16:23 Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)

Anni won awards for his climate change policies and travelled the world. He even held a Cabinet meeting underwater to highlight concerns about climate change and how it would affect his country. So what went wrong? A human rights crisis is what happened. Just before former President Gayoom left office, he appointed some of his most ardent allies to the most important judicial positions. In essence, a constitutional time bomb was left for President Nasheed to deal with, and of course, the courts were extremely hostile to any reforms. Anni had detained a judge in his attempt to reform the regressive justice system, which is something we and the Commonwealth should have helped him with long ago. I hope the Minister can address that in his remarks.

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16:35 The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mark Simmonds)

My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch expressed concern that the British Government and the Commonwealth have perhaps taken their eye off the ball after the success of free and inclusive elections in 2008. Although I appreciate her candour, I do not think that that is an entirely accurate reflection of matters, particularly in the context of the increasingly close bilateral relationship between the UK and the Maldives, and the fact that the wider international community is highly supportive of the Maldives across a range of areas, not least through EU support against the very grave threats that climate change poses for the Maldives. I will say a little bit more about the international community later. In addition, the British Council office in Male continues to support strong cultural relations between our two countries. The Commonwealth has also been a staunch supporter of democratic, economic and judicial reforms in the Maldives. Recently at the UN General Assembly, there was a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which the UK does not sit on because of rotation, at which a commitment was given by the Commonwealth to provide additional support for civil society reforms and for judicial reforms, for the reasons that colleagues have pointed out today.

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