Global Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Sanctions Regulations 2026

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Leigh and want to provide a gentle reminder of why we are here today. Three years ago, on 7 October, more than 6,000 Palestinian men invaded Israel. They slaughtered over 1,200 men, women, children and infants. They tortured, beheaded, burned alive, blew up, gang-raped and sodomised their way through the Nova festival and a number of kibbutz. Their second war crime was to take over 250 innocent civilians hostage, including children and infants, and into the tunnels of Gaza, where they were tortured and raped, with many murdered and some kept hostage for more than two and a half years.

Some employees of UNRWA were complicit, and these actions were supported by the Palestinian Authority, whose members have never condemned the attacks. In fact, it was due to their weakness and cowardice that Hamas and the Palestinian jihadis were able to take control of Gaza in 2006, when the one and only election took place. The Islamic Republic of Iran pulled the strings of its proxies, and the rest is history.

Having witnessed one of the worst crimes in living memory on the citizens of Israel—an ally, by the way, that provides us with intelligence, cancer drugs used by the NHS and much more—what have this Government done? Let us take a look, shall we? This Government decided to recognise a Palestinian state, despite there being no such thing. There are no borders, no rule of law or anything, in fact, to warrant such a decision. This Government have allowed pro-Palestinian, antisemitic hate protests to take place weekly, to this day. The protesters who take part, including Islamist supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir, all continue to call for the annihilation of Israel and all Jews. Is it then surprising that British Jewish citizens have been, and continue to be, bullied, attacked and murdered on the streets of the UK? Jewish children and their families are living in a ring of steel and antisemitism is at a level I never thought I would see in my lifetime.

Finally, I come to sanctions. Because of a disputed territory—of which we have plenty of our own—this Government place sanctions on our ally, along with the likes of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Russia, Somalia, Syria and other despotic, barbaric regimes, and yet again give succour to our enemies by appeasing and rewarding those terrorists who threaten to attack Israel, again and again. The truth is that this Government have kowtowed to those who shout loudest and to those they hope will keep them in power. Their actions are shameful and a blight on the freedoms we have fought for. They run completely counter to the silent majority of this country. We know a distraction when we see one, and this regulation has to be one of the worst examples yet.

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[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate, and I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Walney, said about Meta Ramsay. We all miss her very much. I am sure he is right that she would have disagreed with many, if not the preponderance, of today’s SI amendments. The expansion of the global human rights sanctions regime, now the global human rights and international humanitarian law regime, shows how the UK is taking bold action to stand up for British values around the world.

On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, I am sorry to see opposition. I understand many of the arguments made by the noble Lord and others concerning the specific cases of Israel that he and most other noble Lords focused on, but I am disappointed to see opposition to this as the vehicle by which they express their passionate, strongly held views on the question of Israel and the UK’s relationship with Israel. Why? Because today is about something slightly different from what the majority of noble Lords have been focusing on. It is about an instrument whose purpose is to strengthen the UK’s ability to respond to serious abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law wherever they occur. If the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, were successful, this House would be on record as regretting the expansion of the Government’s powers to act wherever abuses of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law occur across the globe, and I do not believe that that is the message this House wants to send.

These regulations are not targeting any country; they are expanding the range of abuses upon which the global human rights regime will be based and upon which the UK Government can act. They are global in scope. They are designed to ensure the UK has the necessary powers to hold individuals and entities accountable for serious misconduct across a range of situations around the world. They provide an important and proportionate addition to our sanctions toolkit and strengthen our ability to act in defence of fundamental rights and international norms. I take the point made by my noble friend Lady Gill very much to heart. We need to maintain strong monitoring of human rights abuses and international humanitarian law rights abuses, including information from the United Nations and many other sources as well, to go back to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young.

Through his amendment and in his contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, has raised many specific questions about trade with Israel. To be clear, as the Foreign Secretary has said, we will continue to support important and valued trade with green-line Israel and its people. These regulations do not affect that trade. Indeed, they not about trade; they are about behaviour. The noble Lord also asked whether the Government will publish clear designation criteria and an evidence-based framework. The designation criteria are set out in the regulations themselves, specifically in Regulation 8.

Any designation must meet the legal tests established in sanctions legislation and be made in accordance with the Human Rights Act 1998. Decisions are made by Ministers on the basis of evidence and are subject to the safeguards and scrutiny established by Parliament. As a passing remark, Regulation 8 sets out the designation criteria and is almost identical, I believe, to Regulation 6 in the 2020 regulations. The idea that there is some massive redefinition of the small print is simply not true. The main changes are in Regulation 4, where we have added

“serious violation of international humanitarian law”

and wider human rights grounds. Many noble Lords’ comments are not correct in saying that there is a subversive expansion going on here to get particular cases in. That is factually incorrect.

Questions were raised regarding impact assessments and reporting to Parliament. A de minimis impact assessment has been completed and concluded that the expected additional impact on UK businesses will be negligible. That is because the regulations are enabling legislation only and are global in scope. The sanctions regime itself is not targeted at any specific country, conflict, sector, product, market or group of businesses. Any economic impacts arise only if Ministers decide to designate specific persons under the expanded regime. These designations are separate and case-by-case, and each designation follows a robust legal process. We designate according only to the specific grounds of the appropriate regime and our reasoning must be properly evidenced, with credible sources that can be relied upon in court. We regularly keep sanctions regimes and designations under review.

The noble Lord, Lord Evans, was right that the duty to report annually to Parliament was scrapped in 2022, by the previous Conservative Government. However, this House and the other place have a range of mechanisms through which sanctions policy and implementation are examined, including debates, Questions, committee scrutiny, correspondence and evidence sessions—and through extremely friendly text exchanges with friends such as the noble Lord, Lord Polak, on a regular basis. My honourable friend Minister Doughty writes regularly to the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, setting out the Government’s sanctions work in detail. Such correspondence is available in the Libraries of both Houses. I am committed, as I am sure noble Lords across the House already know, to continuing regular engagement with Members across this House on sanctions and related issues.

Let me respond quickly to some individual remarks—I can deal with only some of them. A number of noble Lords asked whether this instrument was singling out or focused on Israel in some way. This is not about Israel; it is a statutory instrument amending the global human rights regime. Let me refer to some of the designations that have been made: in Georgia, as I mentioned before; in Sri Lanka, where we sanctioned individuals responsible for serious human rights abuses and violations during the Sri Lankan civil war; and in Cambodia, where we have used them to deliver high-impact sanctions against global conglomerates running sham and scam centres, as well as their enablers. It is simply not true that this is a regime targeted on Israel or any one country.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

May I just bring to the attention of the Minister a press release that came out on 8 September, a week after Sir Keir Starmer resigned? It read:

“UK to bring forward new powers to respond to moral emergency in Palestine, and target illegal settlement activity in the West Bank to protect the viability of a two-state solution”.


I will happily give this document to the Minister when he has completed his response.

[Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness; I am familiar with that document—I may even have had a hand in helping to write it. There is confusion, if the noble Baroness does not mind me saying so, at the heart of her point. On 8 September, the Foreign Secretary announced two things—in fact, he announced many things, including a series of sanctions, which some noble Lords have forgotten, on the financing arms of Hamas and Hezbollah, but he announced two things in particular.

First, the Foreign Secretary announced that there will be a new sanctions regime designed to stop UK economic activity supporting the expansion of illegal settlements, and that that would be laid before Parliament within six to nine months. Many comments made by noble Lords and noble Baronesses in the last hour have been focused on a Bill that is yet to be produced and measures that have yet to be clarified. I take very seriously the injunctions of many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Mendelsohn, for clarity to be provided, as much as is consistent with those new rules. But today is about the second thing the Foreign Secretary talked about: the expansion of our existing global human rights regime. That is what we are discussing, and it is not what the quote the noble Baroness read out was about.

I will happily come back to noble Lords on specific issues, but I am afraid I do not have time to go through everything now.

As I said earlier, if this amendment was successful, we would not be taking action on any one country; we would be saying no to the expansion of the Government’s ability to act in response to abuse of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law. Is that the message we want to send, or do we want to make a general modification to an established and successfully operating set of regulations to expand our ability to act against abuses that we all debate, day-to-day, and which people rightly get upset about and ask me Oral Questions about on a regular basis?

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Visit

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, on 5 and 24 March I asked the Minister to clarify details of the oversight in place to monitor the £41 million of UK taxpayers’ money that we had donated for humanitarian aid to UNRWA. I am still none the wiser. I now note that after this meeting a further £101 million is being given to the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt organisation that supported the 7 October attacks on Israel, that has no control over Hamas or the several terrorist groups on the West Bank, and that has done nothing to call for the release of the 59 hostages—which is a war crime—or the laying down of weapons by Hamas. So when will the Minister provide the House with the information that I have twice requested? How can this Government justify donating a further £101 million to that terrorist-supporting organisation? Finally, where exactly would the proposed Palestinian state be located?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I genuinely do not think the tone of that is at all helpful to what we are all trying to achieve here, which is peace and a two-state solution. Perhaps the noble Baroness is not seeking a two-state solution, I do not know. We do not recognise her characterisation of the Palestinian Authority. I met with them myself last week, and I would encourage her to do that should she wish to educate herself about this.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am answering the question that the noble Baroness asked. The reason we are donating aid is that children are starving and people are being displaced. Around 90% of the population has been displaced and aid is needed. We encourage Israel to enable that aid to reach the people who need it, and to do that immediately.

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[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

There are many reforms, as noble Lords can imagine, that the Palestinian Authority know that they need to make. The conversations that I have had have centred on their need to develop their ability to manage money responsibly and how they raise money and accesses funds to be able to deliver the services that they are going to have to deliver in the future. That may feel like high-ambition work from where we are today, and I think they would accept that, but we have to start somewhere, and it is right that we are providing the assistance that we are.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, on the Minister’s comments regarding my questions, we on this side of the House are here to scrutinise what the Government are doing, as was the case when we were in power as a Conservative Government. The Minister may not like what I said, but it is factual. To infer that I said what I said because I have no knowledge of the region or perhaps have never visited or met the Palestinian Authority—which I have; I have been visiting Israel over the last 50 years—I find rather offensive, frankly. She may not have the facts at hand to reply to the questions I asked on oversight of the amount of money that the taxpayer is putting into UNRWA, and now this latest £101 million, but it would nevertheless be a courtesy to say that she will write to me or at least inform the House of the details that I have asked for.

Israel-Gaza Conflict: Arrest Warrants

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

That is right. The issue is that this has never happened. We have never had a serving Head of State subject to an ICC warrant visit the UK. We have had situations under European arrest warrants and the situation with Pinochet, but we have never had this. We need to see the warrant; it needs to be seen by the court, which needs to make a determination at that point.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, US Senators have rightly threatened sanctions against allies if they co-operate with the International Criminal Court’s decision on this matter. Is the Minister concerned that our diplomatic ties with our closest ally could be harmed if we do not speak out against the ICC’s political decision to issue arrest warrants for the Prime Minister of Israel and the former Defence Minister?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It is not my understanding that that is the position of the United States. One or two Senators may have made comments, but that is not the position of President Biden; nor do I think it is the position of incoming President Trump, based on what he has already said. We do not view the ICC as a political organisation or treat it politically. For the UK to sanction or pick and choose whom it thinks ought to be subject to an ICC judgment would undermine the entire institution. It is an institution that I respect and it saddens me that the party of Winston Churchill does not on this issue.

Middle East Update

Baroness Foster of Oxton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The suggestion of an update on negotiations may well be helpful. It is not something that I am in a position to provide now; it is perhaps something worthy of a longer discussion when time allows. I will definitely convey that suggestion to my colleague, my noble friend Lord Collins, when he returns from his visit to Rwanda.

[Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)]

My Lords, I do not believe the action taken by this Government has anything to do with international law. We see Hamas carrying out war crimes on a daily basis. Does the Minister agree with me that trying to defend the indefensible will not wash with the majority of people in this country?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I will let the people of this country decide what will wash and what will not wash with them. This is not the indefensible. This is sticking to, adhering to, international law. It is as simple as that. We have been very clear about our continued desire to be a close ally of Israel and our firm commitment to supporting Israel in defending itself.