Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with the government of Burma on the detention without conviction and treatment in detention of Niranjan Rasalingam.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has raised Mr Niranjan's case regularly with the Burmese authorities, focussing on the slow progress of the case, lack of due process, and the lack of impartial translation.

The former Minister of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Sir Hugo Swire), raised the case with Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Tin in May. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for International Trade my Hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr Garnier), also raised the case when he met with the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs in September.