The Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025
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The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025 (S.I., 2025, No. 902).
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair today, Sir Desmond. I welcome all colleagues back after the conference recess. This statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 22 July under powers in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The measures in the instrument were made under the affirmative procedure and entered into force on 23 July.
The Committee will be well aware that we in the United Kingdom face a grave problem: large numbers of individuals are undertaking dangerous journeys via irregular migration routes that not only risk their lives but undermine the rule of law. Irregular migration is as much a foreign policy issue as a domestic one. Smashing the gangs and addressing public concerns at home demand hard-headed action and co-operation abroad.
We are determined to confront the concern head-on, targeting those responsible rather than the victims of the vile trade, and protecting national and international security in the process. People smuggling and trafficking are assaults on human dignity. They are vile trades that exploit the vulnerable, fuel organised crime and destabilise entire regions. As our national security strategy makes clear, they threaten peace, security and the very fabric of international co-operation. That is why irregular migration is a top priority for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Together with the Home Office, we have established a joint unit on international irregular migration to strengthen our efforts, deliver our strategy and drive results.
In that vein, and given the purpose of the regulations, sanctions are one of the most important foreign policy tools that the UK uses to back words with action. We now have 37 live sanctions regimes, with more than 4,000 individuals and entities designated. All designated individuals and entities appear on the UK sanctions list, which can be found on gov.uk. We continue to use sanctions alongside all our other diplomatic tools to protect our citizens, uphold our values, and defend international peace and security.
The sanctions regime is a landmark step, as it is the first dedicated regime of its kind anywhere in the world. It is designed to prevent and combat the networks that enable irregular migration; it reflects deep collaboration across government, from the Home Office to law enforcement; and it draws on the full breadth of our expertise. It enables us to strike at every link in the chain, from source to destination. We can impose real costs on the callous groups and individuals who promote and profit from this inhuman trade in people. Sanctioned individuals will face serious consequences, including being banned from entering the UK, being disqualified from company directorships and having their assets frozen.
The regime adds powerful new tools to our arsenal. It will enable us to act against people smugglers and their enablers with the same force that we apply to terrorists, cyber-criminals and kleptocrats. It also reflects our broader strategy to use sanctions to deter and disrupt threats and malign behaviour, defend our values and protect our country. The regime will target individuals and entities wherever they are in the world, from operators in countries of origin to those who smuggle migrants across borders and those who enable, promote and profit from those dangerous journeys. That includes companies involved in small-boat supply chains and organised immigration crime. No part of the smuggling infrastructure is beyond reach. Crucially, it also allows us to target hostile state-backed actors who seek to weaponise migration to destabilise the UK or our allies.
On 23 July, therefore, the UK took action. We sanctioned 25 individuals and entities involved in people smuggling, from small-boat suppliers in Asia, to hawala money movers in the middle east and gang leaders in the Balkans and north Africa. That included individuals such as Bledar Lala, who leads a smuggling ring that moves people from Belgium across the English channel to the UK, and Muhammed Pirot, a hawala banker who controls payments from people being smuggled from the Kurdistan region of Iraq to Europe via Turkey. Those designations cover a range of activities, including: supplying boats, forging documents, facilitating illicit payments and orchestrating smuggling operations. Each designation represents a blow to the business model of exploitation.
We will continue to monitor the effectiveness of the designations imposed so far and of any future designations, to ensure that they demonstrate our ability to target individuals and entities anywhere in the world, to disrupt the activities of criminal networks, and to deter others from engaging in this vile trade.
While we are proud to lead, we do not stand alone. People smuggling and trafficking are global concerns. We are working with international partners to confront them together. Indeed, with the new Foreign Secretary, I had important conversations with representatives from across the western Balkans just last week in Northern Ireland. There have also been important discussions at the European Political Community meeting in Denmark in recent weeks. Our work together includes strengthening sanctions co-ordination, sharing intelligence and building joint responses to dismantle criminal networks. We welcome news from EU Commission President von der Leyen that she intends to propose to EU member states a new system of sanctions specifically targeted at people smugglers and traffickers. We look forward to working with the EU and other key partners to smash the gangs and tackle irregular migration.
To conclude, sanctions are a powerful tool of foreign and security policy. UK sanctions are built on a transparent and robust legal framework. That has been confirmed by our courts, including by the Supreme Court in July. However, there might be instances where a person’s activity falls within the scope of both sanctions and other relevant law enforcement and criminal justice powers. In such instances, we will work closely with colleagues across Whitehall and in law enforcement to de-conflict and to ensure that appropriate tools are used. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will continue to play its full part in delivering the Government’s plan for change. This legislation and the designations that have followed and will follow are proof of that commitment. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond, and to speak about the regulations on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I thank the Minister for setting them out a bit more detail.
In the context of these regulations, it is important to come straight to the point: Labour has lost control of our borders. I therefore have a number of important questions to ask the Minister. The Government first announced the new sanctions regime in January, which is 10 months ago, and only now are we seeing the enabling legislation come before Parliament. Why has it taken so long to get here? That delay hardly reflects a sense of urgency on the part of a Government who claim to be serious about stopping the boats and smashing the criminal gangs. Crucially, when will we see the sanctions take effect? Has the FCDO identified targets? How many individuals or entities are being considered? Is it tens, hundreds or just a handful? It would also be helpful if the Minister could give us the confidence to know that the sanctions unit has sufficient resourcing and expertise to deliver on the new regime, while also maintaining capacity to deal with existing sanctions work on Russia, Iran and other priority areas.
The test for any sanctions regime is not its announcement, but the implementation and the impact. The measures must lead to real disruption of trafficking routes, real consequences for those financing or profiting from the trade and, ultimately, fewer people illegally crossing the channel. Unfortunately, the Government’s record speaks for itself, as it is important again to note in the context of the regulations: this year we have seen record high numbers of small boat crossings, with more than 34,000 already, including over 1,000 in just one day the other week. Meanwhile, more asylum seekers are being housed in hotels than when this Government came to office.
Ministers promised to “smash the gangs”, but the gangs are still operating, the boats are still coming and the traffickers still see the UK as a soft target. And no wonder, given that Labour—including the Prime Minister and the current Foreign Secretary—voted against life sentences for people-smuggling gangs, the very same gangs that this Government now claim they want to smash.
To be clear, the previous Conservative Government delivered the powers that this Government now claim that they want: powers to impose visa penalties on countries refusing to take back their nationals; a landmark returns agreement with Albania, which cut illegal crossings from the country by more than 90%; and a deterrent approach to illegal migration that our European partners are now seeking to emulate. Instead of building on that record, this Government have repealed the Rwanda deterrent, weakened our border laws, and allowed illegal immigrants to claim asylum and even access British citizenship.
To conclude, the Government must show that the measures in this regime are more than just another announcement or gimmick, like the one in, one out deal with France that has removed just over a couple of dozen people while thousands more have arrived. The Opposition will not oppose these regulations today, but we expect to see them work.
Stephen Doughty
I thank the shadow Minister for her comments, but I must start by completely rejecting her overall thesis on the Government’s migration policy. I would put it to the Committee that the previous Government left the system in absolute chaos. Over 400 hotels opened, at a cost of nearly £9 million a day, and they deliberately cut asylum decision making by 70% and wasted £700 million. I was also quite surprised to hear her mention the Rwanda scheme, which returned just four volunteers.
In contrast, we have introduced this new world-leading regime, which is already having an impact, which I will come to in a moment. We have doubled the number of asylum decisions and increased the removal of failed asylum seekers by 30%. We have removed 35,000 people with no right to be here, including 5,200 foreign criminals. The shadow Minister mentioned hotels, and the number of hotels involved is now down to 200, which is almost half of what it peaked at under the last Government, and we will close the rest as quickly as possible. We have also announced £250 million to fund the new Border Security Command since taking power.
I mentioned some of the work that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is doing, but at every level we are working in co-operation with partners in Europe and elsewhere to ensure that we tackle the gangs and individuals engaging in the vile trade of smuggling people across borders and ending up at the English channel. We are taking action in multiple areas to do that, and those that we are taking with partners in the western Balkans and with other European partners at the EPC just last week, for example, are testament to that.
The shadow Minister asked about the length of time. She will know from when I was sitting in her place in opposition that I often raised the length of time, but she will also understand, I am sure with generosity, that to bring in a completely innovative and new regime—it is the first in the world of this nature—we need to ensure that it is legally robust and substantial. When making designations, we must ensure that they are absolutely based in facts and evidence, and that they can be substantiated. As I said, this regime was introduced in July and we are only debating it now because of the recesses, but this is very swift action and we used the new powers almost immediately.
I can assure the shadow Minister that there will be further use of the powers, but I will not say when, as she knows that I do not comment on future designations. However, I can assure her that there is more to come, and we are monitoring the impacts of this first round of designations, which are substantial already. I can assure her that there has been an impact, but I do not want to get into operational details of what our law enforcement and other agencies are looking at. We are working closely with a range of agencies across government to ensure not only that the measures that we have already announced have an impact, but that we use the lessons from those in looking at what will be the biggest-impact targets, which will allow us to deter the vile smuggling chains and those who finance, support and facilitate them around the world.
The shadow Minister was clear that she supports this regime and is not going to oppose the regulations, and I am glad at least for that. I think that is very important, particularly when we have seen Members from on all parts of the House work together on the issue of human trafficking and the vile trade that is involved. There is broad agreement that we absolutely need to go after the individuals involved in that vile trade, and that is exactly what this regime does.
On the resourcing questions that the shadow Minister asked, we have an excellent team of officials who work on these matters. There must always be a balance to ensure that we can deliver on all our different sanctions priorities. We keep those resourcing requirements under regular review, but I can assure her that the team is more than capable of delivering. This is not just an effort by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; it involves our law enforcement agencies and close working with our colleagues in the Home Office and elsewhere, as it does across the piece on our sanctions regimes. The principles of disrupt, demonstrate and deter are at the heart of this regime, as they are at the heart of all our sanctions regimes. I am confident that we delivering in all three respects, and I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.