Andy Slaughter – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andy Slaughter on 2016-10-07.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the Government’s policy is on preventing the execution of UK nationals sentenced to death abroad.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

​The UK Government is opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances. Whenever there is a case of a British national on death row, provided that individual wants assistance from the UK Government, we make political representations at many levels to the government of the country in question. There is no one-size-fits-all approach; we will tailor our interventions on a case-by-case basis in a way that we judge to be most effective to prevent executions being carried out. Beyond political representations by Her Majesty’s Government, other interventions might include: engaging local and UK-based Non-Governmental Organisations to provide support to British nationals facing the death penalty; liaising closely with the British national’s legal team to ensure any lobbying actions we take complement their ongoing legal activity; and working closely with international partners to encourage wider lobbying.