Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to secure humanitarian access to northern Rakhine in Burma.

The Red Cross and the World Food Programme are currently the only aid organisations with permission to provide humanitarian support in Northern Rakhine. The UK has provided £2 million to the World Food Programme and £1 million to the Red Cross. We continue to urge the Burmese authorities to grant full access to UN and other agencies so that they can help meet the urgent need in Northern Rakhine. During my visit to Burma on 20-21 November, I met ​Burma's Minister of Defence Sein Win and the Deputy Foreign Minister U Kyaw Tin and pressed again the need for full humanitarian access.