Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of the prospects for (a) reform or (b) replacement of the 1982 Citizenship law of Myanmar in advance of the next Myanmar general election.

The UK has strongly supported the Rakhine Advisory Commission's call on Burma to reform the 1982 Citizenship Law. UK Ministers have publicly called for the removal of restrictions that withhold citizenship from individuals who are not from a community recognised by the Burmese authorities as a 'national race', such as the Rohingya. Most recently, the British Ambassador raised the UK's concerns about the pace of implementation of the Rakhine Advisory Commission's 88 recommendations in his meeting with the Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor on 24 August.