Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, with reference to page 18 of his Department's consultation paper, Public consultation on the United Kingdom's future legal framework for imposing and implementing sanctions, published in April 2017, and subsection 2 of Clause 1 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill, for what reasons the Government did not consult in public on the purposes for which sanctions may be used before the publication of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill.

The purposes set out in the Bill are intended to enable the UK to continue implementing, after we leave the EU, the full range of current UN and EU sanctions. The consultation paper was clear on this point. We received a wide range of views in response, including on the purposes for which sanctions may be imposed. These views are reflected in the Government’s consultation response which was published on 2 August.