Question to the Ministry of Justice:

What progress the Government has made on the UK's accession to the Lugano Convention 2007.

The UK applied to re-join the Lugano Convention on 8 April 2020. The next steps are for the existing contracting parties to consider the UK’s application and to provide their unanimous agreement. Switzerland has already agreed to the UK’s accession and Norway and Iceland publicly declared their support over a year ago.

UK participation in Lugano is in the mutual interest of the UK and the EU. It establishes clear rules around which country’s courts will hear a case and enables the recognition and enforcement of judgments between different countries’ courts in civil commercial and family maintenance cases.

Now that negotiations have successfully concluded, we encourage the EU to approve the UK’s application with all appropriate urgency.