Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 13 January 2020 to Question 1369 on Hong Kong: Human Rights, what the timeline is for the publication of initial proposals for a scheme of Magnitsky-style sanctions; and whether those initial proposals will be subject to (a) public consultation and (b) parliamentary scrutiny.

The United Kingdom will establish an autonomous global human rights sanctions regime in the coming months. We will do this by laying a Statutory Instrument (SI) under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018. The SI will be made affirmative and therefore subject to a debate in Parliament within 28 days after it has been laid. A global sanctions regime will allow us to respond to serious human rights violations or abuses anywhere in the world. The United Kingdom is committed to the promotion and protection of human rights. A human rights sanctions regime will help support our human rights objectives.

The sanctions regime is not intended to target individual countries, but those who commit serious human rights violations or abuses anywhere in the world.

It is not appropriate to confirm who may be designated under the sanctions regime before the designations are in place. To do this could reduce the impact of the designations.