As part of our ongoing scrutiny of the Foreign Office the Foreign Affairs Committee is very pleased to welcome Yvette Cooper, the new Foreign Secretary, and Sir Olly Robbins, whom we are very grateful to see again, having seen him last week. We have a lot of questions, as you can imagine, Foreign Secretary, but we are going to try to be disciplined. We want to be able to get all the way through to the last question, which is on Sri Lanka, so this will be a little bit quick-fire, if that’s all right. This is our first session with you, and we want to be able to cover as much ground as possible. Obviously, as your priorities become more clear and so on, we may end up focusing, perhaps next time, more on one particular topic, but we thought we would start with this format, if that’s all right with you.

Great.

What does a progressive foreign policy look like?

Thank you very much for having me, Chair. It is a great pleasure to be here. As a former Committee Chair myself, I have huge respect for the work that Select Committees do. I always had a slight feeling that maybe it would be karma when I sat and answered questions from a Committee, but thank you very much. Our job, and my job as Foreign Secretary, is to make sure that the partnerships we build abroad make us stronger at home. That means focusing on our security, our prosperity and our values, and in each of those areas you can see progressive elements. Our security is the bedrock on which all other opportunities are built. If we do not have national security, we cannot enjoy any of the other opportunities. If we do not have border security, we lose cohesion in our country. Our prosperity has to mean the prosperity of the whole nation. That is why, for example, when we are championing trade and investment across the world, we are championing all the regions. It is why mayors from across the country have been part of our economic diplomacy across the world to get investment into every corner of the country. Our values are about respect for the rule of law and our shared humanity. That is why, for example, when Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica, we were swift to make sure that we could provide a direct humanitarian response—because of that sense of the values we have when it comes to other countries in the world as well. In the end, all those things we do feed through into our security, prosperity and values, woven together. We are stronger as a country because of the partnerships we build abroad. For some, less progressive approaches are about saying, “Do you know what? We can just be isolationist. We don’t believe in those partnerships.” We do believe in them, and we believe in international respect for the rule of law and countries working together to support each other in the face of collective threats.

Chancellor Merz said yesterday about Ukraine: “For the first time since the war began, a ceasefire now seems possible.” We are getting lots of very positive briefings about Ukraine, but we are not getting any detail as to what that means. I wonder whether you are in a position to help us. If a plan is emerging, what role will Britain play?

Part of the reason why you are keen for more details is that those discussions are still under way, even as we speak. A very important set of peace process discussions are taking place at the moment. No one wants peace more than the Ukrainians, after everything they have endured over the last several years. But of course, we also need it to be a just and lasting peace. It cannot simply be an opportunity for Putin to pause and come again. It therefore has to respect the strength and sovereignty of Ukraine and also the security of Europe—not only the security of the UK but the security of Europe more widely. We know that the threat from Russia is broader than the threat to Ukraine itself; there is also the threat to Europe. That is why that is part of it. You will have seen some of the discussions we have had over a long period of time. The reason why the Prime Minister, alongside France, set up the coalition of the willing was also to talk about the kinds of security guarantees that need to be in place. We have talked about some of the financial issues, such as the Russian sovereign assets, as well. Of course there are a lot of details, but ultimately this has to be about Ukraine’s sovereignty, and what matters for Ukraine has to ultimately be decided by Ukraine.

We have been reading that progress seems to have been made on security guarantees. Given that that seems to be being briefed, I was asking, if there are to be security guarantees and it looks like it is getting more concrete, what role we are playing.

We are obviously a leading part of the coalition of the willing. That has involved discussion between the Defence Ministries and armed services across different nations that are all ready to be part of the coalition of the willing. The UK is clearly a central part of that. We have had discussions across other European nations, and we have also been discussing with the US what role they would play in terms of providing that back-up for the coalition of the willing and providing security guarantees. I totally understand why you are asking these questions and pressing on them, but you will also understand that while these discussions are still under way, it would be premature for me to try to go into further detail.

It is difficult, though, because certain things get briefed, such as on article 5, and there being an offer from the United States that might be withdrawn if it isn’t agreed to. These tantalising things are put into the newspapers, but when the Foreign Affairs Committee is trying to hold the Foreign Office to account, we are told that we cannot be told even that.

I understand. At the point at which there are details to be published, there will of course be many opportunities to raise questions as well. Bear in mind that there is another crucial thing in this. A huge amount of work has been going on, involving the US and Ukraine, backed by European countries, on securing peace. But we also see, I think, that there are two Presidents who are pursuing peace—which is President Zelensky and President Trump—but President Putin has so far just sought to escalate war and escalate conflict. Russia could end this war at a stroke if it simply stopped the conflict and stopped pursuing its invasion of Ukraine.

We want to move on to conflicts. Uma is going to ask about Gaza.

Last night, we heard really moving testimony from Reverand Jack Sara from the Bethlehem Bible College, about the desperate plight of those in Gaza and the flooding we are seeing. I hope the UK will be looking to push on further humanitarian assistance. In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of coverage of the death of Ahed Tareq al-Bayouk. She was shot playing near her family’s tent in Gaza. The IDF says it is now reviewing the case. It has got a lot of coverage, rightly, but this is just one case. Since the ceasefire, an average of three children a day have been killed—that is every day. That is over 140 Palestinian children. What is Britain doing not only to rebuild Gaza but, in the short term, to ensure that the ceasefire actually is a ceasefire and that we do not see children dying every day?

You are right to raise this point. We know that the ceasefire is incredibly fragile. More significantly, hundreds of people have been killed or injured since the ceasefire came into force. Obviously, that raises issues about making sure that there is effective monitoring of the ceasefire process, and also that we have proper progress around the process as well. The first phase of the ceasefire agreement was obviously around the return of the hostages, which has been hugely welcome, although we know there is one remaining hostage; the ceasefire itself, which is hugely fragile; and the increase in humanitarian aid, which has increased but is nowhere near where it needs to be. The civil-military co-ordinating committee that has been set up is doing some form of monitoring of what is happening, but I think it is not the full framework that we would want to see. Most immediately—you talked about the flooding—there is an urgent, desperate need for more aid to go into Gaza. We need all the crossings opened, we need the restrictions lifted and we have to get that additional surge of aid in. We have managed to get some additional tents in, by working immensely hard—we have got over 2,000 tents in—and that is really important, but the UN has said it needs more than 80,000 tents to be able to help people through the winter when there has been so much damage to buildings. That is why one of the continual things we press every single day is to get additional humanitarian aid and support into Gaza. It is also why we are supporting the match funded, pound-for-pound DEC appeal in the run-up to Christmas.

I would like to ask about the west bank. Violence is decreasing in Gaza, but to have peace in Palestine there needs to be peace across all the areas. Violence and military operations have increased in the west bank; food prices have tripled, which is extremely destabilising; and 1,000 Palestinians have been injured in settler attacks in the last year, compared with 500 the year before. What are you currently doing to condemn the creation of new and the expansion of existing settlements, and to ban trade with settlements? What practical barriers are you coming across with that ban? Will you be carrying out further sanctions on violent settlers?

Also, I have to say that as part of our report we said there should be a ban on settlement goods being imported into the UK. The Foreign Office has not so far accepted that.

What are the blockers stopping that?

The increase in settler violence that we have seen is extremely disturbing. It continues alongside the expansion in settlements, which we have strongly condemned. We have been working internationally, not just directly, to increase pressure on that. Just a couple of weeks ago, I put out a statement, jointly with the French, German and Italian Foreign Ministers, condemning both the scale of violence and the expansion of settlements, because we are so deeply concerned about the escalation of violence. The number of violent settler attacks during the olive harvest in October alone was, I think, 250 recorded attacks. That is the highest it has ever been. It is shocking and appalling in itself to have that level of settler violence, but it is also part of a broader issue about the future of Palestine. While everybody is rightly focusing on establishing peace in Gaza, we cannot lose sight of what is happening in the west bank. These things need to be linked. That is why the establishment of the Palestinian committee needs to be linked in to the Palestinian Authority, and we need to have that track to the two-state solution that we have obviously always championed, and which was part of our recognition of the state of Palestine—the historic decision that we took and announced earlier in the autumn. We are continuing to press those issues. My hope would be that once the next phase around Gaza, with the Board of Peace and the Palestinian committee, is established, that would also become an opportunity to link it more clearly with the issues around the west bank and the reforms to the Palestinian Authority that we are also proposing. I think you also raised the issue of trade. As you know, we have already said that the settlements do not benefit from the preferential trade tariffs, and we encourage the labelling of settlement goods. You are right that we have not followed the approach that the Select Committee has taken, not least because of the complexity of this and because we do not think that is the right approach going forward.

Is it because it is not the right approach, or because it is too complex?

I think it is a combination of the two. But I recognise the point that the Committee has made. We have set out a whole series of things and, as you will know, we pulled back from the free trade agreement. What we want in all of this is to be part of a positive process going forward. Now that we have the momentum of so many different countries, alongside the UK, joining in the recognition of the state of Palestine, and we have a set of commitments, not just around Gaza but linking to the west bank, in the discussions about the reforms and the peace process, it is now really important to bind everybody into a positive process going forward. This is deeply fragile, but we need that forward momentum and to bring the west bank into that forward process.

You are right that both the Department for Business and Trade and HMRC have recently updated their list of non-eligible locations so that goods in the specified locations cannot benefit from preferential tariff treatment. They have also introduced a new document code for that. If there are any doubts about goods that have been declared to be of Israeli origin, HMRC can undertake checks, and I am advised it will, to verify the origin of those goods to ensure fiscal compliance. If you would like, I am happy to write to the Committee with further detail in terms of the work that HMRC does on that.

Clearly we see them as illegal settlements, so it is important that that is recognised.

Some of these are DBT issues as well. I am very happy to provide you with further written information on that.

I want to come back to the Board of Peace. Several Committee members were at the Doha forum a few days ago. When we talked to Qatari Ministers, they said that the Arab position is that the current set-up of the Board of Peace is unacceptable for them. We have seen lots of information in the press recently about Tony Blair no longer being in position. What is the UK’s role in the Board of Peace going to be? How have we been involved in setting it up? Are we going to hear any more about Tony Blair being involved? Will the FCDO be involved if that is not the case?

When President Trump first published his 20-point plan, he put forward Tony Blair as part of those discussions. That was his nomination, rather than the UK or other countries being involved at that point. The discussions about the composition of the Board of Peace are still under way, so there is no conclusion to those yet. At one point there was a suggestion that that might happen sometime between now and Christmas, and there have been other suggestions that it might now happen in January. My personal view is that we need to move forward as rapidly as possible, but the Board of Peace should happen alongside the Palestinian committee. It is crucial that the Palestinian committee is able to run the practicalities of services in Gaza. The principle that Palestine should be run by Palestinians is hugely important. The Board of Peace would then provide oversight of the peace process more widely. We still wait for the details to be finalised, along with which countries will be involved in the Board of Peace. Further crucial things obviously need to be taken forward around the ISF and the decommissioning. Again, though, underpinning all of this has to be the huge expansion of humanitarian aid, and we can get on with that right now.

Absolutely. You mentioned the ISF, and I think the UK has sent some personnel to work alongside the Israelis and the Americans at the Civil-Military Co-ordination Centre. We have also had lots of proposals from countries like Turkey, Pakistan and Indonesia to provide troops. Why is it taking so long for the ISF framework to be established? What is the UK’s role in the CMCC? What do you envisage our role to be in any future ISF?

We have supplied people to the CMCC—both military and civil members—in order to help with that, but it is predominantly doing operational co-ordinating work. The ISF is a very different role, and we would not expect and do not intend for UK troops to be part of the ISF, although we of course always stand ready to provide planning support or training support on those kinds of issues. The US is leading discussions on that with potential troop-contributing countries. I think some of the issues for those countries end up being around the mandate, the details of that and how it could work in practice. We have also put forward some proposals on the decommissioning process, which we have suggested could learn from the decommissioning process in Northern Ireland. That was done very much independently, so it would be a process independent from the ISF. But, as we know, all these issues are complicated, so they are still being looked at and are still to be resolved.

We are embedded in the CMCC, and you have said that the humanitarian situation leaves a lot to be desired, what with the number of people who have died due to flooding, the huge restriction in tents, the small numbers of additional trucks that the UN is being allowed to deliver through, and Rafah crossing still being closed. What influence do we have, and what more can we do to ensure that aid gets in? Do we need to think about further measures against the Israelis to encourage them to open these options up?

The aid going into Gaza has increased since the ceasefire. My view is that it is still a long way short of where we need to get to. That is partly why I went to Jordan to see the warehouses. Just one of the World Food Programme warehouses that I went to had UK aid there. There was enough wheat there to feed 700,000 people for a month, yet it was stuck in Jordan and some of it had been there for eight months because the Jordanian route into Gaza was still closed. There have been some further discussions and we continue to raise at every opportunity potentially opening the Jordanian route, but we are not there yet. We need urgently to get the Jordanian route opened. We have been putting pressure on and we managed to get 2,500 tents in—again, they had been waiting for many months. That is enough tents to help shelter 12,000 people, so it is really important, but it is still not on the scale that the UN is saying is needed. While the number of trucks has gone up, we still need to go much further. My argument is that we need the Israeli Government to lift restrictions, obviously, but this should be part of the push forward with the Board of Peace and the Palestinian committee to get a surge in aid, because it is crucial, especially as winter draws in.

You said earlier that humanitarian aid could be delivered now and should be delivered urgently, and now you are saying that it should be part of the next phase.

It should be at every stage. It should happen now. We are calling for it to happen now, but, in addition, as part of the establishment of the Board of Peace and the Palestinian committee, there is another opportunity to further increase aid and have new arrangements in place to make sure that we can get aid as rapidly as possible to those who need it.

Many of the charities have been in touch with us about this. The Israelis are not going to allow UNRWA to play a role in delivering aid to Gaza and much of our aid goes through the UN. There is also aid that will be implemented through grants that we give to charities, and a lot of British people are giving to those charities, but they cannot play a role in Gaza at the moment because of registration problems. I understand that Israel is insisting that there is a registration process, and the Israelis have rejected Save the Children. There are a number of British charities, and if we have a leading role—as I understand it—within the CMCC when it comes to the delivery of aid, but we cannot even get British doctors into Gaza, what are we going to do about it?

I have raised this exact issue about the registration of charities directly with the Israeli Foreign Minister. We have raised it continually with the Israeli Government and through the CMCC and all those involved in the process, and we will continue to do so. A lot of very good and very experienced charities need to be able to operate. Very practical improvements and delivery could take place now but are being prevented by continuing those restrictions. The UK Government’s, and my, strong view is that the restrictions on charities need to be lifted. We need to get them in.

I want to get a better understanding of our role in the CMCC. You mentioned that we have civil and military personnel out there. Could you provide details on how many individuals we have there, what kind of briefings they provide, and how regularly you are getting briefings from them about the work that is going on?

We currently have 15 people there, predominantly military staff but some civil as well. It does vary, because people go for short periods and there are rotations. As of today, there are 15 people there. The reality is that the CMCC has a transition role, as planning takes place for the Palestinian committee and the Board of Peace. Some of what it has been doing relates to practical issues around planning for humanitarian aid and the next steps on the ISF, Palestinian police and so on. The reality is that the CMCC is not going to deliver the next stage of the 20-point peace process; it is a transition body.

The CMCC suggested—at the end of last month, I think—that something like 24,000 trucks of aid and goods have gone into Gaza. You have said that more aid has got through, but there are concerns. We all want much more aid to reach the people who need it. I am trying to understand, given that we have approximately 15 personnel there, whether you are getting regular briefings from them, or whether you plan to visit the CMCC yourself, given its important role in this interim transitional phase.

Yes, we do get regular briefings. Regarding the issues around truck monitoring, the target was, I think, 250 UN-related trucks a day. That is being hit sometimes, but not consistently. I actually think this is about much more than the number of trucks. We know that there are some commercial trucks as well, but the total number is not delivering the scale of winter support that we need. Part of the reason we are continuing to press the issues around humanitarian aid is that it needs to be relative to the need on the ground, not simply about increasing processes. It is good that the number of trucks has been increasing, but there are still nowhere near enough compared with where we need to get to.

Can I ask one final question on this?

Quickly.

You mentioned earlier the broader issue of the future of Palestine and moving towards a two-state solution. I understand that the Government provide funding to the Palestinian Authority. I wonder whether you could provide some detail on how much funding we have provided since July last year and what the plans are for next year. What are you doing to ensure that the reforms we need to see around education—as you know, many of the textbooks contain antisemitic content—and to make sure that all forms of “pay to slay”, including any new guises under which it may be paid, are stopped?

Not a quick question.

But an important one.

Let me write to you with the precise detail for the 18-month period, so that I give you the right figure. On the specific reforms—including education textbooks, welfare reforms and so on—we are absolutely monitoring the detail. I have spoken directly to President Abbas about those and the commitments the Palestinian Authority has made to drive those reforms through. They are crucial. In addition to that, we are providing further expertise on the kinds of reforms that we think are needed more broadly, because although there are some particular most challenging issues that absolutely need reform, there are broader reforms that we think the Palestinian Authority needs to make in order to be part of this peace process more widely. I am happy to write further on that to give you more detail.

Thank you.

I wish to move on to another issue. You might be aware that the Committee has pressed strongly for the appointment of an envoy for arbitrary detention. We also requested that the Foreign Office set out rough criteria of what would qualify. Your predecessor was reluctant to give the criteria, but did say that the Foreign Office was working at pace to make an appointment. I wonder if you could say a little about how you see arbitrary detention and how to define it, and also when we can expect to see the appointment.

I do want to introduce this appointment. I think it is important and would be very valuable, so we are taking that forward, and also looking more widely at some of the envoys. I think this is important and so we will be making that appointment. More widely—

Can I ask when? Your predecessor said “working at pace”, so when we can expect it?

I hope you will appreciate that the reshuffle has added to the time to do this. I can tell you that those discussions are under way. We would try to do so as swiftly as possible. In terms of the definition, there is not really any agreed international definition of arbitrary detention. Some of the debate reflects different legal approaches and so on. The FCDO does not really have, effectively, a fact-finding ability to assess individual cases. What we can do, however, is strongly take up consular cases, as we have obviously been doing in the case of Jimmy Lai, where we are calling for his immediate release. There are other cases where people need to go through a criminal justice process in various countries, but we still provide them with important consular support through those processes as well.

I wanted to raise the case of Jimmy Lai. You made a very strong statement in the Chamber yesterday, and you told us that you had called in the Chinese ambassador. Previous releases of individuals held have been obtained through applying some hard pressure and holding out the prospect of better relations if the release can be obtained. What actual actions can you take to put pressure on the Chinese authorities, and in particular, will you and the Prime Minister make it clear that a visit from the Prime Minister can only go ahead after the release of Jimmy Lai?

We have been—you were there for the statement yesterday—very strong in our condemnation of this clearly politically motivated prosecution, and we have called for the immediate release of Jimmy Lai. He is 78 and there are immediate humanitarian concerns here. Even simply on a humanitarian basis, we urge the Chinese authorities to release him immediately. He has already been incarcerated for five years. Also, we have grave concerns about the national security law and the way it violates the joint declaration signed by the UK and China. There is a period now between the verdict and the sentencing in which we will make representations in the strongest of terms, co-ordinating with other allies as well. We have been discussing this with other G7 countries, including the US. You will have seen the clear statements from the US, including from the Secretary of State. We have seen support from President Trump as well for Jimmy Lai’s immediate release. That is the stage we are at currently: putting on the strongest pressure that we can between now and the sentencing.

But surely the strongest pressure we could put on would be to make clear that a visit by the UK Prime Minister cannot go ahead while a UK citizen is incarcerated in a Hong Kong jail.

As I have made clear, our focus right now is to get the humanitarian release of Jimmy Lai. I hope that would be everybody’s agreed objective. That is why we are seeking to have as many other countries as possible calling for the immediate release of Jimmy Lai; the EU also put out a strong statement yesterday. We seek to get as many other countries joining us as possible in putting that pressure on.

We will move on to Sudan. Given the UK’s historical role and its connections with Sudan, is it in a position to be able to be an honest broker in the terrible situation there? I know that it is absolutely the right thing for us to be giving aid and that sort of assistance, but work is needed on a political and diplomatic solution, and we are the penholder. What efforts are we making? Is it even possible for us to find a political solution to Sudan?

I have substantially increased the Foreign Office work on Sudan. I am deeply worried about Sudan. This is already the worst humanitarian crisis of the 21st century, and I am really worried that there will be further atrocities. We have seen the horrendous scenes in El Fasher and I have met some of the Sudanese community volunteers, those who work in the emergency response rooms, including a woman who runs some of the services providing support for women victims of sexual violence. The way in which rape is used as a weapon of war and the mass executions—what is happening there is absolutely horrendous. More widely, as well as the humanitarian crisis, there is the risk of famine for millions of people and the wider security risks: failed state risks, with extremists able to exploit the instability, and migration risks, with a huge number of refugees in Chad, Egypt and other countries. Yes, I think that the UK can play a role. A Quad has been established, which involves the US, the UAE, the Saudis and the Egyptians. I am in continuous touch with all four Quad members. On speaking to Foreign Ministers, I spoke to Marco Rubio about Sudan last week; I spoke to the US special envoy; and in the past few weeks I have been speaking continuously to the Foreign Ministers of the other three member countries. Our role is partly about maintaining the pressure to keep up the momentum of the work the Quad has committed to, but it is also about facilitating and supporting some of the more detailed work on what it takes to get to a humanitarian truce and, if we reach a truce, what the political process is that needs to follow is? In our role as penholder, we stand ready to put forward further UN resolutions, as and when we can. You will realise that we took a resolution to the Human Rights Council, which was strongly supported, comprehensively, from across the globe.

So the lead does not come from us as penholders at the UN; the lead comes from the Quad, and we stand ready to give assistance.

The US obviously has substantial ability to put pressure on. The other countries—Saudi, Egypt and UAE—also have extensive influence and engagement. Our role, I think, is to continue to work with all of them and to push to keep pressure on through the UN. The crisis in Sudan is so complicated and at risk of getting worse, with the fracturing and fragmenting of the various sides and the willingness to perpetrate atrocities, that it requires, I think, broad international engagement. I have called for the same level of international engagement and energy on Sudan as we have had on Gaza. In the run-up to the ceasefire in Gaza, we had huge international engagement from a range of countries right across the world. Clearly, a crucial role was played by the US, but there was also the role of the Arab League and of other countries which, like the UK, signed up to the recognition of Palestine. All those countries all being part of something together really mattered. We still need to see that in respect of Sudan.

With 12 million people displaced, 150,000 people killed in the conflict and over 30 million people requiring humanitarian assistance, we can see exactly why you are putting such priority on this. You mentioned the UAE being part of the Quad; I would like to ask about UK arms export licences. It is alleged that British armaments exported via the UAE have been identified on Sudanese battlefields. Have the UK Government reviewed their assessment of those UK arms export licences? What representations have you made to the UAE Government on this matter?

I take any allegations like this incredibly seriously. I think allegations were made about three items found in Sudan being sourced from the UK. Since those allegations, I have insisted on a review of 2,000 export licences. In the case of those three items, they were not covered by any current licences over the last five years. I think there was a seatbelt, a target and an engine component, none of which has been included in current export licences from the UK. However, if any further allegations are ever raised, I will take them immensely seriously. We have very strict rules to prevent any diversion. More widely, I have discussed issues of weapon supplies to Sudan with all the members of the Quad—the UAE, the Saudis, Egypt and the US. Obviously, some of what we need to do is restrict any weapons going into Sudan. We also have to recognise, though, that they already have an awful lot of weapons in Sudan. Therefore, the most urgent thing is getting the humanitarian truce in place, and trying to identify what it would take to have sufficient pressure on both sides so that they pull back from the brink of further conflict and atrocities.

I am talking about the potential atrocities. What immediate actions are you taking to ensure that the atrocities witnessed in El Fasher, which you mentioned, are prevented from occurring in Kordofan?

Of all the different things I am dealing with at the moment, this is the thing that worries me most. We have seen horrendous atrocities take place, and there is a real risk of further atrocities. That is why we are seeking to maintain the pressure, and we announced new sanctions on RSF members around the atrocities that have taken place in El Fasher. We are ready to use any of our levers in order to put pressure on. Also, part of the Human Rights Council resolution that we put forward was about a fact-finding mission. As Tom Fletcher has said, El Fasher is a crime scene, and therefore we also need to be able to gather evidence of the atrocities to hold people to account. To be clear, whether it is through sanctions, fact-finding or other international work, there must be accountability for atrocities. Ultimately, there needs to be a truce. We want to see a ceasefire and permanent peace, but immediately, can we just get a truce that pulls back from further conflict in the Kordofans right now to prevent further atrocities from taking place? That is what a lot of the discussions have been about, such as the conversations I have had with Massad Boulos, who is the US special envoy, and Marco Rubio. You will have seen both the US Secretary of State and President Trump also express deep concern about the scale of atrocities taking place. We are just trying to get the maximum pressure on. We also have the UK special envoy, who has been engaging with the SAF, as well as the issues around the sanctions for the RSF. We are engaging on both sides to try to put maximum pressure on.

You mentioned the peace process and the political process, and it is constantly raised with me and others that there are not enough women involved. When you see the peace talks, there are a lot of men going in and out. The women of Sudan feel that they should be involved. We have very good experience of involving women in the peace process in Northern Ireland, which has been shared with women’s groups in Sudan. As the penholder, and given that we are so involved with the Quad and in other ways, what influence can the UK Government bring to ensure that more women, and the right women, are involved to make sure that the peace will be lasting for all the people of Sudan?

One of the things we are seeking to do, including by working with countries like Norway, which also has experience in these areas, is to build up civilian capacity in Sudan. There is an immediate issue with getting the warring sides to pull back from the brink and to agree to a humanitarian truce. If it is to be sustained, we need a civilian transition, which means that we need to be able to strengthen Sudanese voices and civil society. I have met some of the community activists who are showing incredible bravery by providing a response through emergency response rooms. It is crucial that women’s voices are a central part of that. As part of the work we are looking to do to try to build civilian capacity, and as part of the 25th anniversary of the women, peace and security resolution at the UN, which the then Labour Government were a crucial part of establishing, it is all about recognising that there not only needs to be protection for women victims of war and conflict, including from things like sexual violence, but that women’s voices need to be heard as part of the peace process. Women need to be a strong voice for security and peace. We highlighted that 25th anniversary as part of the work I am trying to do to strengthen the work on women and girls through the Foreign Office. We need to make sure those principles are now taken forward in the work we seek to do to strengthen civil society in Sudan.

Can we move on to Syria? We are a bit tight for time. Sorry, Fleur.

There have been a number of appalling ISIS-linked attacks in recent days, including the devastating antisemitic attack in Australia. We are also seeing an uptick in ISIS-linked violence in Syria, where a number of American servicemen were killed over the weekend. What can you tell us about our response to ISIS in Syria? Are we reviewing our position in the light of these recent incidents?

If you go back 10 years or so, the security focus of the Foreign Office and the Home Office would have been on counter-terrorism, the nature of the organised groups operating in ungoverned spaces and what the strategy should be on that. In more recent years, we have seen growing state threats, whether that be around Russia and Ukraine, around Iran and nuclear threats or around the hostile state-backed and organised hybrid threats we have seen in the UK. In the discussions I have had in the Foreign Office about focusing on security, I have been very clear that we cannot simply move everything to focus on some of those state-backed threats because, actually, we can see signs of some of those terrorism threats starting to grow and escalate again. We have to be immensely vigilant on that. We want to continue our engagement with the Syrian Government. There is an opportunity to help the Syrian Government to deliver a more stable, free and prosperous future for Syrians, and to help them establish a governed space that is safer and that allows us to work together to tackle those organised extremist threats. You will have seen the commitments that the Syrian Government made in the US on joining the international coalition against Islamist extremism, and we are continuing to work with the Syrian Government on that. I welcomed Foreign Minister al-Shaibani to the UK in November, as well. It is something that you would expect me to be very alive to, having come from the Home Office to the Foreign Office, but it is certainly something that we will continue to focus on, not just in Syria but more broadly.

Brilliant. Thank you, Foreign Secretary. I am glad that you mentioned working with the Syrian Government on normalising the situation there and building a more inclusive and representative country. I have one final question on this issue. Could you say a bit more about our work on the issues around governance and supporting the Syrian Government? Also, when might we see the UK embassy reopening in Syria to support that wider effort?

We want to keep increasing our engagement with Syria. We are continuing to offer them support on the political transition. Rightly, you said that this needs to be inclusive. They need to ensure that, as their democracy and governance develop, the Government can be fully inclusive, protect human rights and deal with sectarian violence in Syria. We continue to engage with them on that. We are exploring options for a more permanent UK Government presence. We are continuing to visit, and we are already regular visitors to Damascus, but that is something that is under consideration.

Let us move on to the States.

Foreign Secretary, I want to ask about the US national security strategy published earlier this month. The document talks about “restoring Europe’s” civilisation “and Western identity”. It talks of Europe facing the “prospect of civilizational erasure” and “loss of national identities” and becoming “majority non-European.” Do you agree with that assessment?

Obviously, that is the US national security strategy. We published the UK national security strategy in the summer, so we take responsibility for our approach; the US will set out their national security strategy. There are areas in their strategy—actually, it goes more widely; this is not just about their strategy, but about the approach they take—where we clearly have a shared vision, for example, and areas where we respect their different priorities. Of course, there are also areas where it would not surprise you that we take a different view. Certainly, on some of the points that you make, it would not surprise you that we take a different view on the strength of European democracies, the strength of our freedoms, our support for communities and our social cohesion. If you want to talk about the centuries of civilisation of which we can be proud, our cultural industries are stronger than they have ever been. They are a more important part of our economy than they have ever been. We have strong and diverse communities who are proud to be British and who are an incredibly important part of the kind of country that we are. We celebrate that and will continue to do so.

On the US approach to Europe, the strategy talks about European “governments’ subversion of democratic processes.” It says that the US will “promote…the…influence of patriotic European parties” and cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory”. Do you think it is acceptable for the US to meddle in the democratic process of the UK and European countries to promote political parties that have overtly Trumpian views?

Look, we work with different long-standing allies. The US is a huge and long-standing ally. We have very deep co-operation on intelligence and security. They continue to be our closest ally in a whole series of national security areas—that continues. Of course we have differences of view in all sorts of areas. We respect their democracy, and we obviously expect all democracies to be—

Respectfully, I suggest that they don’t respect our democracy if they are willing to meddle in it.

We expect all democracies and all nations to be respected. We can, of course, have robust differences of view about particular political issues, and we continue to do so. I regard my party as a patriotic party. We will continue to be very clear about the strength of our country. I am very proud of Britain and the diverse, creative and dynamic country we are, and the strong ally we are to all sorts of countries across the world.

What I am driving at are the policies and the worldview outlined in the US national security strategy document, and that, on its publication, the Kremlin spokesperson welcomed it as “largely consistent” with their view of the world. How reliable a partner is the US to the UK, given how different our worldviews are?

We are working with the US on a series of different issues, and I have had repeated discussions with the US Secretary of State. The Prime Minister has obviously had close discussions with President Trump. We had the state visit, and so on. There is a whole series of areas where we have a strong shared interest, for example in economic and tech development, which was part of the tech partnership. While I was in Washington, we discussed the continued strong support from the US for NATO, for example, but at the same time, we recognised—we strongly agree with this—that European countries need to do more and contribute more to their defence. There is also the work that we are both doing around Gaza and its peace process, and around Sudan and its peace process. Of course, there are areas where we take a different view, and we will raise and discuss them with the US—I have done so as well. That includes being very clear that I see strength in the way that Europe is responding to Ukraine, for example. We need to do that alongside our allies. The peace process with the US is hugely important, but the work that European countries have been doing to respond to the Russian threat is immensely important.

I agree with you on the need for Europe to spend more and do more on defence. I am wondering about when you talk to the US about NATO, given that the US national security strategy says that the US “stand ready to help—potentially through more favorable treatment on commercial matters, technology sharing, and defense procurement”, which does not really extend to the full ambit of NATO responsibilities. With a Trump presidency, how confident are you in the US fulfilling its article 5 obligations?

That is one of the issues I discussed while I was in Washington, and the US Administration and the Secretary of State were very clear with me on the continued strong support the US shows for NATO. That is what we have seen as part of the NATO discussions. We also discussed issues around security guarantees as part of the Ukraine discussion. Again, that is immensely important. Europe has to do more—that was part of our discussions between NATO Foreign Ministers—and that is why we are increasing our defence spending, and why other countries are also doing so. We have always said that NATO is at the heart of our security; it is immensely important to our security and will continue to be so.

The US national security strategy characterises Europe as blocking peace between Ukraine and Russia. How do you and the British Government respond to that characterisation when you engage with the United States Government?

We can discuss areas where we agree and areas where we disagree, and that has always been the case. I have been very clear publicly that I see Europe’s response as having shown considerable strength in the way in which so many countries—not just in Europe but across the world—have been prepared to join the coalition of the willing that the Prime Minister and the French President established and co-chair. That has been really important. There is also continued investment to support Ukraine, its defences and energy infrastructure, and our continued commitment is shown by the fact that so many European countries are now increasing defence spending in response to the real threat we face from Russia. You will have heard some of the things that the head of MI6 said yesterday, and I reiterate that the threat from Russia is not simply about the threat to Ukraine. The threat from Russia to the stability and security of Europe is very real. We should be very clear-eyed about the broad range of threats posed by Russia, whether it is the hybrid threats, the kinds of military intervention we have obviously seen in Ukraine, deliberate cyber-disinformation threats and so on, or threats to undersea cables. We need to take those threats immensely seriously, and I think Europe is strongly pulling together in response.

Foreign Secretary, you will be glad to hear that in the new year we will give you a new report on disinformation; we are in the process of putting that together.

Following on from the questions about US policy, there seems to be a pattern of attack by the US Government on British Muslims, and in particular on the Mayor of London. I am a very proud London MP—proud of our diversity, which you mentioned. What would you say about those attacks on our mayor and the false information given about our fantastic capital city?

I think Sadiq Khan is doing a brilliant job as London Mayor. We see that he is delivering for Londoners, and we see strong support in many surveys, with London rated as the best capital city to live in anywhere in the world. We see the rich economy and the strength of our communities across London. I strongly support the work that the mayor is doing.

We have three London MPs on the panel who would agree with that.

Foreign Secretary, you spoke a moment ago about security guarantees for Ukraine. We have heard, overnight, some quite positive words about US security guarantees: they have been described variously as “article 5-like”, “very strong” and “platinum standard”. Chancellor Merz said that US security guarantees are “remarkable”. Please could you describe how these security guarantees might operate, and what the UK contribution to them might be?

I am just going to recognise that some of these discussions are still ongoing. We believe that significant progress has been made on security guarantees, but because those discussions are not yet concluded, I do not want to pre-empt the conclusion of those discussions. The whole point about having the security guarantees is to ensure that Putin cannot just pause and come again—that it does not become a pause for him simply to rearm, strengthen his military resources and then launch further attacks, whether it be on Ukraine or anybody else. That is why the security guarantees are so important: there has to be some deterrence in this process against Russian aggression. Those are the issues that we are looking at. That is why we have all talked about a just and lasting peace, but I think that unfortunately, with apologies to you and the Committee, it would be premature for me to talk about the detail of that at this stage.

But it would go further than the mere reassurance force that has been discussed until now?

We all have to be able to have that confidence. Ukraine has to have the confidence that any agreement does not simply mean that Putin goes further again 12 months later or six months later. Those are also about guarantees for other countries concerned about security and stability across Europe. The only other thing I would reiterate—I made this point at the beginning—is that ultimately we have a huge amount of work under way between Ukraine and the US, supported by European countries. Frankly, I do not yet see commitment from Russia to sign up to peace. They could sign up to a peace process at any point, and actually that is where we need the pressure. That is one of the reasons why we are continuing with the pressure around sanctions on Russia—the economic pressure—and pursuing the issues around Russian sovereign assets.

I am curious, then, to know about the UK-EU co-operation around arms, and specifically the shortcomings around SAFE that we have seen in recent weeks. Might we see any further re-engagement between the UK and the European Commission on SAFE talks in the new year?

The timescale and the cost made this not value for money. We were always very clear that we needed value for money, but as you know, we continue with strong defence partnerships anyway. There is a whole series of different ways, including third-country terms, in which we can be part of all those programmes, and we continue to have direct defence agreements and partnerships with a number of different countries. Obviously we have seen the new agreements with Norway and other countries as well, but we are not currently proposing to reopen the discussions around SAFE.

But is it not disgraceful that the Canadians can get access to SAFE on the basis of paying in €10 million, and we have to pay €6 billion? What is going on? We play a leading role in the defence of Europe. Why are we not allowed into SAFE?

As I think we have made clear, we are only prepared to be part of arrangements that work as value for money. I think that has to be a guiding principle for us, but we have a lot of different defence partnerships, whether it be around frigates, around GCAP or around different forms of not just defence co-operation but defence procurement with other European countries. We will continue to do so. You will have seen the work that we did with the carrier strike group on its return from the Indo-Pacific, as it came back through the Mediterranean. The partnerships with Italy and Norway are immensely important, and they will continue to be. We will continue to be part of strong defence arrangements with other European countries.

Foreign Secretary, are you able to say what progress has been made in seizing Russian sovereign assets held both here in the UK and further afield?

The assets are frozen. You will have seen that there was a further vote in the EU Council last week to sustain the freezing of the Russian sovereign assets. What we want to be able to do, though, is mobilise those assets to help support Ukraine and to be able to provide the investment for Ukraine. The UK supports the reparation loan proposal that the European Commission has put forward, and I am continuing to have discussions with other European countries and other Foreign Ministers about support for making sure that those Russian sovereign assets can be mobilised for both military support and economic support in Ukraine. Frankly, I just think that Russia should pay for the damage that it has done to Ukraine. That is why this is the right thing to do, as well as increasing the pressure on Russia to come to the table.

This is not just a discussion about Russian sovereign assets. Almost four years after Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we are still in a position in which the £2 billion proceeds of the sale of Chelsea football club, tied to Roman Abramovich, are still frozen. When are we going to see the proceeds of that sale disbursed to support Ukraine?

I have been working extensively on this, and I hope to be able to update the Committee as soon as possible. We have been doing a huge amount of work over the last few months, and I hope to be able to provide a progress update to the Committee very soon.

Might it be possible to write to us with a bit more information?

I certainly can, yes.

Good afternoon, Foreign Secretary. You recently warned about an escalation in hybrid threats from malign foreign states that are seeking to undermine democracies across Europe. We have a missed a statement in the House of Commons today on electoral resilience because we are sitting in this Committee, but can you tell us how you are making this a priority within the FCDO?

The statement today was about a further review into foreign malign interference in elections. We have seen this already happening in countries across the world. I know that this is something that the Committee has been looking into. If we look at Moldova, for example, there were fake websites for political parties, with fake policies, deliberately trying to increase hostility towards candidates that, frankly, Russia did not like. We have seen information being laundered through news or so-called news websites and then re-laundered through other websites right across Africa, for example, with false information about the Ukrainian President and his wife. We have seen deliberate things, and we have particularly seen these Russia-backed organisations driving this. Disinformation started under the Soviets back in the 1920s, but this is on an industrial scale. At that time, it would have been propaganda leaflets; now, this is industrial-scale disinformation, making the most of algorithms and so on in order to be able to destabilise.

Are you satisfied with the current response across Europe and by NATO? It strikes me that, beyond fact-checking services, there is very little hard power, or strong soft power, to rebut some of this stuff.

There is a mix of things that we can do. I look forward to your Committee’s report as well, and to your recommendations. What we are seeking to do now is to co-ordinate on this, particularly with NATO allies, but also more widely. We have now introduced a whole series of sanctions. I will correct this in writing if it is wrong, but the figure in my head is that we have sanctioned 38 different Russia-backed organisations in the last year for disinformation—malign, deliberately orchestrated, industrial disinformation and false information.

How will you evaluate the impact of those sanctions?

We have seen the impact on some of them, as a result of those sanctions, of also losing their platforms and being unable to operate. Of course, the challenge with this kind of thing is to then identify when they simply re-emerge somewhere else in the system. It is about increasing our co-ordinated monitoring, but also being able to shine a spotlight on them, because one of the ways in which they seek to get their power is by hiding in the shadows. The very fact of shining a co-ordinated spotlight on them is an important part of defusing the power that they have, but there is also the process of using sanctions and those kinds of additional power against them and looking more broadly at how we see this as part of things like hybrid warfare, hybrid threats and cyber-threats. That requires a co-ordinated approach, not just any one country operating alone. It is why we have also been co-ordinating with the EU Commission, for example, on some of its sanctions.

Returning to the issue of the EU and looking towards Europe for European security, and Britain’s leading role in that, as well as the fact that talks on SAFE broke down, should you not be clearer in your condemnation of the Commission for its role in subverting what democratic leaders in Europe have stated as their aim, which is to work together on defence?

On the issues around sanctions, we have had very strong co-ordinated work with the European Commission. Some of the Russian sovereign assets work, for example, has been very close between us and the European Commission. There are other areas in which the strongest partnerships are directly with individual member states, whether that be through direct individual partnerships around defence procurement or whether it be around groups; we have sometimes worked with the E4 or with different groups of European countries. It will be different on different things. Look: we do not agree with where the SAFE discussions got to, but we are part of a much bigger, broader defence co-operation, not just with our European allies but with NATO. That remains important, especially at a time like this.

Foreign Secretary, your predecessor agreed to come before the Committee and talk us through the China audit once it was published. Since then, however, the Committee has not received any update. Of course, your predecessor made a brief statement in the House to explain why it would not be published and, instead, small elements would be incorporated into the national security strategy. We are told that much of the audit is classified. Do you agree that the British public need to know the contents of the audit if they are to be able to work within the guidelines in it?

There are some issues that are security related. Given that we have recognised some of the national security threats that China poses, you would not expect us to publish details around that, and I do not think that any of the Five Eyes partners has published an overarching China strategy in that way, for exactly that reason. I understand that we have offered the Committee a private briefing on some of the China issues, and I will extend that offer again, so that we can give you direct further briefing that we may not be able to provide publicly. The complexity of our engagement with China is that it both poses national security threats and is our third largest trading partner. We discussed earlier some of the specific historical issues around Hong Kong—Jimmy Lai and other issues—but we also have wider issues, ranging from climate change co-operation and trading issues to some of the economic security threats and issues. The things that I have been focusing on in relation to China since I took up the Foreign Secretary brief include strengthening security approaches in respect of cyber-threats, pursuing further analysis on some of the wider economic security issues—the supply of critical minerals, for example—and looking at some of the wider issues for our critical national infrastructure here in the UK.

Thank you; that is really helpful. We will definitely take you up on your offer of a private briefing, I am sure. I will just note, though, that I was of the understanding that a number of UK allies and partners, including the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Germany, have published explicit national China strategies.

Yes, I think some European countries have, but not Five Eyes countries.

Okay. You talked about the wide range of areas that our relationship with China touches on. If the majority of the audit is classified at a level beyond what most people working in the civil service could see—indeed, so classified that up to this point even the Committee has not been allowed to see it—how can we expect Government Departments to be able to implement it effectively and work together to make sure that it is properly seen through?

Before you answer that, I probably ought to say for the record that Sir John and I are both Privy Counsellors and we could have a private briefing on this. Thank you for making the offer again, but because we work as a team, it would be quite difficult if some of us had information and the others did not. That is why Aphra Brandreth has just made reference to the fact that not even the Committee can see the China audit. Although John and I might be able to get sight of some of it, we are not able to see the whole China audit.

And my point is not just that the Committee cannot see the audit, but that probably most people working in the civil service—you can tell me if I am wrong—do not have the security clearance necessary to see it, and therefore if there are things that need to be implemented and Departments that need to be working together, I would like to understand how you see that happening.

The audit was really a process to drive the approach that the Government takes, and it fed into the national security strategy, which is public. It also fed into a series of other approaches—our trading approaches, our national security strategy and so on—that are public. It has fed into the broader public process. I am interested in us being able to look in a bit more detail at some of the economic issues. There are areas where it is clear that we can have strong partnerships, or benefit from greater investment and trade. The Prime Minister highlighted some of those in his recent speech, when he set out some of those areas—cultural areas, for example, because cultural industries are a hugely important part of the UK economy. In other areas, however, including defence and some sensitive security issues, we should not have Chinese investment, because national security ultimately comes first. We have to do further work in some of those areas, such as looking at supply chains around the world, or making sure that the approach to, for example, critical minerals and our supply of them does not end up being restricted as a result of us failing to understand some of the decisions that China and other countries are taking across the world on critical minerals supply.

You will be aware that yesterday the Intelligence and Security Committee published its annual report, which highlights the inadequacies of the Government approach towards China. In particular, the report states: “Given the extent of the threat posed by China…and particularly that of its interference operations, we are concerned to see the Government dragging its heels on…whether to add China to the Enhanced Tier of the FIRS”—the foreign influence registration scheme. Given that China poses the biggest threat to the UK through transnational repression, cyber-attacks and malign activities, why is it not on the enhanced tier of FIRS, alongside Russia and Iran?

Each country is considered separately and differently, because countries obviously have very different circumstances, with different kinds of threats, challenges or, in some cases, opportunities. It is right that each country should continue to be considered separately. This is a Home Office lead issue, but the Security Minister has been clear that we keep all this under review, continuing to look at what the next steps are on FIRS. Alongside that, we have a series of other security tools. The first tier of FIRS applies more widely, but we have also been increasing, for example, the training for every single police force on state-backed threats and transnational repression, and some of the intelligence and security investment, the agencies’ investment, to address some of the state threats and challenges, which have clearly grown. Also, the use of sanctions—we are increasingly using sanctions. We have just sanctioned two China-based entities on cyber-threats, for example. We are also increasing the use of sanctions, including on China and India, for the backing for Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, and on some of the Russian oil and gas operations. We can use sanctions and other security measures, on the security and intelligence side of things, and we can look at what further legislation might be needed in any of those areas.

I would like to ask you about the plans for the new Chinese embassy. As you know, the China super-embassy planning application is causing a lot of concern for many people in the UK who oppose the regime and for others. The current proposal will see the embassy built in a prime strategic location in central London, next to the Tower of London, on the site of the Royal Mint, becoming the People’s Republic of China’s largest embassy in Europe and built in close proximity to critical communication cables servicing the City of London’s financial district. Are you concerned about what message that sends our international allies—particularly the United States—who are concerned about the security threats that China poses?

National security is the first duty of any Government, so we clearly take any security issues immensely seriously. Obviously, it is part of the diplomatic processes that other countries have embassies, and we have embassies all over the world. Countries build new embassies, close old embassies and so on. That is not a novel process. You will understand, obviously, that an independent planning process is under way, and it would be wrong for me to cut across such a process, but we also have extensive consideration of security issues and, as well as the Home Office and Foreign Office, the other agencies are also involved in the consideration of those security processes. Back in the spring, when I was Home Secretary, alongside the then Foreign Secretary I wrote to the planning process to raise a series of security issues and to say that further work needed to be done for those to be addressed. There has been considerable work not just with the Departments but with the agencies as well. You also may have seen the agreement on the number of diplomatic accredited premises that China has. If planning permission is granted, subject to that being an independent process, the number of those diplomatic premises would be reduced from eight to one, which also has significance in the process.

Thank you. It is helpful to get that full answer, although I was particularly asking about the message it sends our international allies. On 3 November last month, members of the House of Representatives in the USA wrote to you to express their concerns with the super-embassy application. They said: “As one of our closest allies with whom we share a special relationship, we are writing to raise concerns about the People’s Republic of China’s…egregious attempt to construct a ‘super-embassy’ on the site of the Royal Mint Court—a strategic location in central London.” They wrote “to urge the denial of the proposed construction and encourage full consideration of the ramifications of allowing such a development to proceed unchecked”. What is your response to their letter? In the light of their concerns, have you reviewed your position on the embassy?

In terms of our discussions both between our agencies and the US agencies, and between the UK and US Governments, we have extensive discussions about all these issues, including security issues and embassy issues not just in the UK but all over the world. We have a lot of close briefing information sharing and collaboration on all those issues. Ultimately, to be honest, national security is the most important issue to us. The starting point is that we make sure that we are maintaining our national security, and we do so with the full advice and details from all the security and intelligence agencies as well. As somebody who spent 15 months as Home Secretary and has seen some of the detailed threats, challenges and issues that we face, I can assure you that I take all those issues extremely seriously myself.

I wanted to ask you about the 1,000 speakers of Mandarin that your predecessor said we were going to get, but we do not have enough time.

I am not sure I have the answer to that in front of me, so I would definitely have to write to you on that, but I am sure the permanent under-secretary would know the answer.

Foreign Secretary, may I ask you about three aspects of the UK’s soft power? That is something we have traditionally been very strong at. The first one, which we explored with the permanent secretary last week, is the position of the British Council. The British Council views the existence of the loan that was given to it during covid as existential, but Sir Olly told us last week—I think rightly—that even if that were settled, there is a continuing problem that its income does not meet its expenditure. Now, there is a conflict in the British Council between the offices that are commercially successful and those that are actually of strategic importance to us in terms of UK influence abroad. Can you say whether you have reached a view yet about how the British Council can operate going forward, and whether or not those challenges can be addressed?

I should start by emphasising the importance of the British Council and its amazing work across the world. I spoke to some of the British Council employees in Kyiv, where their building had been hit by Russian bombardment. We know the importance of cultural diplomacy, which helps with both economic and security diplomacy as well. They do face financial pressures—you are right to say that there are issues around the loan and the fundamental business model. Part of the reason that they were given the loan in the first place was because of problems with the business model. Therefore, at its heart we need to make sure that we are addressing the issues around the business model. The British Council has put forward a business plan and a turnaround plan. At the moment, we are at the stage where there are two reviews due to conclude very shortly. The first is a review of that turnaround plan and the robustness and resilience of it and what it might achieve, and the second review is into their short-term cash position. Those reviews are pending. We need the British Council to be able to respond to the conclusions of those reviews for us to ensure that we have a robust and resilient way forward. I appreciate that that is effectively a holding answer, because I am still waiting for those reviews to conclude, but I am very happy to ensure that we provide you with more information when we have it.

The British Council has indicated to us that 40 offices are under threat, including those in places like the Baltic states, which are of huge importance in terms of facing Russian disinformation and Russian influence. Are you willing to see closures of British Council offices of that scale?

I need to see the reviews before we can respond to them. They have a hugely important role to play, but a lot of their income was based historically on the teaching of English. In some countries, that continues to be really strong—for example, in many countries, the provision of exams and the British exam system is incredibly strong—but there are other countries where that demand has dropped. They still have a commercial revenue of around £800 million and a further £160 million from the FCDO as well. They still have a very substantial income each year, but we have to make sure that the costs they have match that, that their business model is sufficiently sustainable going forward, and that they are not put at risk, and the important work that they do is not put at risk. Again, unfortunately, I think we need to wait until we have properly seen the reviews and their conclusions before responding on what the best next steps are.

Can you let the Committee know as soon as you are in a position to?

Yes.

Another aspect of soft power is the BBC World Service. Again, they are countering disinformation—I think you may find that highlighted in a report that the Committee is producing—up against RT, Sputnik, the Chinese and any number of hostile forces who are investing far more into broadcasting than the BBC and the Government spend. Are you able to give an assurance that the BBC World Service language services will be maintained and that we will not see any of those closing?

It reflects the strength of our commitment to the World Service and our support for it that we gave it a significant uplift in funding this year—I think it was a 30% increase in funding to the World Service this year. That is exactly because we hugely value the work that it does. You will obviously understand that that comes at a time when we have significant fiscal pressures and the response to global instability—we are seeking to increase defence spending, for example, at the same time as we have the reduction in overseas development aid spending. The fact that we have been able to do that at a time of significant financial pressures shows the importance of it to us. Ultimately, the World Service is independent; it has editorial independence and takes its decisions about where it has the most impact in terms of the services it provides. We will continue to support it in its important work.

I will leave you with the thought, which I think a number of us have expressed, that the increase in defence spending, which is very welcome, should incorporate recognition of the importance of soft power as well as hard power. I will move to one final area of soft power. The UK has been very strong on media freedom—indeed it was one of the founders of the global Media Freedom Coalition—and it is something that we have attached huge importance to. At the present time, media freedom has probably never been under greater threat. Can you reassure us that this is still the priority of the Foreign Office and that we will be doing all that we can to support independent media in the many countries where it is under severe threat?

This is hugely important. It is a fundamental underpinning of democracy, and it is also a fundamental underpinning of the international rule of law—that we have independent media voices. At a time where we see not only threats to media freedom, but threats to journalists who show considerable courage in some countries in the face of immense pressure and targeting. As you rightly say, we are continuing work as part of the Media Freedom Coalition. We have also been doing some further work around the safety of journalists, which underpins media freedom, including discussions on that at the UN General Assembly a couple of months ago. We provide diplomatic support to the OSCE representative on freedom of the media for their work and for taking their recommendations forward. I am happy to provide further information if you would like more detail, but I can assure you that the broader issues around media freedom and the safety of journalists as a part of that, is a central issue for us.

We would appreciate further detail. The USAID was of huge importance in terms of supporting media in several countries. That is being withdrawn. If there are ways in which the Foreign Office can increase its support to take the place of USAID, that would be hugely beneficial.

We have just come back from Bosnia and it was very worrying to see what is going on there.

The FCDO has a dispute resolution process and the PCS have requested this. The response from the FCDO has been to propose pre-dispute resolution discussions before it reaches that point— obviously, Sir Oliver can provide more details on that. That is why the assessment had been that we are not formally in the dispute resolution process, although that is what the PCS have requested, because talks are ongoing with the HR teams.

I will hand to Sir Olly for the details of this one.

As I hope I explained to the Committee last week, the Foreign Office are not currently engaged in a restructuring, formally speaking. I was open with you about our plans to continue to try and reshape the headquarters.

Restructuring is the formal, HR way in which you achieve a reshaping. There is no difference. Reshaping is English and restructuring is HR. We are not currently restructuring anybody.

Yes, Ms Mohamed, as I tried to explain to the Committee previously, we have undertaken two restructurings so far in 2025, at the two most senior tiers of the organisation in headquarters, but we are not currently engaged in a restructuring process.

The starting point for this is that, over the last 10 years, there has been a very substantial increase in the workforce, compared with the combined workforce of the two Departments—the Foreign Office and DFID. With the combined Department now, I think the staffing increase is something like 25% in overall staff, within which there is a 40% increase in staff in the UK. Obviously, it is a very big change in the course of 10 years to have such a focus on UK staff. Alongside that, we have to recognise the significantly changing world around us, and the way in which the Foreign Office needs to respond with agility and to pick up more thematic changes. Rather than just looking at the world area by area, it must look more thematically at some of the things that the Government need to be able to achieve abroad. One of the things that David established was a thematic approach to security, economic prosperity, migration—which is an area that I have also expanded—climate, development and effectively not just European but international structures. We needed to be able to move and have a restructuring that reflected those priorities. Yes, there is a sense of what the overall priorities should be, as part of this discussion, but the detailed staffing decisions have to be taken through the civil service, so that they are made in the best way and can be done in the most positive way to ensure that we also have the scale of training, such as the diplomatic training, and skills for the future.

If I may, we need to make sure that we have a structure in place for the beginning of the new financial year. Of course, that does not mean that all the consequences of that structure will have been worked through by that point. Given our hearing on the annual report last week, we are trying to make sure that the overall allocations, budgets and workforce plans are in place for the beginning of the new financial year.

Yes.

May I ask about the reshaping? What you have told us so far is that there is a top layer, which is being shrunk, and that the top layer is being asked to put forward plans for reducing their staff below them by between 15% and 25%. To me, that seems more like cutting a bit of salami than looking at how the FCDO’s reshaping reflects the priorities of the Foreign Secretary.

What we are trying to do is make sure that—if we end up recommending to the Foreign Secretary a completely blanket staff cut across every directorate, I think we will have failed. As the Foreign Secretary was saying, we are trying to take account of the thematic priorities that she and the Government have set the Department, and think about where the world has changed around us. I suspect we will end up with some quite differentiated results across those different parts of the headquarters function.

There are three areas, for example, where I have been increasing the focus. The first is increasing the staffing around migration, because we need to do much more in the prevention work on returns upstream, and we also need to expand some of the principles that underpinned the agreement with France. We will be able to tackle some of those issues only if we work with other countries. Secondly, we have been increasing the number of people working on Sudan, because that is incredibly important. Thirdly, I am increasing the emphasis on violence against women and girls, and some of the work on women and girls more widely. This involves being able to try to respond to our priorities to reflect that, and moving staff appropriately to be able to do that.

We are meeting the departmental trade unions extremely frequently and regularly. My HR team met the trade union side twice last week—an hour each time. We are trying to bring them with us as far as we possibly can, and we genuinely value the engagement and ideas that they bring to those discussions. The commitment, as I made to you last week and want to make in front of the Foreign Secretary, is that we will continue to engage strongly with the trade union side and listen to their concerns. We have absolutely no desire for our colleagues to feel anything other than supported and properly dealt with through this process.

I am concerned about that survey. Clearly, it needs to be addressed. Perhaps I could turn to Sir Olly to respond to that.

As I said to the Committee, any rate above zero is not something that we are ever going to be happy with. You are right that the level reported in our people survey scores has been high relative to other civil service organisations. It still is, in the results that have just been given to us, though it is down on the previous year. The most important thing we can do, and we are doing at pace now, is try—because we get information at quite a granular level about teams at headquarters and posts overseas—to work out those areas where we seem to be improving and improving fast, and make sure that we are learning the lessons from that and promulgating them across the organisation. We must also take a very close interest in those areas where bullying and harassment scores appear to be stubborn, and make sure we are discussing why that might be either with the heads of mission or senior officers at home responsible for those parts of the Department.

No—clearly, it is not. We need to make sure that progress is made. Having served in very many different Government Departments—I am not going to count how many through the years—I find that the Foreign Office is distinctive because it has so many people overseas, and therefore so many different parallel structures in terms of HR and management overseas. We need to make sure that that does not become an obstacle for tackling things that might be much simpler in a single Department with a single set of structures, which can therefore do change programmes much more swiftly in a single co-ordinated way. The fact that we have such a disaggregated footprint all over the world, as part of our very purpose, cannot be a reason why we cannot address issues that come through on surveys such as this.

Can we move on to British overseas territories?

The UK Government are preparing to host a major international summit next year on countering illicit finance. Foreign Secretary, what do you hope to achieve through the summit?

As you can see, we have set out a new strategy on tackling illicit finance, which is a cross-Government strategy. It highlights the issues that we have been raising—my predecessor, David Lammy, had been raising them as well—about tackling illicit finance. As part of that, one of the key things has to be the work done on the overseas territories, but that is only a part of it, because there is also the further work that we can do using our expertise, whether that be on sanctions, things around the Treasury, or having stronger international and domestic leadership in tackling the criminal aspects and going after the money. For example, the Home Office has been working with Italy on illicit finance that underpins organised immigration crime. There are different aspects to this, and the whole point about doing the strategy was to bring all that together. The point about hosting the summit is to show that if we have all those different countries, agencies and organisations working together in a comprehensive way, sharing information and intelligence is how we will literally follow the money—go after the money—and be able to tackle the criminals at the heart of it.

You have spoken a lot about sanctions in today’s session. What moral authority will the UK Government have to convene an international countering illicit finances summit if our own overseas territories fail to tackle the offshore financial secrecy that allows the likes of Putin’s cronies to clean and stash their corrupt proceeds offshore?

I would say two things on that. First, we expect greater progress from the overseas territories; we are insisting on it, and I raised it with them recently in the Joint Ministerial Council. Some of them have made substantial progress; others have been slower. Our anti-corruption champion, Baroness Hodge, has been visiting some of those in order to hasten progress as well. I would just say that some of the overseas territories have done some excellent work in terms of the application of sanctions, and that has had a significant impact, especially on some of the Russian shadow fleet issues, given the maritime focus of some of those countries.

Have the Government received a copy of the McGrail inquiry report?

I understand that we do have information on it, but I have not yet seen the details of it.

Do you know whether it was the full report or a redacted version of it?

I don’t know the answer to that.

We are looking forward to the publication of the inquiry’s report, but we see this primarily as a matter for the Government of Gibraltar.

Well, we see it as a matter for us to oversee, and we would like to see it too, please. If you are not able to give us the full details, we will want to know.

Certainly.

Do the Government have any view on the First Minister potentially using the powers that were passed last year to provide only a redacted version of that report to the public?

I understand the point that the Committee is making here; this is something that Stephen Doughty has been dealing with in the Department, and I understand the concerns about transparency that you are raising. My expectation would be that there will be a publication, but I will pursue this issue and get back to you.

When can this Committee expect to see the text of the EU-UK-Gibraltar treaty?

We hope to be able to share that as swiftly as possible. The political agreement obviously was reached, but we are not yet ready to publish the full treaty. That will be published and will go before the House in due course; there will be plenty of opportunities to scrutinise the treaty.

As in, the Government will commit to allowing time in the Chamber to debate the treaty?

There will be the normal processes around treaties, which include scrutiny in the Chamber. That will include discussions. It will also obviously be your prerogative to ask questions and scrutinise that from the point of view of this Select Committee as well.

Frankly, Foreign Secretary, the “normal process” at the moment is that we have weekly urgent questions on Chagos in order to be able to discuss this, because proper time has not been allowed for scrutinising the treaty. I am wondering whether the Government want to commit to allowing time to scrutinise the EU-UK-Gibraltar treaty.

I think, to be fair, there is a whole piece of legislation going through, which offers lots of opportunities for lots of discussions in both Houses of Parliament. There have also been very many long debates, both in the Commons and the Lords, about some of the issues, including around Chagos, BIOT and so on, so there have been extensive discussions.

Finally, do you foresee any situation in which the McGrail inquiry report will delay the completion of the negotiations over the UK-EU treaty?

I would not expect that, and I certainly would not want to see that at all. This has been an ongoing negotiation on the details; a political agreement has already been reached and signed up to by the Government of Gibraltar and the UK and Spanish Governments, and it is important that that is taken forward as rapidly as possible.

Foreign Secretary, you will be aware of the devastating flooding in Sri Lanka as a result of the cyclone; it is one of the worst humanitarian and natural disasters there. I thank the Government for the support that we have given, working with humanitarian partners. Can I get your commitment that you will look again at what more we can do? I have also written to the Department to ask for us to encourage the Sri Lankan Government to make sure that communications go out not just in English and Sinhalese but in Tamil.

Thank you for raising that point. This was just the most devastating of cyclones. I send condolences not only to all those who have lost loved ones, but in respect of the damage that people have seen to their homes and communities. We provided £675,000[1] of support through the Red Cross and UN partners, as well as civil society organisations, in order to deliver some lifesaving care and emergency supplies. We continue to be in close contact with the Sri Lankan authorities on the issue. I will ensure that Seema Malhotra, the Minister who covers it, will be pursue the issue about the language and access to information.

When your predecessor appeared before the Committee in November ’24, and again in July ’25, I asked him about justice for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka. An investigation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Sri Lankan forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including torture, sexual violence and enforced disappearances—the list goes on—against the civilian population. It has been 15 years since the war ended and there has not been a special court or any criminal investigations of those war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide. The victims, their families and the survivors—no one has been listened to. Given that the Sri Lankan state has failed to prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes and will not ratify the ICC Rome statute, and there is a lack of political will, will the UK continue to push the Sri Lankan Government to make sure there is justice and accountability for Tamils?

As you say, this is a long-standing and deeply troubling issue. We continue to encourage the Sri Lankan Government to recognise the legitimate concerns about the need for truth and reconciliation, and to properly recognise and address some of the long-standing and serious problems and grievances. We will continue to raise the issue. We have also pressed the Sri Lankan Government to take transformational and sustained action on improving human rights. As you will probably know, we sanctioned four individuals on those grounds back in March. We see this as an issue moving forward as well.

I welcome that. If you are looking at a package of further sanctions, please do consider some of the other individuals who have been put forward.

We have one last question. Your predecessor agreed that Lord Mandelson, as a political appointment to the role of UK ambassador to the US, would appear before the Committee to face questions on his suitability for the role. In the seven months he was in post, although we asked many times, the session never took place. Will you commit to the Committee being given the opportunity to question politically appointed ambassadors from now on?

You will probably understand that for us to do hearings and so on while a political process, or an appointment process, is under way would obviously be very difficult.

Yes. We are not asking for that.

We do want ambassadors, including those who are political appointments, to be able to give evidence to the Committee where it is appropriate to do so, so I can say that yes, we will facilitate that.

That is not quite the question. There is a difference between an ambassador who is employed by the Foreign Office and someone who the Government decide, as a matter of politics, should be an ambassador. I know there is an argument that even though they are a political appointment, they are not there in their own right—it is not like an Ofsted person who can go off and do their own thing—but that does beg the question as to why you would have a political appointment for an ambassador if they are not going to be using a bit of discretion. We are not asking to be involved in the decision making, but before they take up the post or, if not before, in the early few weeks, we think it is appropriate for them to appear before us.

Anything that is about taking evidence from them before they take up post when there is somebody else in post, for example, is quite challenging in terms of the roles that we need people to play. Also, ambassadors need to be representatives of the whole British Government. Ultimately, I and other Ministers are accountable to you and to Parliament for the decisions we take and for the way we operate, as opposed to individuals who, whatever the process for their appointment, ultimately, once they are appointed, play the role as the voice of the British Government as a whole abroad. I do think, though, that you should be able to ask questions of those who do these jobs abroad, just as you and any other Committee would ask questions of civil servants. I recognise the point you are making about the added issues around political appointments, and would take that into account, but I would see it as the Foreign Office hopefully facilitating your being able to ask questions of ambassadors and high commissioners in different roles around the world.

We do think there is a precedent, and we believe that we are losing it. Ed Llewellyn and Baroness Scotland came before the Committee, and Lord Mandelson did not. We do not want to lose this precedent, because we think we play an important part in the process. If, as I said, there is so little difference between a Foreign Office ambassador and a politically appointed ambassador, why bother with a political appointment? If you are going to bother with a political appointment, they should appear in front of the politicians.

I think the way in which the Committee was able to question Ed Llewellyn was a good thing, so I am recognising the point that you are making while also saying that I think this should be something to do with the way you can take evidence from ambassadors more widely.

Forgive me, Foreign Secretary—I think I wrote to you on this point, Chair. I think Ed Llewellyn gave evidence to the Committee after he took up his appointment in Paris.

If I have not been clear, it is my fault: we do not want to be involved in the decision. We quite understand that it could be embarrassing for an ambassador who is still doing a job for the next person to be in front of the Committee possibly saying slightly different things, what with them being a political appointment and all. We do not want that to happen. We do appreciate it but, nevertheless, they should appear in front of us. We think that we would add extra value if that happened. Anyway, sorry about that! That is the end of it. We would like to thank you for appearing before us today. You have agreed to write to us on several points, and we look forward to receiving that, and we look forward to seeing you regularly as part of our job scrutinising the Foreign Office. We wish you a happy Christmas. Thank you.

Thank you very much and happy Christmas to you all. [1] The witness later clarified that the correct figure is £1 million.