Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to meetings between his Ministers and Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 7 September 2020, what assessment he has made of the veracity of reports from Bahrain’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon lauded the efforts of the Kingdom of Bahrain in promoting the protection of human rights and its countless achievements in this area.

The Minister of State for Human Rights, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon, raised a number of human rights issues and cases with Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani during their meeting on 7 September. We believe that Bahrain is taking steps in the right direction to improve its human rights record, in line with the Bahraini Government's Action Plan, which follows the recommendations set out in the 2012 Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry Report. Bahrain is an FCDO human rights priority country, and we continue to monitor developments on all matters that relate to human rights within the country closely, publishing our assessments in our annual Human Rights Report, most recently in July 2020.