Hong Kong

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Thursday 13th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we will do our level best and do whatever we can from our side to calm some of the passions, not least because of our 300,000 UK nationals there. We are not aware at present of any British nationals being caught up in the violence of the past 48 hours. The question of British nationals overseas was brought up by my hon. Friend’s constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Steve Double), and we do have some ongoing obligations in that regard.

We are concerned about the potential detrimental impact of these extradition proposals on the rights and freedoms of all people resident in and travelling through Hong Kong. At present the FCO is not providing specific advice relating to the proposed extradition Bill as it affects British nationals overseas, particularly as this legislation is still under consideration. However, we do believe that it is of the utmost importance that any extradition arrangements respect the high degree of autonomy and the rights and freedoms of the Basic Law. The arrangements will of course apply to all citizens, but we particularly have British nationals overseas and UK nationals very much in our heart, and will ensure our consul general does all he can to deal with any of the concerns raised.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Yesterday a young Hong Kong woman came to my office and showed me pictures of what had happened to friends of hers who had been protesting in Hong Kong. She showed me videos of tear gas being used and the injuries they had sustained as a result of rubber bullets being used. These things happen because the authorities that employ these methods think they can get away with it. She understood, as I think we should all understand, that the joint declaration is now under attack not just from the People’s Republic of China but from Carrie Lam’s Administration in Hong Kong itself.

As the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) said, the question is what signals we send, and I have to say to the Minister that the signal that he sends today in saying that the UK Government do not see the extradition changes as a breach of the joint declaration is fundamentally wrong and has to change. The purpose of that joint declaration is to protect the human rights of the people of Hong Kong. The legislation proposed by Carrie Lam’s Government is a fundamental attack on these human rights, and if we are to stand by the joint declaration we should be opposing these changes unambiguously and vigorously at every turn. I have to say to the Minister that it is not good enough to hide behind a question of legal construction when this is actually about our political determination.

[Mark Field]

I think that is a rather unfair characterisation of our position, if I may say so. I know that the right hon. Gentleman has a long-standing interest in Hong Kong—this has been our third exchange at the Dispatch Box over the course of this week—but I was merely making the point that the joint declaration was silent on the issue of extradition. We very much feel that the spirit of the joint declaration is fundamental, for the reasons I have set out about the high degree of autonomy, freedom of expression and the like, but I was just making the narrow point that extradition was not raised in the joint declaration of 35 years ago.

The right hon. Gentleman touched on the use of tear gas and rubber bullets, and I would therefore like to talk a bit about export licences; I know this has been brought up in the pages of The Guardian today. The last export licence from the UK for tear gas hand grenades and tear gas cartridges used for training purposes by the Hong Kong police was in July 2018. The last export licence for rubber bullets was in July 2015. We rejected an open licence for riot shields as recently as April 2019. The issue of export licences is close to all our hearts, and it comes up time and again in our work overseas. We are monitoring the situation very closely and will of course undertake to review all current export licences. We will have no qualms in revoking any licences found no longer to be consistent with the consolidated criteria, including criterion 2, which I think the right hon. Gentleman will be aware of, dealing with respect for human rights.