Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, pursuant to the Answer of 5 December 2023 to Question 3925, whether the Government plans to contribute to the International Criminal Court's investigation into events in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The UK is one of the major funders of the International Criminal Court (ICC) through its Annual Budget and works to ensure that the Court has the resources it needs to operate effectively and sustainably. We make every effort to assist the ICC and other international investigations as appropriate, including leading international efforts to build support for the work of the Court in Ukraine. On 20 March, the then Deputy Prime Minister co-hosted with the Netherlands an International Justice Ministers' Conference, generating over £4 million in voluntary contributions and new offers of practical support for the Court and its independent investigation into the situation in Ukraine. In addition to the UK's funding support of £10.5 million to the ICC's Annual Budget, since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, we have made further contributions totalling £2 million, which will increase the Court's capacity to collect evidence and provide enhanced psychosocial support to witnesses and survivors across their investigations globally. Additionally, the UK provides practical support including witness protection, sentence enforcement and secondments of UK experts. This year we provided additional funding to the Prosecutor's Trust Fund for Advanced Technology and Specialized Capacity, the Trust Fund for Deployed Personnel and the Trust Fund for Victims. Funding earmarked for individual investigations is forbidden under the financial regulations of the Court.