Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is their response to Lord Blencathra’s report on electoral reform in Belarus, adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 21 April 2021.

The UK Government is appalled by the brutal and ongoing repression that the Lukashenko regime conducts against its own people. We have already applied wide-ranging sanctions to Belarus in response to the regime's continued human rights violations since the 2020 elections. We will continue to put pressure on Lukashenko's regime publicly and privately to offer Belarusians the free and democratic society they deserve. The UK values the work of the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe as well as our UK delegation, in producing reports which promote these issues. We welcomed the adoption of these reports at the Committee of Minsters.