Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has made to the Government of Sri Lanka on the establishment of a country office of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in that country.

The UK has not to date made representations to the Government of Sri Lanka on the establishment of a UN country office. The High Commissioner for Human Rights has a number of Special Rapporteurs who travel to Sri Lanka on his behalf and publish findings from their visits and the Government is engaging constructively with them. The UK is committed to working with the Government of Sri Lanka to implement its international human rights commitments.

I encouraged Foreign Minister Marapana to continue to make progress on these commitments when I met him in October 2017. The UK is also providing Sri Lanka with £6.6 million of Conflict, Stability and Security Fund funding over three years, to include support for police reform and training, reconciliation and peace building, and demining in the north of the country.