Angus Robertson – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Angus Robertson on 2014-06-04.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what progress he has made in working with the Commonwealth Secretary-General to review LGBT rights in Uganda.

Mr Hugo Swire

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) wrote to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth on 1 March to ask him to work with us to review the worrying trend on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights in the Commonwealth. We welcomed the Commonwealth Secretary-General’s statement to the High Level Segment of the Human Rights Council on 6 March reiterating the Commonwealth’s commitment to equality and respect for the protection and promotion of rights without discrimination on any grounds. Whilst we support the work of the Secretariat in strengthening the capacity of national human rights institutions to engage their respective governments on sensitive areas such as LGBT rights, we continue to encourage the Commonwealth to do more to address LGBT rights across the Commonwealth, and in particular Uganda.