Hong Kong: New Extradition Law

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie]

At the risk of being unhelpful to my noble friend, what I said was that we do not believe that the proposals in themselves are a breach of the joint declaration, but that there has to be a concern about what could happen subsequently if there were an abuse of the provisions provided for in the proposed changes. That is why the independence of the judiciary, the robustness of the rule of law and, above all else, clarity in lawmaking and adequate protection of human rights must be explicit in any legislation.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I do not want to repeat what we discussed yesterday, but the Foreign Secretary on Monday made it clear that he had discussed this issue with partners, and in particular international states including Canada. Of course, we all share the concern about where this law may lead: that is what the people on the streets are demonstrating against. Yesterday, the noble Baroness failed to answer my question about what we were doing to build alliances. In particular, will she tell us whether the Foreign Secretary has spoken not only to Canada but to the United States of America?