Hong Kong Security Legislation

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, Andrew Mitchell said yesterday that the legislation is a breach of the Sino-British joint declaration, adding that the United Kingdom decided in 2021 that China was in ongoing breach of that agreement and declaration. Earlier this week, Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that there were serious concerns raised about the incompatibility of many of its provisions with international human rights law. Can the Minister tell us what we are doing at the United Nations to support the high commissioner on these points and to raise these serious breaches of the joint declaration? Can I also ask about the ongoing detention of Jimmy Lai, a British citizen who is a stark symbol of the decline of Hong Kong’s freedoms? What update can the Minister give the House in relation to our efforts to secure Jimmy Lai’s release?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

I can confirm for the noble Lord that, after a series of breaches by China, including the imposition of the national security law and the changes to Hong Kong’s electoral system, the UK declared China to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the declaration in March 2021. This new safeguarding Bill, as the High Commissioner for Human Rights said, may not uphold those obligations, which are bound to it within international human rights laws. It falls short of international standards that Hong Kong itself has promised to uphold. The agreement that we signed with China—the joint declaration—is a legally binding international agreement registered with the UN. So I assure the noble Lord that we will continue, as we have done and as my noble friend the Foreign Secretary did in his announcement, and that the legislation will come into effect this weekend. We will look at this in a focused way. My noble friend has commented quite strongly in this respect.

We continue to raise the case of Jimmy Lai consistently. The Foreign Secretary reiterated the call for his release on 16 February directly with Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Munich Security Conference. On 23 January, the UK’s Permanent Representative to the UN also called for China to cease his prosecution and repeal the 45th national security law during the universal periodic review. On 28 February, I myself called again for the immediate release of Jimmy Lai, at the UN Human Rights Council.