Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in Central America on human rights.

Human rights is regularly on the agenda of bilateral meetings with Central American counterparts. Our Embassies across Central America monitor human rights situations closely and raise our concerns with respective Central American Governments, working closely with EU and like-minded partners. Our particular focus in recent months has been Nicaragua. I met the Nicaraguan Minister for National Policies on 3 July, urging the government to take responsibility for putting an end to the violence in the country, and issued a statement on 24 July; and on 19 October the Head of Latin America Department and the British Ambassador met the Foreign Minister & Vice-Foreign Minister in Managua to express our concerns about human rights abuses in the country.