A government minister has urged Saudi Arabia to do a “better job” of trumpeting its human rights successes during an official visit to the country, less than a month after it carried out the mass execution of 47 people.

Tobias Ellwood, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, made the comments on Monday as he and other British delegates addressed Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights in the capital Riyadh, The Independent understands.

Leading human rights organisations described Mr Ellwood’s remarks as “astonishing”, pointing out that Saudi Arabia was currently presiding over a surge in executions and engaging in a brutal military campaign in Yemen that may be breaking international laws.

During the visit, which was not publicised by the Foreign Office, Mr Ellwood was told that Saudi Arabia had introduced a series of reforms, such as allowing women to vote in municipal elections.

In response, he told his hosts that they needed to improve the way they promoted their human rights successes, according to people present at the meeting.

Accounts of the meeting that appeared in three Saudi media outlets claimed that Mr Ellwood went even further, saying that people in Britain were unaware of the “notable progress” made on human rights by the Saudi regime.

Tobias Ellwood The Foreign Office’s current Minister for the Middle East has a suitably international background. Born in New York, the 49-year-old dual British-American national was educated in Bonn and Vienna while his parents were working for the UN. A qualified pilot, Mr Ellwood also spent five years in the Army with the Royal Green Jackets. He left as a Captain but is still a reservist. He was first elected MP for Bournemouth East in 2005. Last year he told Ipsa, the House of Commons’ expenses watchdog, that a 10 per cent pay rise for MPs was “well overdue”.

An article in the daily newspaper Al Watan read: “Tobias Ellwood revealed the ignorance of the British to the notable progress in Saudi Arabia in the field of human rights, confirming throughout the visit of a British FCO delegation... that he had expressed his opinion regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia before the British Parliament, and that the notable progress in this area has been obscured.”

However, a Foreign Office spokesman strongly denied that Mr Ellwood had used those words. “We do not recognise these remarks,” he said. “Mr Ellwood raised our human rights concerns in all of his meetings in Riyadh... The Government will continue to raise our concerns in public and private.

“The minister was very clear that despite some recent incremental progress – such as December’s municipal elections... in which women were allowed to stand and vote in – further progress still needed to be made.” A press release issued by the National Society for Human Rights said Mr Ellwood had been joined at the private meeting by Simon Collis, the British Ambassador, who stressed the importance of creating partnerships between human rights organisations in the two countries.

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The chairman of the society, Dr Mofleh bin Rabiean Qahtani, told Mr Ellwood he was concerned that some high profile individual cases were being “exploited, generalised and circulated” in order to discredit Saudi Arabia’s reputation, the press release said.

Recent cases which have drawn international condemnation include that of Raif Badawi, the liberal writer sentenced to 10 years in jail and 1,000 lashes for promoting free speech, and Ali al-Nimr, who was sentenced to death at the age of 17 for taking part in a pro-democracy protest.

10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Show all 10 1 /10 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In October 2014, three lawyers, Dr Abdulrahman al-Subaihi, Bander al-Nogaithan and Abdulrahman al-Rumaih , were sentenced to up to eight years in prison for using Twitter to criticize the Ministry of Justice. AFP/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2015, Yemen’s Sunni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was forced into exile after a Shia-led insurgency. A Saudi Arabia-led coalition has responded with air strikes in order to reinstate Mr Hadi. It has since been accused of committing war crimes in the country. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Women who supported the Women2Drive campaign, launched in 2011 to challenge the ban on women driving vehicles, faced harassment and intimidation by the authorities. The government warned that women drivers would face arrest. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Members of the Kingdom’s Shia minority, most of whom live in the oil-rich Eastern Province, continue to face discrimination that limits their access to government services and employment. Activists have received death sentences or long prison terms for their alleged participation in protests in 2011 and 2012. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses All public gatherings are prohibited under an order issued by the Interior Ministry in 2011. Those defy the ban face arrest, prosecution and imprisonment on charges such as “inciting people against the authorities”. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses In March 2014, the Interior Ministry stated that authorities had deported over 370,000 foreign migrants and that 18,000 others were in detention. Thousands of workers were returned to Somalia and other states where they were at risk of human rights abuses, with large numbers also returned to Yemen, in order to open more jobs to Saudi Arabians. Many migrants reported that prior to their deportation they had been packed into overcrowded makeshift detention facilities where they received little food and water and were abused by guards. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses The Saudi Arabian authorities continue to deny access to independent human rights organisations like Amnesty International, and they have been known to take punitive action, including through the courts, against activists and family members of victims who contact Amnesty. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Raif Badawi was sentenced to 1000 lashes and 10 years in prison for using his liberal blog to criticise Saudi Arabia’s clerics. He has already received 50 lashes, which have reportedly left him in poor health. Carsten Koall/Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Dawood al-Marhoon was arrested aged 17 for participating in an anti-government protest. After refusing to spy on his fellow protestors, he was tortured and forced to sign a blank document that would later contain his ‘confession’. At Dawood’s trial, the prosecution requested death by crucifixion while refusing him a lawyer. Getty Images 10 examples of Saudi Arabia's human rights abuses Ali Mohammed al-Nimr was arrested in 2012 aged either 16 or 17 for participating in protests during the Arab spring. His sentence includes beheading and crucifixion. The international community has spoken out against the punishment and has called on Saudi Arabia to stop. He is the nephew of a prominent government dissident. Getty

Mr Nimr’s uncle, the Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was among 47 people killed by Saudi Arabia earlier this month as part of the country’s biggest mass execution for more than 30 years. It has since emerged that two of those killed were minors at the time they were arrested.

Human rights groups have criticised Mr Ellwood’s comments. “As Tobias Ellwood must surely realise, there’s one very easy way for Saudi Arabia to gain a better human rights reputation – and that’s by genuinely reversing the ongoing crackdown,” said Amnesty International UK’s head of policy and government affairs Allan Hogarth.

“Saudi Arabia needs to release prisoners of conscience... to end rampant executions... and to ensure that the rights of women and repressed groups are properly respected.”

Maya Foa, of the human rights organisation Reprieve, added: “These comments are astonishing. The Saudi authorities have a bad reputation on human rights because of their appalling human rights record – not because of bad PR.