Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 25 April 2019 to Question 245924 on Brunei: LGBT People, what meetings he has had with his counterpart in Brunei on the implementation of anti-LGBT laws in that country; and what the outcomes of those meetings has been.

The Foreign Secretary spoke to Brunei’s Foreign Minister, Dato Erywan, on 4 April to express the UK’s concerns about the impact of the Sharia Penal Code. On 11 April, the Foreign Secretary and I met Dato Erywan and the Finance Minister, Dato Amin Liew, in London. The Prime Minister wrote to His Majesty The Sultan on 1 May encouraging the Sultan of Brunei to respond to international concerns.

​We welcome the assurances thereafter provided by His Majesty the Sultan of Brunei on 5 May; in particular, confirmation that the de facto moratorium on the death penalty will apply to punishments under the Sharia Penal Code and that His Majesty the Sultan will commit to ratifying the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Following this announcement, I again met Dato Erywan and Dato Amin Liew on 7 May in London followed by a letter from the Foreign Secretary on 9 May.

The announcement by His Majesty demonstrates the importance of engaging in respectful dialogue and diplomacy to address sensitive issues. The assurances provided by His Majesty the Sultan are positive and go some way to addressing our anxieties about the human rights situation in Brunei. However, we urge Brunei to build on these assurances and formalise its commitment to respect individual freedoms and minorities.