Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions his Department has had with the US Administration on the use of the death penalty in that country.

The Government regularly makes its views on the death penalty known to the US authorities. Our network of posts lobbies actively at state level because responsibility for the death penalty rests with State Governments. We also raise our concerns over executions, doing so most recently in Arkansas.