Foreign Affairs
34mentions · last 12 months↓
View full analysis →The International Agreements Committee scrutinises international agreements to which the UK is party and examines the government's handling of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act procedure. This House of Lords Select Committee takes oral evidence from witnesses across government, business and expert sectors. Its inquiries examine both the substantive content of agreements and implementation challenges. The Committee has extensively examined the UK-India Free Trade Agreement across multiple sessions throughout 2025, hearing from business representatives, legal experts and government officials on trade policy, legal services recognition and implementation frameworks. It has also investigated broader UK trade policy mechanisms, including Most Favoured Nation clauses, National Board of Investement arrangements and the UK's accession to CPTPP. Recent work has extended to scrutiny of international cooperation on migration, including the government's small boats return agreement with France under the International Returns scheme.
18 sessions published in the last 12 months
Click any cell in the heatmap to see the sessions held that day and the insights extracted from them.
207 insights
21 Jul 2026
The committee scrutinised the Government’s case for ratifying the Council of Europe’s Macolin convention on sports manipulation, focusing on whether the UK’s existing framework is already compliant, what ratification would add, and how enforcement would work in practice. Witnesses from DCMS argued that the UK already meets the convention’s requirements, but ratification would strengthen international information-sharing, give the UK a seat and vote on follow-up arrangements, and support cooperation against an increasingly sophisticated cross-border threat. The session also surfaced concerns about Northern Ireland’s outdated gambling law, the complexity of cross-border cooperation with Ireland, and whether current funding and enforcement capacity at the Gambling Commission are sufficient; DCMS said an extra £26 million has been provided and confirmed Article 38 is the sole treaty amendment mechanism under CRaG scrutiny.
14 Jul 2026
The committee scrutinised whether UK ratification of the Macolin convention would materially improve action against sports corruption, especially match fixing in football and tennis and the rise of lower-level, international and online betting threats. Witnesses from the Gambling Commission, the International Tennis Integrity Agency and the Sports Betting Integrity Forum said the UK already does much of the convention’s practical work, but ratification would formalise cooperation, speed up intelligence-sharing, and strengthen enforcement links across borders. They also stressed that the biggest gaps are in moving from intelligence to action, resourcing enforcement, and tackling illegal and non-transparent betting markets.
09 Jul 2026
The committee examined the Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, focusing on whether UK ratification would strengthen prevention, education, data-sharing and international law-enforcement co-operation against increasingly sophisticated, cross-border match-fixing. Witnesses argued the problem has worsened, especially through organised crime, digital betting and micro-fixing, and said the UK already has much of the necessary architecture but could benefit from formal ratification, stronger public awareness and better access to international tools. The session also scrutinised whether sports bodies, betting operators, law enforcement and education systems all share responsibility, and whether the convention’s national-platform model and follow-up mechanism are working effectively.
30 Jun 2026
The committee scrutinised the UK-Poland bilateral treaty and what would make it more than a symbolic framework. Witnesses said its value lies in concrete 'landmark' or 'lighthouse' projects: a sovereign effector and other complex-weapons work, joint ammunition production, drone and electronic warfare, sanctions coordination, irregular migration, and health security/civil resilience. They also stressed delivery mechanisms, including a bilateral defence plan and treaty-owner accountability. Members pressed on whether the treaty could help with culture, youth mobility, touring artists' visa barriers after Brexit, skills gaps, and whether the UK could act as a bridge between Poland and Germany; the main government position was that cultural and youth-mobility issues are being pursued chiefly through EU-level discussions rather than this treaty.
23 Jun 2026
The committee scrutinised the new UK-Poland security and defence partnership, focusing on the Russian threat, hybrid warfare, defence-industrial co-operation, cyber resilience, and the treaty’s value beyond earlier bilateral instruments. Witnesses said the treaty is stronger and more legally binding than previous agreements, with explicit commitments on mutual assistance, counter-hybrid co-operation, irregular migration and industrial co-development. They also flagged implementation risks: UK credibility and defence-investment delays, the need for high-level political drive, and the challenge of turning broad commitments into deliverable programmes.
16 Jun 2026
The committee examined how UK trade agreements can better support financial, professional and digital services in a services-led economy, and whether existing treaty tools are the right fit amid geopolitical fragmentation, AI and crypto change, and pressure on the multilateral trading system. Chris Bates argued that the most valuable liberalisation is cross-border business, that the Swiss financial-services deal was unusual but potentially replicable where trust and regulatory equivalence exist, and that standards-setting and supervisory cooperation often matter more than formal FTAs. Dr Nicolette Butler stressed the risk that overlapping FTAs, MoUs and other instruments create fragmentation and that Parliament should scrutinise significant non-binding agreements; she also said the Government lacks a consistent philosophy on ISDS and should be clearer about when it is used. The witnesses identified a growing gap between the substance of agreements and how they are labelled, with the UK-US pharma and tech MoUs cited as examples that may have major practical effects despite being non-binding in form.
14 Jul 2026