Thank you very much, Mr Vice-President.

Good afternoon to you, excellencies, colleagues – if I may Mr Vice-President, before I make specific comments on this cluster of proposals, I would like to preface my remarks by quoting from the opening chapter of Our Common Agenda, and I quote, “75 years ago, our founders gathered in San Francisco promising to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war; to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small; to establish conditions under which justice and respect for international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Yesterday, the overwhelming majority of the General Assembly demonstrated their faith in the enduring sanctity of those ambitions. They voted to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they suffered the barbaric shelling and besiegement of their cities by Russian forces. They voted for the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of every Member State, and they stood up against those who seek to redraw the world’s borders, by threat or use of force – they stood up against President Putin’s war of choice.

The United Kingdom was proud to stand with them.

Turning to the specific recommendations in the cluster before us, this week’s report from the IPCC on Climate Impacts is a stark and a sobering reminder to the world about how climate change is affecting our planet. The UK agrees with the IPCC that global action to adapt to the changing climate has been insufficient, so climate and environment must remain at the forefront of our efforts.

The Glasgow Climate Pact made significant progress on adaptation, but we must urgently scale up our efforts. We call on countries that have not yet done so to prepare and submit adaptation communications as soon as possible, and by COP27 at the latest. We also need to scale up support and increase coherence between the adaptation, disaster prevention, and risk reduction, humanitarian, and aid communities. And as others have just said before me, we must also make further and urgent progress on finance and loss and damage.

The planned leaders meeting ahead of the 2023 global stocktake, named in both Our Common Agenda and the Glasgow Climate Pact, will be a critical moment between COP27 and COP28 for leaders to assess their commitments and take the necessary steps to close the 2030 ambition gap.

We welcome the proposed Strategic Foresight and Global Risk Report and the wider focus on cross-UN disaster risk forecasting, planning and management. It must be linked with existing mechanisms and used to inform and incentivise action. The Futures Lab recommendation could usefully bring together analysis from across the whole of the UN system, and we would appreciate more detail on the proposed Emergency Platform.

The United Kingdom supports the ambition of the proposed Global Vaccination Plan but believes the existing WHO vaccine strategy remains the best basis for international plans.

With global vaccine supply now projected to be sufficient to meet global demand, further UN work is needed to strengthen coordination among humanitarian actors to deliver vaccinations to populations at risk of being left behind. UN agencies must invest in improving on-the-ground coordination for integrated COVID-19 immunisation, testing, treatments and other essential primary health services.

The pandemic has also highlighted the critical importance of universal health coverage. We welcome the request for member states and the UN to accelerate their work on this goal, noting that strengthening primary healthcare in developing countries could save up to 60 million lives. We need enhanced coordination and collaboration within the UN system that complements the leadership of Member states on universal health coverage, and to implement fully the use of a One Health approach.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Madam President, and I’d like to thank Under-Secretary-General DiCarlo for her briefing and we look forward to hearing the briefing from Mr Grossi.

The United Kingdom and our partners called this urgent meeting because Russian forces last night attacked the largest nuclear power station in Europe.

We are grateful to the Ukrainian firefighters and authorities who got the fire under control and are working bravely to ensure the plant remains safe.

We support the work of the IAEA in Ukraine and are relieved that, so far, they have reported that none of the safety systems in the plant were affected, and that there was no release of radioactive material.

Colleagues, this is the first time that a State has attacked a fuelled and functioning nuclear power plant.

International law requires special protection for nuclear facilities, and it is difficult to see how Russia’s actions were compatible with its commitments under Article 56 of the first Additional Protocol of the Geneva Conventions.

It must not happen again.

Even in the midst of an illegal invasion of Ukraine, Russia must keep fighting away from, and protect the safety and security of, nuclear sites.

Colleagues, President Putin said yesterday that the “Special Military Operation” – or as everyone else calls it, the war – was going to plan.

Everyone around this table knows that is not true.

President Putin misjudged the strength, resilience and will of the Ukrainian people against his invasion.

He underestimated the world’s condemnation of his actions. 141 votes in the General assembly and the unprecedented sanctions on Russia demonstrate the strength of the global response.

Every day this war continues, the destruction it brings to Ukraine, the suffering it inflicts on the Ukrainian and Russian people, and the risks it poses to international peace and security, increase.

This must stop.

We call on Russia to end this violence, withdraw its troops and enter into serious peace negotiations.

I thank you, Madam President.

France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America take note of the statement of 2 March by the spokesperson of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and subsequent developments regarding the situation in Libya.

We echo the UN Secretary-General’s call on all actors to refrain from actions that could undermine stability in Libya and express our concern at recent reports of violence, threats of violence, intimidation and kidnappings.

We stress that any disagreement on the future of the political process must be resolved without resorting to violence, and we stand ready to hold to account those who threaten stability through violence or incitement. We recall that individuals or entities, inside or outside Libya, who obstruct or undermine Libya’s successful completion of its political transition, may be designated by the United Nations Security Council’s Libya Sanctions Committee in accordance with UNSC resolution 2571 (2021) and relevant resolutions.

In reaffirming our full respect for Libyan sovereignty and for the UN-facilitated, Libyan-led and owned political process, we reiterate our support for UN mediation efforts through the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser and UNSMIL to sustain the country’s peaceful transition, to facilitate dialogue among political, security and economic actors, and to maintain their focus on holding credible, transparent and inclusive presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible in order to fulfil the democratic aspirations of the Libyan people.

We encourage all Libyan stakeholders, including the House of Representatives and the High State Council, to cooperate fully with these efforts and in the next steps of the transition, as proposed by the UN, in order to establish a consensual constitutional basis that would lead to presidential and parliamentary elections as soon as possible.

We reaffirm our readiness to work with Libya and all international partners to build a more peaceful, stable future for the country and its people and to support its stability, independence, territorial integrity and national unity.

• Amendments to be put forward to allow government to move harder and faster with sanctions
• Deadline to register overseas entities to be shortened to 6 months
• New powers to more rapidly sanction those who have already been sanctioned by EU or US

The Government has put forward series of amendments to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill to crack down on corrupt elites and ramp up pressure on Putin’s regime.

The first set of amendments will allow the government to move faster and harder when sanctioning oligarchs and businesses associated with the Russian Government.

The new provisions will help streamline the current legislation so we can respond even more swiftly and effectively to the current crisis in the way we sanction individuals.

It will allow the UK to align more rapidly with the individual designations imposed by our allies such as the US, Canada and the EU via an urgent designation procedure.

The amendments will remove the test of ‘appropriateness’ for designations, enabling the government to act more quickly and make changes to further facilitate the designations of groups of individuals.

The Government has also brought forward amendments to shorten the deadline for overseas companies to register their beneficial owners from 18 months to 6 months. This will help crack down on money laundering through UK property, whilst giving people who hold their property in overseas entities for legitimate reasons appropriate time to comply with the new requirements.

The vast majority of the beneficial owners of entities holding properties on the register will be entirely law-abiding companies and individuals. A 6-month transition period strikes a balance in allowing for the free enjoyment of property and maintaining the UK’s reputation as a stable investment environment whilst ensuring property owners register their beneficial owners.

A further amendment will also increase criminal penalties for non-compliance from fines of up to £500 per day to up to £2,500 per day. As set out in the existing legislation, other sanctions will include prison sentences of up to 5 years and imposition of financial penalties for non-compliance.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

The UK has led the way with the toughest package of sanctions against Putin’s regime and we’re bolstering this with new powers in our arsenal to go further and faster.

We will ramp up the pressure on those criminal elites trying to launder money on UK soil and close the net on corruption. They will have nowhere to hide.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said:

Our message to Putin and his cronies has been clear from day one – invading Ukraine would have serious and crippling consequences. We have been true to our word, introducing the largest and strongest sanctions package in our history, but we are not stopping here.

The changes we are making will allow us to go faster and harder on those closest to Putin, including oligarchs, as we continue to ratchet pressure in the face of illegal and unprovoked Russian aggression.

The government will also bring forward an amendment which will commit the Government to publishing an annual report on the use of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs). Data on the use of UWOs is already published in the annual Asset Recovery Statistical Bulletin, but the additional report will be laid before Parliament and provide further information beyond how many UWOs have been obtained and their estimated value.

The Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill will be expedited through all its Commons stages on Monday and the Government is looking for swift passage in the Lords in order to get Royal Assent as soon as possible.

The Prime Minister has so far announced the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions ever imposed on a major economy. We have brought in sanctions on President Putin, Sergey Lavrov, five Russian banks and more than 300 individuals and entities at the heart of Putin’s regime, and Belarus.

The UK is also applying full asset freezes to three more banks in addition to the six already designated and we are preventing the Russian state from raising debt here and isolating all Russian companies from access to UK capital markets.

The government will continue to ratchet up pressure and use sanctions to degrade the Russian economy on a scale that the Kremlin, or any major economy, has ever seen before.