Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of withdrawing overseas development assistance funding to countries in which the death penalty is applied.

DFID works closely with the FCO to assess and monitor the civil and political rights context in the countries where it has programmes. DFID continuously monitors the situation in partner countries across the full range of human rights, including the death penalty. DFID uses the Partnership Principles to make an overall balanced assessment of a partner country’s commitment to human rights. These assessments inform our overall programming decisions.