Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Ruddock Excerpts

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That may be more a matter for my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but of course the governance of the European Central Bank is also not primarily for the United Kingdom, given that we are mercifully not part of the euro—and are not going to become part of the euro. So we might not be in a strong position to seek those limits.

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Are the Government aware that at least 65 executions, including of women, took place in Iraq in January, and that the Iraqi criminal justice system depends largely on confessions extracted routinely by torture? Surely that is a legacy that shames us all.

[Alistair Burt]

We have noted the increase in executions to which the right hon. Lady refers. We have issued a statement of deep concern and condemnation in relation to it. It is a measure of how far the justice system still has to go in Iraq that some of these hangovers of the past have to be overcome. The United Kingdom, as is its declared policy, will continue to work to oppose the death penalty and continue to work for the improvement of justice in Iraq.