Written Question
Wednesday 11th March 2026
Asked by:
Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question
to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the FCDO 2030 restructure on availability of qualified staff at gold, silver and bronze commander level to respond to the situation in the Middle East.
Answered by Hamish Falconer
- Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
There is no shortage of available staff for the roles required at present, nor do we anticipate there will be after the completion of the FCDO 2030 programme.
Written Question
Wednesday 11th March 2026
Asked by:
Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question
to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what safeguards will be included in the UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary agreement to ensure the UK maintains the ability to set animal welfare standards unilaterally, for example to ban the import of animal fur products.
Answered by Angela Eagle
- Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the hon Member to the reply previously given to her on 4 March 2026 to PQ UIN 115407.
Written Question
Tuesday 10th March 2026
Asked by:
Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question
to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the removal of funding from the Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit on dedicated national policing funding for modern slavery activity.
Answered by Jess Phillips
- Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
We understand concerns about the lack of dedicated funding for the specialist Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Programme from April 2026, which has historically sat under the National Police Chief Council’s Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Lead.
The modern slavery programme was established in 2017 as a transformation programme, with the long‑term intention of embedding modern slavery expertise and best practice into policing as business as usual. It has been instrumental in improving the law enforcement response to modern slavery, with more investigations and more prosecutions now than when the programme began.
As with all transformation programmes, it is appropriate that it concludes once core objectives have been achieved. It is owing to the success of the programme, with forces better equipped to tackle modern slavery, that we must now ensure a consistent and standardised response to modern slavery across all forces to drive performance and hold the police accountable. This is in line with the Government’s wider ambitions to reform policing as set out in the White Paper, "From Local to National: A New Model for Policing".
In its final year of funding, under the Ministerial Modern Slavery Action Plan for 2025/26, the modern slavery programme has developed a framework for investigating modern slavery, capturing the expertise and lessons learnt from the past eight years of the programme. The framework and related guidance material will be made available to all officers in England and Wales through an online knowledge hub and has been incorporated into the College of Policing’s Applied Professional Practice on Modern Slavery. This will ensure that policing retains a nationally consistent standard for modern slavery investigations and a clear basis for sustaining capability once the programme concludes.
The department will continue to work with police forces across England and Wales to support a strong, coordinated approach to identifying, disrupting, and tackling modern slavery, and to oversee an orderly transition as the central modern slavery policing capability comes to a close.
Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting a debate on this topic, which takes place at such a crucial time for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I also take this opportunity to thank FCDO staff for their ongoing efforts to support British nationals caught up in the conflict …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
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Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"I thank the hon. Member for his kind words and for expressing that sentiment. Of course, faith communities do so much internationally, because it is the right thing to do, but they should be complementing what Governments are doing. At the moment, we know the scale of the cuts, but …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
View all Sarah Champion (Lab - Rotherham) contributions to the debate on: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. Polio is one of the success stories to show what can happen when countries work together, and we have almost completely eradicated it—I think we are at 99.98%. I urge the Minister not to step away from that programme.
The FCDO …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
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Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Of course, we have FCDO and trade staff working together to support the work that he and many others are doing. Trade is fantastic—it is something that we support. I support British International Investment, which I will come on to in a moment, but …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
View all Sarah Champion (Lab - Rotherham) contributions to the debate on: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"May I thank all the Members who have spoken with such passion about the projects, schemes and—most importantly—individuals in our diplomatic and development service at the FCDO? I know that I have a really short time, but I have to say that the Government have given us the four pillars …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
View all Sarah Champion (Lab - Rotherham) contributions to the debate on: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The only way that I am aware of co-operatives starting is by groups of local people coming together. That is what FCDO and ODA money is particularly good at doing—supporting civil society. I mentioned holding Governments to account, but of course, the economic …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
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Speech in Commons Chamber - Wed 04 Mar 2026
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
"I thank the right hon. Member, my fellow Committee member, and I share his sentiment. For those who do not know, BII is our development bank. The FCDO is its sole stakeholder, and it does seem very short-sighted and out of line with other international development banks that we do …..."Sarah Champion - View Speech
View all Sarah Champion (Lab - Rotherham) contributions to the debate on: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office