The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)
I thank the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and congratulate her on securing this debate. I pay tribute to her and the all-party group that she chairs for all their work. I also echo the words of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West), about our staff—the staff of the hon. Member for Livingston who work to support the APPG, but also parliamentary staff, who have to deal with some very difficult cases. Cases where people die abroad or are detained abroad are really difficult, as we know from discussions today and on many occasions in this House, so I thank the hon. Member and our staff for all their work.
I am very grateful for colleagues’ contributions to the debate. I hope in my remarks to cover a number of the issues that they have discussed, but I am also happy to follow up on individual cases.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s role supporting British nationals overseas is an essential public service. Over the past decade, we have regularly reviewed and sought to improve the professionalism, scope and form of our services in line with the Vienna convention on consular relations by comparing our consular services with those provided by comparable countries. At the recent spending review, the Foreign Secretary identified consular services as one of our four key priorities. We are committed to providing a modern, round-the-clock service, including a wide choice of digital services, which I will come to later.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
I have two constituents who are imprisoned in the UAE. I am in detailed discussions with the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa. I appreciate that there is a limit to what the present Minister can say at the Dispatch Box, but can she reassure me that the FCDO is doing everything in its power to assist my constituents, Mr Albert Douglas and Mr Billy Hood, and is treating the cases as the highest priority?
Amanda Milling
I can obviously provide that reassurance. I know that my hon. Friend has had discussions with my ministerial colleague, but I will happily have further discussions with her after this debate.
Our service will continue to provide empathetic support to meet the needs of vulnerable British people and their families. At the same time, it will help British people living and travelling abroad to take responsibility for their own safety and will strengthen the resilience of our consular network and its ability to respond to global crises. When British nationals need assistance overseas, our highly trained consular staff are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Our staff make an assessment of an individual’s vulnerability in order to tailor the assistance that they receive. We have more than 200 consular posts worldwide, with more than 700 consular staff across the network. We track and review the quality of our services through both qualitative and quantitative measures, and it is testimony to the hard work of our staff that the most recent overall satisfaction score remained at well over 80%.
I am grateful to Members for putting on record their recognition of the hard work of those consular staff. Inevitably, as parliamentarians, we often hear about the most difficult cases, in which constituents may be unhappy with the services that they receive, but I too want to place on record my thanks to the staff, who, in the overwhelming majority of cases, have got it right and have been able to provide the support that an individual needed.
Dave Doogan
The Minister has referred to the most difficult cases, but it is important for the Department to recognise a pattern of events. My constituent was told that he had to petition the Attorney General of Thailand to get the case reopened. When I asked the Department whether it could give me another example of a UK national successfully petitioning the Attorney General of Thailand, it was unable to do so. It is generic; it is not acceptable. Given that the Minister’s predecessor and the former Secretary of State refused to meet me, I wonder whether she would like to meet me and my constituent.
Amanda Milling
I will go on to talk more broadly about the services that we can provide and some of the limitations, but I am happy to follow that up after the debate.
We are able to support more than 20,000 new consular cases, as well as about 8,000 long-running cases. Sadly, that figure includes 4,000 deaths and between 40 and 60 homicides. About 5,000 British nationals are arrested or detained overseas each year, and providing non-judgmental support for prisoners is a large part of our role. Our contact centres receive about 500,000 inquiries each year, and more than 85% are resolved in the first call. Over the last 18 months, fewer British nationals have been travelling overseas because of covid-19. However, British nationals still need our support, and despite the variety of local lockdowns and other measures, we have continued to provide our core services throughout, adapting to reflect the limited ability to hold face-to-face meetings. In 2020 we handled more than 3,000 cases involving deaths abroad, although many of our staff around the world were working through lockdown themselves.
Members have rightly spoken of the impact that a death overseas can have. My thoughts go out to all those mentioned in today’s debate, and all those who have lost loved ones.
Hannah Bardell
The Minister has given statistics, and has talked about the number of cases that have been resolved on first contact. That is welcome, but I think it important for the House and those watching the debate to know that among those cases are cases of lost passports and people needing new passports—administrative details, as opposed to the very difficult casework that we have been discussing. I think that those cases need to be separated in the statistics, not least out of respect for the families of the loved ones we are talking about.
Amanda Milling
That is an important point. When we are talking about deaths abroad, we are talking about incredibly complex cases. I hope that later in my speech I will be able to set out the services that we provide and explain why we provide them in the way that we do—so that we can tailor the service to the situation and the individual’s circumstances.
Any unexpected death is deeply upsetting for the families concerned, let alone a death that takes place in violent or unexplained circumstances. Anyone who has lost a loved one will want to understand what happened and why that person died. I recognise that from my constituency work and the hard work of other Members on behalf of their constituents. My own constituent Robert Spray tragically died in Bulgaria in October 2019 while in police custody. Consular officials have supported the family and continue to request information from the Bulgarian authorities to support the UK coroner, as the family desperately tries to get answers.
Our experienced consular staff have detailed knowledge of their country and region and can provide information and support to help families to navigate the local processes. They do their very best to ensure that the wishes of the bereaved families are followed. This can include providing advice on local burial and cremation options or on transporting the body and personal belongings back to the UK, and providing lists of local and international funeral directors who can assist. We have dedicated teams who provide expertise in particular circumstances, including, since 2015, a murder and manslaughter team.
As much as our staff want to support families seeking to understand how a death has occurred or to secure justice, there are limits to what the FCDO can do in cases abroad. Investigations into deaths, either through natural causes or in suspicious circumstances, remain the responsibility of local authorities. We cannot investigate the cases ourselves, and we cannot direct local authorities on how to do their job.
Hannah Bardell
I understand the point that the Minister is making about foreign jurisdictions. This is something that has been debated widely across British society and, without getting too specific, in a number of very high-profile cases. However, there is a precedent of the British Government—whoever has been in power at the time—putting pressure on foreign authorities, working with them and sending police from the UK to investigate crimes abroad. Families have rightly asked me on numerous occasions what makes their loved one different.
Amanda Milling
I am grateful to the hon. Member for making that point. I should have said at the start of the debate that I was grateful to have had the opportunity to meet her to discuss a range of issues, and I look forward to working with her and the all-party parliamentary group. As I have said, in this instance, there are things that remain the responsibility of the local authorities, but I am grateful for the opportunity to work with the APPG.
Jim Shannon
The Minister has outlined the position of the Department, but my constituent would have liked, following the death of his father, to have had a contact—someone to give him advice. We could not get that. This is not a criticism, but the advice just was not there. Is it possible to ensure that such advice is available for our constituents?
Amanda Milling
We always seek to hear feedback from those who have to use the FCDO’s services, and I would be more than happy to discuss the particular case to which the hon. Gentleman is referring after the debate at another point.
We have to be clear about what levels of service the FCDO can and cannot provide. We are not funded to pay for legal, medical or translation costs, but the consular staff will signpost sources of help.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
If there were clarity about the basics of what the consular service can do, it would be a start. It could be put online and regularly reviewed.
Amanda Milling
Hopefully some of the improvements that we are continuing to make in the service will address some of the points that have been raised today.
One of the points that was raised earlier related to lawyer lists. Our posts overseas maintain lists of English-speaking lawyers who are qualified to act in an overseas jurisdiction. That is published on gov.uk. We welcome feedback, but we cannot provide specific recommendations. That said, we are considering how we can make these online lists more accessible and easier to navigate.
I mentioned how consular staff can signpost sources of help and, for example, we work closely with and fund specialist organisations that provide assistance we cannot provide, such as counselling, legal advice and support with translation and repatriation. This includes the Victim Support homicide service, Prisoners Abroad, Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis, and travel care providers and chaplaincies at major UK airports. We publish full details online of what the FCDO can and cannot do to support British nationals abroad. We will publish a refreshed and updated version next year.
When British nationals are detained overseas, their health and welfare is our top priority. We make every effort to ensure prisoners receive adequate food, water and medical treatment and that they have access to legal advice. When we hear about a detention or arrest, our consular staff attempt to contact the individual as soon as possible. How frequently we visit will depend on the nature and context of the case, but we are aware that our visits are a lifeline for many detainees, and that our staff are the only visitors that some will receive.
However, we do not and must not interfere in civil and criminal court proceedings. It is right that we respect the legal systems of other countries, just as we expect foreign nationals to respect our laws and legal processes when they are in the UK.
Amanda Milling
I will make progress, if the hon. Lady does not mind.
We can and do intervene on behalf of British nationals where they are not treated in line with internationally accepted standards or if there are unreasonable delays in procedures.
We take allegations of torture or mistreatment incredibly seriously. Although we cannot investigate allegations ourselves, with the consent of the individual we can raise the allegations with local authorities to demand an end to the mistreatment and to demand that the incidents are investigated and the perpetrators brought to justice. Our priority is always to serve the best interests of the individual. Any decisions on the action we might take in response to allegations of mistreatment are made on a case-by-case basis and only with the individual’s consent.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
Given that there is clear evidence that my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal has been arbitrarily detained, why will the Government not agree that this UK citizen is being arbitrarily detained by the Republic of India?
Amanda Milling
We take all allegations of human rights violations seriously, and the Foreign Secretary, ministerial colleagues and senior officials have raised Mr Johal’s allegations of torture and his right to a fair trial with the Government of India more than 70 times.
There is no legal right to consular assistance. As colleagues will know, the UK is party to the Vienna convention on consular relations, a multilateral agreement setting out how states will co-operate in support of their nationals overseas. Our ability to provide consular assistance remains, at all times, dependent on states respecting the Vienna convention, and it must be done in accordance with the laws of that country. Even if a right to consular assistance were enshrined in domestic law, our ability to provide it overseas would continue to remain wholly dependent on the co-operation of host states. It would not help many of our most complex cases.
As I set out earlier, we continually seek to improve our consular services. We welcome feedback, and we use it to improve our services and to provide the best possible assistance. We have learned lessons during the pandemic about how we can operate remotely. We are not complacent about the overwhelmingly positive feedback we receive, and I acknowledge that there are always areas where we can improve. We have a dedicated learning team, who ensure that our staff have the knowledge and skills they need to support British nationals. We have, for instance, included testimony from bereaved families in our training modules on how to support people bereaved through murder and manslaughter. It helps staff to understand the perspective of somebody needing that assistance. We also have a robust complaints process for those who feel that we have not provided the service that they needed. I want to reiterate our openness to working with others, particularly the all-party group, to ensure that British nationals receive the right support, tailored to their circumstances.
To conclude, our consular staff at home and abroad work extremely hard to support British nationals in distress and their families, often in difficult circumstances. We take every single consular case seriously. Our trained and expert staff work with empathy and aim to offer the help that is needed, be that advice or practical support. They are not lawyers, medics, police detectives or social workers, but what they try to do is ensure that British people have the information and support they need to help them deal with the situation they face.