Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025

Considered in Grand Committee

Moved by

That the Grand Committee do consider the Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025.

Relevant documents: 34th Report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Special attention drawn to the instrument.

Before I begin, I profusely apologise for making the Committee adjourn. I should have been here, and I was not. I have not got a good excuse, but I hope that everyone will accept my profuse apologies.

This instrument was laid on 22 July under powers in the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The measures in the instrument, subject to the made affirmative parliamentary procedure, entered into force on 23 July.

The UK’s history of migration is a long and positive story—I am a migrant myself, so I know how positive it is—but today, we face a grave problem. Large numbers of individuals are undertaking dangerous journeys via irregular migration routes that risk their lives and undermine the rule of law. Irregular migration is a foreign policy issue as much as a domestic one. Smashing the gangs and addressing public concerns at home demands hard-headed action abroad. We are determined to confront this head-on, Defending human rights and protecting national and international security are our twin objectives.

People smuggling and trafficking are assaults on human dignity. These vile trades 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 this department. 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.

Sanctions are one of the most important foreign policy tools the UK uses to back our words with action. The UK now has 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.

This particular 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 and reflects deep collaboration across government from the Home Office to law enforcement and 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 the inhuman trade in people’s lives. 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 allows us to act against people smugglers and their enablers with the same force that we apply to terrorists, cybercriminals and kleptocrats. I hope that noble Lords will agree that that is evidence of how seriously we intend to tackle this problem.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that introduction. I support the Government’s efforts in this area and appreciate the need for innovative policy solutions, but I have some questions about this statutory instrument.

To begin with, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee noted, the Explanatory Notes and the Explanatory Memorandum are rather thin. We are creating the world’s first sanctions regime on irregular migration with a substantive statutory instrument, as one would expect, but with rather short explanations and without an assessment of the impact. Can the Minister tell us a bit more about the practical impact that the Government expect this new instrument to have on the control of irregular migration? As the Minister noted, there were 25 designations a couple of months ago, so, by this stage, the Government will have probably carried out some assessment of the impact of this new tool.

The Explanatory Memorandum says that this will be a global regime that will allow the United Kingdom to

“target relevant persons and entities wherever they are in the world”.

In accordance with that, Regulation 4 defines both people smuggling and trafficking in persons in terms that are not limited to unlawful entry into the UK. But are we really going to designate persons who are involved in people smuggling anywhere in the world? The legal regime may be global, but the policy scope has to be more defined. Is there some connection with the UK that would be a trigger for designations in the policy?

I notice also the remark of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee on the criteria for involvement not being included in the Explanatory Memorandum. It is important, when this instrument is implemented, to know exactly what the criteria for involvement are, but perhaps that is a problem that can be remedied with guidance published online in due course.

My Lords, the Minister should not be too upset about his late appearance on the Front Bench, with trumpets blaring outside. It is surprising, given the nature of this building and with the conditions outside that we are seeing today, that it does not happen more often.

From these Benches, I will not oppose the sanctioning of criminals who seek to abuse and profit from people smuggling and human trafficking. However, I confess to a degree of doubt as to how effective they will be, given the evasive skills of criminals and, bluntly, whether the sanctions will matter to many of them. That may, in part, depend on having a personal or business presence in the UK. I hope that having this ambitious regime does not mean the diversion of resources from actions that may be more effective.

Sanctions are an administrative tool; the Minister referred to them as “diplomatic tools”. They become a crime when they are evaded, and evasion will largely be outside the UK, which brings its own obvious difficulties. Nevertheless, the Minister may be able to tell the Committee about what the Government believe the scale may be within the UK—I am talking about handling assets.

Tom Keatinge gave evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in February and said:

“I would like to see the theory of change that suggests that sanctions, as part of a toolkit, are going to contribute to”

smashing the gangs. Sanctions need to be effective, otherwise they become devalued. I have read that is really only the United States that uses them, because it uses them as an opportunity to teach lessons. I will not to be tempted to commend anything that the United States Administration does in this area, but I repeat the observation that is been made that there is little or no incentive for designated individuals to change their behaviour because the system is all stick and no carrot.

The instrument uses interesting language. As has been observed, “involved in” is very broad, and the phrase

“the instrumentalisation of migration for the purpose of destabilisation”

seems more to come from the counterterrorism world. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report was very useful, and I thank it for it. As it points out, it needed material that was supplementary not only to the SI but to the Explanatory Memorandum, to explain the detail of this. It comments that it should have been included in the Explanatory Memorandum. I suppose that language included in the explanation that is less precise than that used in primary legislation creating criminal law may be inevitable in a sanctions regime. However, I confess to feeling uncomfortable that an “appeal” requires the Minister to mark his or her own homework, with ultimately an application to the court being possible using judicial review principles.

Without these regulations, individuals connected with human trafficking could be designated—as the noble Lord, Lord Verdirame, said—under the UK’s global human rights sanctions regime, and I, too, would be interested to know in what respect those powers are not sufficiently broad and whether these sanctions can do anything that counterterrorism powers cannot.

Regulation 4.2 of the instrument gives a definition of trafficking in persons that is not the same as the definition in the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Will the Minister explain the thinking here? I gave him a little warning, but it was given with only a little time, that I would ask these technical questions, so if he is not able to answer them today, perhaps he could write to me so that we will get a will write letter on the record.

The Explanatory Memorandum refers to “dangerous irregular migration”, which are, as has been said, not terms used in the instrument. Can the Minister say whether these are a commentary, an explanation of where sanctions will be targeted, criteria or something else?

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said that sanctions are more powerful when imposed by several states rather than just one. These issues are, by definition, international. I, too, will be interested to know—these are more obvious questions—about arrangements with international partners, particularly partners so far, to enable the best use of this regime.

I think I have seen that sanctions have already been applied to the supplier of small boats from China. We have also heard about the trade of boats in Germany, so I wonder whether there is any news there.