Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to her oral contribution of 5 September 2018, Official Report, column 169, what progress she has made in working with international partners to empower the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to attribute chemical weapons attacks to other states beyond Syria.

As set out in the statement of 13 December 2018 [HCWS1177] by the Foreign Secretary and his predecessor’s update to the House on 9 July 2018, the UK was at the forefront of significant successful diplomatic efforts last year to secure, fund and implement decisions to enable the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to attribute responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and more widely at the request of an affected State Party. In accordance with the terms of the June Decision, on 15 November 2018, the Director General of the OPCW set out the measures that the OPCW will implement to provide technical expertise on attribution to requesting States Parties and set out his proposals to establish independent, impartial, expert arrangements to assist with this. We continue to work with international partners in supporting the OPCW Director General and the OPCW Technical Secretariat to put in place structures and staffing to take forward their mandated attribution work, a significant step forward in international efforts to end use of chemical weapons.