Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps the Government is taking to ensure that members of the Assad regime who have been involved military action against civilians in Syria are held to account.

The UK has a long-standing commitment to accountability for human rights violations and abuses in Syria. The Assad regime has committed terrible atrocities. The independent UN Commission of Inquiry has stated that the regime has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to the work of the UN Commission of Inquiry, we are supporting the international, impartial and independent mechanism, which was set up in 2016 to collect evidence of war crimes in Syria for future prosecutions. We have also funded non-government organisations to collect evidence on the ground in Syria for future prosecutions.