No respect for human rights?

One story that's been given relatively little attention this month, unlike the earth-shattering news of the Camerons having another child, is a £560,000 cut to the human rights and democracy fund.

Concerns have been raised by Labour MPs that this may affect the Foreign and Commonwelath Office's Annual Report on Human Rights.

This report allows MPs and businesses to discover which countries it is ethical to trade with.

Foreign Secretary William Hague claims that the review will examine the way the FCO report ""can most effectively be produced in the current financial climate".

What price a report? Oliver Miles, chairman of the international business development company MEC International, doubts the report's value for money and warns us not to jump to conclusions about Hague's actions.

Others are more negative. In the comments section of Oliver Miles' article, "talktothehead" says that the report was detailed enough to ensure fuller scrutiny of policies, and assisted with pushing through ethical policies.

Louise Roland-Gosselin, director of Waging Peace, comments: "This report will assist case owners in deciding whether or not asylum seekers should be granted political asylum.

"With dwindling information from diplomats based in these countries, we are making decisions by the Home Office less likely to be fair.FCO reports that have come out of Sudan for instance, have assisted in non Arab Darfuris being granted asylum, since it has been deemed that it is too dangerous for them to be sent back to Sudan."

Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat MP for North East Fife, said that any move to end the annual report risked "downgrading human rights" and would be met with "fierce resistance", according to the Guardian.

An FCO spokeswoman told the Guardian: "The foreign secretary is determined that the UK's foreign policy should reflect the values that we uphold at home and that our actions overseas be consistent with support for human rights.

"In the current financial climate ...we need to look carefully at how best to communicate and ensure transparency with parliament and the public on our human rights activity."

We all know times are tough. However, there is clearly a concern that people's human rights will be put at risk if the new report is watered down or less accessible, with British businesses possibly trading with regimes such as Omar Hassan Al-Bashir's Sudan or Meles Zenawi's Ethiopia.

Read the 2009 FCO Annual Report on Human Rights.