Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for International Development on problems in getting aid into Burma; and if he will raise that issue with UN counterparts.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development (DFID) work side by side in Burma. DFID is co-located with the British Embassy in Rangoon and in London policy is agreed through the cross-departmental Whitehall Burma Unit. We are also closely aligned at Ministerial level. I last discussed Burma with my DFID counterpart – the Minister of State for International Development, my Hon Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) – on 25 October. Together we are intent on ensuring unfettered humanitarian assistance to Rakhine, Kachin and the Shan States. We both raised our concerns about humanitarian access in Rakhine State with the Minister for Construction when he visited London in November. We are actively engaged in the UN on Burma and play a leading role on Burma in the UN Security Council, where we raised concerns about humanitarian access in Rakhine State on 17 November. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) visited Burma from 20-21 January 2017 and discussed with the Home Minister, who is heavily involved in the security response, the need for full humanitarian access. He also raised this issue with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, and the new National Security Advisor, U Thaung Tun.