Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has made to his Chinese counterpart on the detention of Uighur Muslims in China.

On 26 September during an Urgent Question on Hong Kong, I set out the UK's serious concerns about the credible reports of over a million Uyghur Muslims being held in so-called "re-education camps". As I stated in the House, we will continue to ensure that these concerns are expressed directly with Chinese authorities. We also raise the issue multilaterally: the UK recently co-hosted an event on Xinjiang at the UN General Assembly where the Minister of State for the Commonwealth and the United Nations, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad, called for China to allow UN observers unfettered access to the region. The former Foreign Secretary highlighted our concerns about Xinjiang with Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his last visit to China. The former Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific did the same with Vice Minister Guo Yezhou during his last visit to China.