Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 2 February about private representations to Saudi Arabia concerning the number of executions (HL Deb, col 1580), and the Written Answer on 1 February (HL5108) regarding private representations made to the Palestinian Minister of Health concerning incitement to violence, and in the light of their public statements condemning Israeli settlement policy, what criteria they use to determine whether criticisms of foreign governments should be made in public or in private.

The British Government makes decisions about how to deal with different situations on the basis of how it believes it can best achieve its objectives. It therefore uses different approaches in different circumstances.