for the unit. Amid the backdrop of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine, she has the onerous responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the trade and economic sanctions that the UK has imposed on Russian individuals and entities, with an unprecedented £20 billion of UK-Russia goods trade now sanctioned. In December last year, she announced the new Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation (OTSI) to strengthen enforcement and clamp down on companies dodging Russian sanctions. The new unit is expected to start operations this year once its new legal powers are in force. “Our package of sanctions, the most severe ever imposed on a major economy, is working – goods imports from Russia to the UK have already plummeted by 94 per cent,” Ghani commented, while announcing the creation of the unit.

“But we are leaving no stone unturned in our commitment to stopping (Vladmir) Putin’s war machine. That means clamping down on sanctions evaders and starving Russia of the technologies and revenues it needs to continue its illegal invasion.” The OTSI will be responsible for the civil enforcement of trade sanctions, including those against Russia. The