Foreign Affairs Committee issues call for evidence on sanctions scrutiny

The Foreign Affairs Committee is today issuing a call for evidence on the UK's sanctions strategy, focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of sanctions. 

The Committee is seeking evidence on whether Parliament should have greater oversight of the UK's sanctions policy. The Committee is examining how increased oversight could be balanced with the need for expediency, as well as ensuring that sanctions have clearly defined aims that align with wider foreign policy goals. 

Prior to leaving the European Union, Parliament had a more substantial, formal role in scrutinising autonomous sanctions implemented by the UK, typically being given confidential information on new EU sanctions before their adoption. In the House of Commons, the European Scrutiny Committee was given access to draft EU sanctions legislation before the regimes or designations were adopted, on the understanding that sensitive details would not be made public prematurely, and would routinely report significant changes in EU/UK sanctions policy to the House.  

Following the UK's departure from the European Union and under the provisions of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, as amended by the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, Parliament has not been given prior information on new autonomous UK sanctions by the Government before they are made public.  

Most regulations establishing new UK autonomous sanctions regimes are subject to the limited post-publication parliamentary scrutiny mechanisms for Delegated Legislation. 

The deadline for submitting written evidence is 09.00 Monday 17 March 2025. 

The Committee welcomes evidence on:  

• How can Parliament most effectively conduct scrutiny of the FCDO's sanctions regimes? Of specific regimes? Or individual designations?   

• At what stage should Parliament be consulted, if at all?  

• Which aspects of sanctions policy would benefit most from broad and open discussion?  

• What concerns does increased parliamentary scrutiny raise and how could they be mitigated?  

• How effective has parliamentary scrutiny of sanctions been in other parts of the world? What has been the experience of other countries?  

Each submission should be no longer than 3,000 words and contain a brief introduction about the author. Submissions should be in malleable format such as MS Word (not PDFs) with no use of colour, logos or photos. Further guidance is available on our Written Evidence Guidance.