Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to implement its objective of improving human rights in North Korea in addition to talks with counterparts in the North Korean government.

We are maintaining pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) human rights record through international fora such as the UN Security Council and the United Nations Human Rights Council. Most recently this has involved working with EU colleagues and Japan to sponsor a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly’s Third Committee and lobbying to ensure it was adopted by a significant majority, sending an important signal that the systematic and widespread human rights violations in the DPRK will no longer be ignored by the international community.