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 Government of Belarus on the use of the death penalty in that country.

We use every opportunity to call on Belarus to establish an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty, as a first step towards abolition. A landmark conference on the abolition of the death penalty, funded by the UK and organised by the Council of Europe in co-operation with the Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs, took place in Minsk on 13 December 2016. FCO officials also reinforced our message to the Chairman of the Death Penalty Working Group of the Parliament of Belarus when he visited the UK on 20-21 March 2017. Most recently I raised it with the Belarusian Ambassador during our meeting on 2 February.