Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Government has requested the UN Security-General to lead personally negotiations on securing unrestricted humanitarian access in Rakhine State, Burma.

The United Kingdom continues to encourage a wider UN leadership role to help bring peace and reconciliation to all communities in Rakhine State. We welcome the firm personal stand the UN Secretary General has already taken on the Rohingya. During his visit to Burma in November 2014, he publicly expressed his concern about the discrimination and violence they face, and called for the human rights and dignity of all the people in Rakhine to be respected. During the recent crisis in the Andaman Sea, he called President Thein Sein on 20 May to make clear his concerns. The UN Secretary General also presided over a meeting of the International Partnership Group on Burma on 24 April.

More widely, the UK is actively keeping Rakhine and the situation of the Rohingya high on the international agenda and within the UN system. With UK support, the situation in Rakhine was discussed at a UN Security Council briefing on 28 May, and the UK was instrumental in securing strong UN Resolutions on Burma at the UN General Assembly in November and the Human Rights Council in March. The latter resolution extended the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights. In Burma, Professor Yanghee Lee, who has highlighted the plight of the Rohingya in her reports. The Government invited Professor Lee to the UK in March, where she discussed the situation in Rakhine with the Minister of State, my noble Friend the right hon. Baroness Anelay of St Johns.

We will continue to engage closely with the UN system to maintain a focus on this important issue.