Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will make it his policy to seek a referral to the International Criminal Court of acts committed against religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq as genocide.

We are appalled by these acts but we judge that such a referral to the International Criminal Court by the UN Security Council is not practical at this time. When efforts were made by the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC in 2014, this was vetoed by Russia and China. We continue to look at every available option to ensure accountability in Syria and Iraq, and to work with our international partners on what can be done both to assist the victims and to bring those responsible to justice.