A group of British lawmakers have called on the government to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials who they say have undermined freedoms guaranteed under a treaty that resulted in Hong Kong’s handover to Chinese control a quarter-century ago.

Iain Duncan Smith, a Conservative member of Parliament who himself has been sanctioned by Beijing, said the British government needed to take further action to hold China to account for the continuing breaches of the Sino-British Declaration on Hong Kong, including Beijing’s imposition of the controversial national security law for the city two years ago.

“My government needs to do much much more,” Smith said during a debate in Westminster Hall on Wednesday. “I am sorry that I should be saying this now, but this is a damnation of the Foreign Office’s capabilities and their failure to act. Yet again, time after time, we tiptoe around these issues instead of confronting them.”