Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanctions Regulations 2025

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)]

Today I am updating the House on the introduction of “The Global Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Persons Sanction Regulations 2025” which will be laid before Parliament in due course and will be debated after the summer recess. These regulations are subject to the made affirmative procedure for secondary legislation.

This new sanctions regime is the first of its kind anywhere in the world and aims to tackle people smuggling and human trafficking and those that enable, facilitate, promote and profit from these vile trades. It is made under powers provided to the Government by the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 and delivers on the commitment made in my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary’s speech in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Locarno room of 9 January to bring forward legalisation to tackle this evil trade as quickly as possible.

This regime will stop criminal gangs exploiting some of the most vulnerable, to prevent them profiting from risking the lives of innocent human beings, and to stop them getting rich and committing more crime on Britain’s streets.

The regulations provide extensive new powers enabling the Government to designate persons who are involved in people smuggling, trafficking in persons and the instrumentalisation of migration for the purpose of destabilisation. Those sanctioned under the regime face being banned from entering the UK, prevented from being a UK company director, and having any assets held in the UK frozen. These powers will complement our wider efforts to break the business model of those profiting from the misery of others in this way.

This regime delivers on the Government’s commitment to use every tool available to crack down on the abominable people smugglers risking people’s lives, including in the English channel. It gives the Government new powers to take direct action against them and their enablers in the way we can already against terrorists, cybercriminals and corrupt kleptocrats.

Sanctions experts from across Government have worked in close collaboration with the Home Office and law enforcement authorities to deliver an effective and targeted sanctions regime that will help stem the finance flows of people smugglers at source and deter them from taking part in this inhuman trade.

As the world’s first sanctions regime dedicated to targeting irregular migration and organised immigration crime, it will target individuals and entities wherever they are—from countries of origin to those who smuggle migrants across borders or enable and facilitate these dangerous journeys. It will allow the Government to sanction targets along the entire smuggling and trafficking chain, including companies involved in small boat supply chains and organised immigration criminals and their enablers.

While we are proud to be leading the way on this issue, people smuggling and human trafficking are not problems the UK faces alone, but shared global challenges. We will continue to play a leading role with our international partners to combat these joint challenges, including to strengthen our sanctions co-ordination.

This is part of the Government’s resolute mission to secure our borders and crack down on irregular migration. This Government have made irregular migration a priority from the outset, and we are continuing to break new ground on innovative approaches to address the challenge, including the recently agreed groundbreaking pilot with France to detain and return migrants who arrive via small boat. The Germans have also committed to amend their criminal legislation this year to explicitly cover facilitating irregular migration to the UK. This will save lives by disrupting the dangerous small boat supply chains of criminal networks.

The sanctions regime forms part of these wider efforts to secure our borders and disrupt and deter dangerous irregular migration, complementing new powers for law enforcement, including those introduced in the Border, Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. In the last year, this Government have more than doubled asylum decision making—a 116% increase since the election. We have also made over 35,000 returns since the election—a 13% increase compared with the same period 12 months ago. We have increased illegal working raids and arrests by 50% in the last year, with 7,130 arrests and over 10,000 raids—the first time in a 12-month period where more than 10,000 raids have taken place.

By helping to smash the people smuggling gangs and tackle irregular migration flows upstream, this regime will play an important role in delivering the Government’s plan for change on behalf of the British people.

[HCWS879]