LONDON — The Foreign Office has closed its international humanitarian law unit as part of a restructuring programme known as FCDO 2030. The closure has prompted questions from a cross-party group of MPs and the trade union representing Foreign Office staff.

Iqbal Mohamed, independent MP for Dewsbury and Batley, raised the closure with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at prime minister's questions. Starmer said the unit's work would be undertaken by another team as part of a restructuring, but made no reference to the ending of the Foreign Office contract with the Conflict and Security Monitoring Project, which is run by the Centre for Information Resilience and monitors incidents of concern in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

"This looks to me less like routine restructuring and more like a deliberate weakening of scrutiny. It could also be seen as the deliberate destruction of evidence of war crimes and genocide," Mohamed said.

A cross-party group of MPs from the Labour, Green, independent and Scottish National parties wrote to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper asking how the closure aligned with the government's stated commitment to upholding international law and ensuring rigorous compliance with the UK's arms export licensing criteria. The MPs asked what steps the Foreign Office would take to retain access to the database of 26,000 incidents dating to 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel prompting Israel's military response in Gaza. They also asked what other data sources the department intended to use to monitor breaches of international humanitarian law.

The PCS, the trade union representing Foreign Office staff, challenged Starmer's claim that the unit's work could be absorbed elsewhere. "We have not been provided with detailed plans setting out what work will continue, what will cease or how the remaining staff could absorb highly specialised areas," the PCS said. The union added that it had seen no evidence that ministers fully understood the impact of the cuts or whether they aligned with the priorities of the public.

Polling by Medical Aid for Palestinians conducted by YouGov found that 54% of the public would like to see the UK end all arms exports to Israel, compared with 22% who supported weapons sales.

The FCDO 2030 programme was overseen by permanent secretary Olly Robbins, who has since been dismissed. Senior leadership had predicted job cuts of 15–20%. Following the decision in February 2025 to reduce Official Development Assistance spending, Robbins required some diplomats to prove their suitability for their job. His cuts also included a requirement that Foreign Office staff write essays outlining the skills they possessed that made them useful to the department. The Foreign Office published estimates showing projected spending of £6.28bn in 2026-27, a £2.39bn reduction — equivalent to 27% — on the previous year.