Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what diplomatic steps his Department is taking to press for humanitarian access to Rakhine, Kachin and Northern Shan States, Burma; and what the results have been of any such diplomatic actions take to date.

We are deeply concerned by continuing restrictions on humanitarian access to Rakhine, Kachin and Northern Shan States. The Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my noble Friend, the Rt Hon. Baroness Anelay of St Johns, visited Burma from 9-12 November and urged Burmese Government Ministers to ensure the full resumption of humanitarian aid and to set up an independent investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Rakhine. I also raised this in person with the Burmese Minister of Construction, when he visited London, on 29 November. The UK has long been one of the biggest humanitarian donors to Burma and to Rakhine State, providing over £23 million in humanitarian assistance to Rakhine since 2012. The Government of Burma has committed to restoring humanitarian access. In practice, worrying restrictions remain and we, together with other countries and the UN, will continue to monitor developments closely and to raise our concerns at every opportunity.

For Kachin and Northern Shan we continue to raise with the Government of Burma the restriction of humanitarian access to internally displaced people. Baroness Anelay discussed this with the Burmese Minister for Defence during her visit. The UK has provided over £18.1 million in essential humanitarian and health assistance in Kachin and Northern Shan states from 2012 until the end of last financial year, and will provide a further £5 million approximately this year. We continue to provide political and practical support to State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi's 'Panglong' peace initiative, which successfully brought together the main players last year, in a bid to end this long-running internal conflict.