The Marquess of Lothian – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by The Marquess of Lothian on 2016-01-13.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether it remains their policy to work towards the global abolition of the death penalty; if so, why they have not renewed their previous Strategy for Abolition of the Death Penalty (2010–15); and why Saudi Arabia was not included on the list of priority countries in that strategy.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

There has been no change in the British Government’s policy of working towards global abolition of the death penalty.

This Government pursues human rights in their universality – a more ambitious and coherent approach than focusing on a small number of single issues. Our commitment to the Rules Based International Order underpins this work, including through bilateral and multilateral support to global efforts to abolish the death penalty. Because of our wider focus, we do not intend to publish a new strategy specific to the death penalty; but on 18 January we published a strategy for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)’s Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy, which shows how work to abolish the death penalty is important under all three of the strategy’s new themes. The FCO’s death penalty-related work will also be covered in future instalments of the FCO’s Annual Human Rights Report.

With regard to Saudi Arabia, the criteria used in 2010 to draw up the list of priority countries within the “HMG Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty 2010-2015” are set out in that document. A copy of the Strategy is available in the Library of the House. The previous Government decided that available resources should be focused on countries ready to engage in a meaningful dialogue about capital punishment and open to the idea of reform. Many of the countries prioritised in 2010 have implemented reforms in the intervening five years.