Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Popat on 11 August (HL1600), whether their assessment is that British Christian and Jewish visitors to Turkey do or do not have freedom of worship in those countries.

It is our assessment that British Christian and Jewish visitors to Turkey do have freedom to worship there. The Turkish government is continuing to improve protections for all religious minorities in Turkey and we welcome this.

We and our EU partners assess however that more needs to be done to entrench freedom of religion for all in Turkey and we will continue to encourage the Turkish authorities to make further progress, as part of our wider human rights dialogue.