Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, when he plans to publish draft regulations under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 for the proposed sanctions regime regarding Israeli settlements; and whether there will be a consultation on the proposals.

As the Foreign Secretary said in his statement to the House on 8 September, this legislation will be in place within six to nine months. We aim to bring in the measures as soon as possible within that time frame. Officials continue to work intensively to deliver the new regime. Sanctions are powerful and technical. It is important that we take time to carefully design our measures to make sure they have the impact we want them to have, that they are legally robust and can be implemented effectively. As a matter of long-standing principle, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office does not formally consult on the introduction of sanctions regimes as it risks eroding our ability to introduce measures quickly and undermining the impact of our sanctions. However, we are engaging with a range of stakeholders and experts as we develop sanctions measures for the new regime.