Liz Truss has been accused of “lying” to a parliamentary committee about what was said during a meeting with the leaders of autocratic Gulf states.
The prime minister, who was previously the foreign secretary, had told the foreign affairs committee that she used the meeting to raise human rights issues with the rulers of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and other countries.
But the Foreign Office (FCDO) has repeatedly refused to give any specifics, or even say which countries or issues Ms Truss asked about.
Earlier this year the FCDO rejected a freedom of information request by Gulf human rights activists asking for details of Ms Truss’s comments.
It said substantiating her claims could prejudice “the relations between the UK and other states” and “the interests of the UK abroad”,
And it also batted away two parliamentary questions about the issue, with junior FCDO ministers Amanda Milling saying only that “a wide range of issues were discussed during the meetings with Gulf Cooperation Council representatives at Chevening House on 20 December 2021, including human rights”.
Chris Bryant, chair of parliament’s standards committee, on Monday likened Ms Truss’s approach to the truth to that of ousted prime minister Boris Johnson.
“I think Liz Truss is not going to be any better than Boris Johnson on the lying front,” he told an event organised by the Institute for Government think-tank.
“She sat in front of the Foreign Affairs Committee and said: ‘I personally raised human rights issues… when I was in the Gulf.’
“The Foreign Affairs Committee last week published the reply from the Foreign Office, which was meant to be clearing up what she’d said, and there’s not a single instance that she’s done so – either personally or impersonally.”
In a letter sent to the Prime Minister on 20 September 2022, Mr Bryant had said it was “difficult not to conclude that you have deliberately misled the committee”.
Human rights organisations have criticised the government’s refusal to substantiate the prime minister’s comments and accused her former department of a cover-up.
Soraya Bauwens, deputy director of Reprieve, which campaigns against the death penalty, torture, and detention without charge said it “defies belief that Liz Truss could meet with leaders of some of the most repressive regimes in the world without raising their horrific human rights abuses”.
“Child defendants in Saudi Arabia continue to face the death penalty. Both Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are crushing dissent by torturing and executing pro-democracy protesters and punishing people for their tweets or for the ‘crime’ of owning books,” she said.
“The Foreign Office must come clean with the public about whether the now Prime Minister misled a Parliamentary Committee about her apparent abject failure to hold these governments accountable for their atrocities, especially as the UK Government recently more than doubled its funding to state bodies in these countries.”
Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD), who submitted the FOI request to the FCO, commented: “This shocking cover-up shows the lengths to which the government has gone to conceal the contents of their conversations with repressive Gulf states.
“The Foreign Office has bent over backwards to stonewall democratic attempts from MPs and the public through Freedom of Information requests to ascertain what human rights topics were discussed in this meeting last year.
“If human rights were credibly raised as Liz Truss claims, why would the government refuse to disclose any information whatsoever, whereas when it comes to other Ministerial meetings they have done so?”
And Yasmine Ahmed, the UK Director at Human Rights Watch said the government’s “blanket refusal” to explain the prime minister’s actions “speaks volumes”.
“What we have seen time and again is a Government and now a Prime Minister who put profits ahead of people,” she added.
“Rather than promote human rights, the UK has for example licensed billions of pounds worth of arms to Saudi Arabia since 2015 that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians in Yemen.”
The prime minister was accused accused of hiding behind “legal waffle” by Lord Scriven, vice chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Democracy and Human Rights in the Gulf.
“How can Ministers possibly justify claims that disclosing this information would damage the UK’s relationships with these regimes?” he said.
“Liz Truss must come clean with Parliament and the public and wash her hands of this shameful cover-up and not put free market trade before human rights.”
Ms Truss met with top ministers from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE days before Christmas last year at her country house Chevening.
Her charm offensive came as the UK tries to secure a Brexit trade with the Gulf cooperation council (GCC), the region’s trade block.
