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 effectiveness of UK-trained oversight bodies in Bahrain in investigating allegations of the torture of prisoners while in custody.

We believe that the oversight bodies in Bahrain, including the Ministry of Interior Ombudsman, are structured so that they are able to operate independently from the organisations that they oversee. While these bodies still have more to do, they have already demonstrated their abilities including through the prosecution of more than 70 police officers accused of human rights abuses.