Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether (a) he and (b) his Department had discussions with his counterparts in Saudi Arabia prior to the submission of the letter of correction to the Official Report on 2 December 2022.

I corrected my answer to clarify that I misspoke, and that the reports of torture in the case of al-Kheir were allegations, as set out in my initial response to the Urgent Question. The FCDO and British Embassy Riyadh have frequent discussions with counterparts in Saudi Arabia. The Urgent Question was raised with our Embassy in Riyadh, but there was no discussion of correcting the Official Report. HMG has raised al-Kheir's case with the Saudi authorities on several occasions, and has reiterated the UK's principled opposition to the use of the death penalty.