Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what discussions he has had with the Sri Lankan High Commissioner on the conduct of Sri Lanka’s Defence Attaché, Brigadier Priyanka Fernando, at the High Commission on 4 February 2018.

The Government takes this incident very seriously and I remain deeply concerned. FCO officials made a number of representations to the Government of Sri Lanka both in Colombo and London in the period after 4 February. I spoke to Foreign Minister Marapana on 8 February about the matter and he left me in no doubt that the Sri Lankan government was also treating this incident with utmost seriousness.