Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if his Department will include a specific reference to the abolition of the death penalty in its global human rights priorities.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) work on abolition of the death penalty is intrinsic to this Government’s pursuit of human rights in their universality. The FCO’s Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy, which for the financial year 2016-17 will be doubled in value, is available to support abolitionist projects under any of its three objectives: democratic values and the rule of law; strengthening the rules-based international order; and human rights for a stable world.