Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of remarks made by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea on 22 October that (1) North Korea "is violating its human rights obligations due to its failing economic and agricultural policies", and (2) discrimination leads to many people being deprived of rations in that country; and what estimate they have made of the amount of money that North Korea spends on agriculture and food production compared with its military programmes and nuclear capability.

​The remarks made by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea are deeply troubling. Limited availability of official data from the North Korean government makes comprehensive analysis of their expenditure on agriculture and its weapons programmes difficult. However, outside observers estimate that the DPRK spends a disproportionately large amount of its GDP on its military and illegal weapons programmes. It is abundantly clear that years of failed economic policies by the DPRK government are to blame for the current humanitarian situation. We have made clear on many occasions our concern at the DPRK government’s appalling human rights record and its failure to allocate its resources to the needs of its people. We urge the North Korean government to put its people’s needs before the development of illegal weapons programmes.