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 success of Commonwealth Day.

Commonwealth Day was marked successfully by a range of activities in the UK and other Commonwealth countries. There were celebratory messages from Her Majesty The Queen, the Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) and the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond). I represented Her Majesty's Government at the multi-faith Observance at Westminster Abbey attended by Her Majesty The Queen, members of the Royal family, and over 2,000 participants including High Commissioners, dignitaries from around the Commonwealth and 1,000 young people from schools across the UK. Our High Commissions across the world also actively promoted and celebrated Commonwealth Week.

The Commonwealth theme for 2015 ‘A Young Commonwealth’ was promoted across the Commonwealth with an increased use of social media. The hashtag #commonwealthday reached over 2.5 million followers on twitter accounts with over 1,400 tweets published to date.