THE Tories are set to scrap Britain’s support for projects working to end the death penalty across the world, human rights campaigners warned yesterday.

Many were left alarmed as a revision of the Foreign Office (FCO) human rights priorities seemed to leave out all reference to abolishing capital punishment.

According to legal charity Reprieve, verbal confirmation was given by the FCO that the government’s Strategy for the Abolition of the Death Penalty will not be renewed in January 2016.

Reprieve’s director of the death penalty team Maya Foa said: “At a time when executions in countries around the world are spiking, it is alarming that the government is ditching its strategy on the death penalty.

“With Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran all executing at a rate we haven’t seen for years, Britain’s move will send the wrong signal.”

The policy, which has been in place since 2010, was once described the former foreign minister David Lidington as a “firm goal.”

Campaigners raised further concerns as the FCO seemed to downgrade countries such as China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia from its list of “countries of concern” and renaming them “priority countries.”

In a letter sent to Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond last week, Ms Foa said she feared changes meant “the government will end all ring-fenced funding for death penalty projects and significantly scale back the FCO’s human rights department.

“Britain has a long and praise-worthy history of speaking out against the use of the death penalty.

“Reprieve respectfully requests that the government urgently reconsider its current course of action.”

An FCO spokesman argued that “there is absolutely no change to our long-standing policy.

“We remain committed to advancing global abolition of the death penalty and it is wrong to suggest otherwise.

“The government opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle and we would like to see the long-term trend towards abolition continue throughout this parliament.”

He did, however, admit that the “budget and composition for FCO programmes” is under evaluation by the Treasury, the impact of which will only be known in the autumn.

Reprieve, which is not funded by the FCO human rights department, relies on its legal work on death penalty cases to survive.