Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the captagon trade in the Levant region.

The production and smuggling of captagon is a multi-billion dollar trade, essentially emanating from Asad-regime control within Syria. The captagon trade is a growing concern, which is having a destabilising effect in the region. Captagon provides illicit revenue streams to multiple malign actors, notably the Syrian Asad regime and its co-conspirators, principally Hezbollah and other Iranian militias. The UK is stepping up its efforts to work with likeminded partners to combat this, including by drawing international attention to the issue (for example in an intervention at the UN Security Council on 25 January) and increasing our cooperation with regional States.