Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, pursuant to the Answers to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South of 30 June 2014, Official Report, column 453W, on Colombia, for what reasons the Minister of State did not meet representatives of trades unions during his visit to Bogota; and if he will instruct the British Embassy in Bogota to monitor (a) the progress made by the Colombian authorities in bringing the perpetrators of assassinations of representatives of trades unions and (b) the efficacy of the Colombian Republic's commitment to ending the culture of impunity.

I met human rights groups before and during my visit to Colombia last month, and one of these groups was specifically focussed on trade unions.

The British Embassy does a lot of excellent work on human rights with Colombian authorities, not least on specific cases related to trades unions and on the issue of impunity, and it will continue to do so. The Embassy has, for example, raised the murders of FENSUAGRO and Patriotic March members with the Vice-President’s office. Following this, on 26 June, the Vice-President’s Office stated that they were following up these cases with the Ministry of Defence, the Army, the Attorney General’s Office, the Inspector General’s Office and the National Protection Unit. The Vice President's Office is also in direct communication with FENSUAGRO.