Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether the Government plans to take steps to help protect those political prisoners detained in Homs Central Prison in Syria.

​The Government is concerned about reports that the Syrian regime has cut off water and electricity to Homs Central prison and is poised to attack it. We have raised these concerns in the International Syria Support Group Ceasefire Task Force meeting in Geneva and have asked both the UN Special Envoy's office and the International Red Cross to use their good offices to ensure the safety of the prisoners.

The Syria resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council in September 2017, on which the UK led, called for the appropriate international monitoring bodies to be granted access to all detainees, for all parties to the conflict to cease the mistreatment and torture of detainees and demanded the immediate release of all persons arbitrarily detained.