Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications of reports that drug cartels in Mexico have suffered losses of 96 billion Mexican pesos in the last four years as a result of drugs seizures by Mexican authorities.

Reports of large drug seizures in Mexico over recent years are good news for Mexico and for global counter-narcotics. Nevertheless, the ongoing drug trade and the violence and insecurity stemming from this and other criminal activity remain a huge problem in Mexico. Officials in the British Embassy in Mexico City as well as Ministers in London regularly engage on this issue with the Mexican authorities and with civil society, including monitoring violence trends in the country and offering assistance in the field of rule of law. Most recently, in December I [Minister Rutley] discussed this with Undersecretary Toscano of the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs.