Roger Godsiff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2016-01-25.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, for what reason the county of concern category was removed from his Department’s annual human rights report.

Mr David Lidington

From 2016, we will term the countries in the FCO’s Annual Human Rights Report “Human Rights Priority Countries” rather than “Countries of Concern”. This change is a better reflection of the new criteria underpinning our country reporting, which were amended following feedback from external stakeholders, including the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Select Committee. The term “Human Rights Priority Countries” is a better indication of the FCO’s proactive and practical engagement on human rights in the priority countries that we work in.