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 the Government's diplomatic representations to the Government of Saudi Arabia on trends in the number of planned executions in that country in each of the last five years.

We regularly raise our views on the use of the death penalty with the Saudi authorities. We make clear that the British Government opposes the death penalty in all circumstances and in every country, including Saudi Arabia, especially for crimes other than the most serious and for juveniles. This is in line with the minimum standards set out in the EU Guidelines on the Death Penalty of 2008 and the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Arab Charter on Human Rights.