Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what information his Department holds on the number of political prisoners in Bahrain; and what discussions he has held with the Bahraini government on the release of political prisoners.

We do not hold details of the number of political prisoners. However, we regularly discuss human rights and reform with the Government of Bahrain - including at the biannual UK-Bahrain Joint Working Group meeting which was most recently held in November 2015. If we have specific concerns around convictions or sentencing, we raise these with the Government of Bahrain as part of our wider dialogue on human rights and reform.