Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether an equality, legal, or risk impact assessment was carried out ahead of the closure of the FCDO unit responsible for monitoring potential breaches of international humanitarian law.

The Media reports that the Honourable Member refers to are misleading. The International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Cell has moved, not closed. As part of an internal restructure, the Cell and its functions continue to operate from within a different team in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The work of the FCDO assessing IHL risks arising from the conflict in Gaza is not being discontinued. The FCDO continues to draw on a range of sources and expertise to inform its assessments and approach to IHL issues, and we also continue to retain access to all FCDO-funded research previously carried out into alleged IHL violations.

We are in the process of reforming the FCDO to build a more capable, agile and resilient organisation that can respond quickly to changing challenges and crises, and operate effectively within the financial constraints that we are operating under in this spending review period. This process inevitably involves the restructuring of teams across the FCDO to deliver our objectives in a more streamlined and better-integrated way. It is important that Honourable Members do not mistake any changes of structure and nomenclature for changes in the priority that we attach to different issues and responsibilities, especially in areas as critical as this.

IHL assessments support UK export licensing decisions. On the delivery and oversight of UK funded humanitarian assistance in Gaza, we continue to call for urgent action to open all the crossings, lift restrictions and flood Gaza with aid.