Andy Slaughter – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2015-12-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which UK embassies have a human rights adviser on their staff.

Mr David Lidington

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 2014 Annual Human Rights and Democracy Report stated that we have an estimated 240 full-time equivalents who work directly on human rights. That number included two contracted Human Rights Advisers within the Human Rights and Democracy Department in London, and two Human Rights Advisers at the UK Mission in Geneva. However, as the Foreign Secretary explained in his Independent article on 10 December, [http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/promoting-human-rights-is-not-about-who-can-shout-the-loudest-a6767386.html], human rights work is not just the preserve of a few specialised staff but the responsibility of all British diplomats and an important part of the training our staff receive.