Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to ensure its provision of overseas assistance is in accordance with the Government's human rights obligations.

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The Government applies its Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) guidance to ensure that such assistance meets its human rights obligations and values. This guidance was revised and re-published in January 2017.

As the Foreign Secretary stated in his written ministerial statement of 26 January 2017, we remain confident that the new OSJA process remains the most comprehensive and demanding tool of its type anywhere in the world. In countries where HMG is regularly engaged in security and justice assistance, the relevant diplomatic mission maintains an in-country assessment and provides it to all interested departments or agencies to aid them and provide consistency in the OSJA process. Diplomatic missions which regularly produce OSJA assessments pool expertise from across HMG to ensure that they are as comprehensive and expert as possible. Senior officials from Government also meet to share feedback and lessons learned and to address challenges to the implementation of the OSJA guidance.

The FCO engaged with a number of human rights organisations (including members of the Foreign Secretary's Advisory Group on Human Rights), as part of the recent revision of the OSJA guidance, and will continue to do so with regard to its implementation.

OSJA assessments completed for specific projects or interventions are working documents, and are regularly updated in line with developments in the country concerned. Information on the number of OSJA assessments completed over the past three calendar years, and the countries assessed, is not held centrally or readily available, and could only be obtained at a disproportionate cost. We will, however, collate information on completed OSJA assessments for inclusion in the FCO's next Annual Human Rights Report. This will be an estimate of the number of OSJA assessments carried out during the current financial year and a quantitative analysis of their geographical use. This will also summarise steps taken to implement the OSJA guidance across Government.