Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent representations he has made to the Chinese government about human rights in that country.

We are concerned by the human rights situation in China, in particular the restrictions on civil and political rights. We raise human rights regularly with Chinese counterparts. The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my right hon Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond) did so most recently during the UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue in September 2014, and I did so with Vice Minister Wang Chao in Beijing earlier this month.

We highlight our concerns publicly in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy (www.hrdreport.fco.gov.uk), and through multilateral fora such as the UN Human Rights Council. Officials also raise our concerns in detail with Chinese counterparts during the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue, last held in London in May 2014.