Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the statement by the UN Special Rapporteur on 22 January about the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and what steps they are taking in response to the call by the UN Special Rapporteur to further all efforts to improve the human rights situation in that country.

We remain actively aware of the human rights situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) as described by the UN Special Rapporteur as well as in the Commission of Inquiry report. We exert international pressure through multilateral fora, such as the UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, and through our critical engagement with DPRK officials in Pyongyang and London. We also continue to stress the importance of free and unfettered access to the DPRK by UN officials to properly investigate the reports.

In December 2015, the Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), urged senior DPRK diplomats to implement the recommendations made in the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR).