Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, whether his Department advised the Northern Ireland Executive on human rights concerns and other sensitivities for Northern Ireland Co-operation Overseas Ltd undertaking a contract for Bahrain's prison system.

The UK Government continues to assist Bahrain in their reform agenda including by working with the Northern Ireland Cooperation Overseas programme, whose aims are to assist the Government of Bahrain to bring its justice system into compliance with international standards. The UK Government continues to have frank discussions with the Government of Bahrain about our concerns on human rights cases. We continue to encourage the Bahraini authorities to respect the rights of all its citizens and we have encouraged them to protect the universal rights of freedom of expression most recently at the UN Human Rights Commission meeting in September.