Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to secure visits to Tibet by UK diplomatic personnel.

We regularly press the Chinese authorities for permission for a Foreign and Commonwealth Office official or Minister to visit the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). We last raised this issue with the Chinese authorities at the UK/China Human Rights Dialogue on 27 October. The Chinese have yet to grant our request.

The last visit by an FCO official to the TAR was in June 2014, and the last Minister to visit was the Hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) in September 2009.