Valerie meets the Prime Minister of Nepal

I met the Prime Minister of Nepal, KP Sharma Oli, in Parliament on Tuesday 11 June 2019 while he was on a three-day visit to the UK.

KP Oli thanked the UK for its role in aiding Nepal’s recovery from the magnitude 7.8 earthquake which, on 25 April 2015, struck an area between the Kathmandu (the capital) and Pokhara. This aid included money to rebuild vital health services in the worst affected districts as well as for humanitarian experts in water, health and sanitation.

Prime Minister Oli chairs the ruling Nepal Communist Party, who have the largest number of seats in both houses of the country’s elected Parliament. The Constitution of Nepal, introduced in 2015, declared the country a federal, secular, democratic republic; it is governed through seven provincial assemblies and the Federal Parliament.

In 2011 I raised, in a Commons debate on the Legal Aid (Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders) Bill, the provision on Legal Aid to Nepalese Gurkhas: “It was a very important principle concerning people who had fought and died” for our country.