To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what reports he has received of the number of people who received the death penalty in North Korea in each of the last five years. (265465)

We are concerned about the use of the death penalty in North Korea, including the reports of public executions. There are, however, no reliable figures available for the numbers of executions in North Korea. Different non-governmental organisations produce various figures based on the observations of defectors, but these are difficult to verify and often out of date.