China

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, what rousing words to follow.

I declare my position as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong and thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for securing this debate. She could hardly have known how precisely timely it would be given that, as has already been referred to, a few hours ago, two men who now face a 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty on their heads were in this very place speaking about the experience that they are going through.

It is interesting to make a comparison; I did not know until this point that rewards for catching people who have committed criminal acts in Hong Kong is quite a traditional part of their justice system. Therefore, there is a reward of 300,000 Hong Kong dollars for information leading to the prosecution of a man accused of murder, and for two men wanted in connection with an arson case that killed 17 people there is a reward of 400,000 Hong Kong dollars. We can contrast that with the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty that is being offered for the capture of people who are advocating freedom and the rule of law.

I was not able to be at the press conference, but I followed reports of it closely. I particularly want to raise with the Minister an issue raised by both the men there. One of them is Finn Lau, who has lived in Britain since 2019 and is a BNO visa holder. He reflected on the fact that he has been sent screenshots of Chinese nationalists discussing kidnapping him. No doubt the eight people affected are hoping and believing that the states they currently reside in will not extradite them to China in the face of this Chinese action, but they have to live in fear of bounty hunters: private people. We need to think about—I am sure the Government are, but I really hope they are thinking hard—the security of these individuals.

I also note the comments made by Christopher Mung, who has lived in the UK since 2021 and is also a BNO visa holder. He noted that this attack on eight people is a much broader effort to silence and cause a ripple of fear among the greater Hong Kong diaspora. I hope the noble Lord may be able to address this. Again, I hope the Government are thinking very hard about how to provide both security and confidence to the many people we have, I am happy to say, welcomed from Hong Kong to the UK.

Not all of those people are necessarily intending to be permanent residents. It is interesting that there has not been much discussion of the fact that this year a record number of students have come from China to study in the UK: nearly 152,000 people. I am not going to address the potential security issues that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, touched on. I will leave that to other people. I am concerned about the experience those students are going to have in our system. Some of them will be from Hong Kong. It is possible that some of them will be from Uighur or Tibetan backgrounds. It is possibly less likely, but there are probably a few. Those students have to be kept safe here in the UK. They have to be able to enjoy the freedoms we expect all students to enjoy in the UK.

More than that, if we think about students from any part of China, students are young people. They are being exposed to new ideas; that is the whole idea of studying and studying overseas. They are being exposed to ideas about our democracy. When I have been handing out Green Party leaflets in Sheffield, I consciously give them to people who I think are probably Chinese students because direct examples of democracy in action are a really useful experience to have. Are we able to ensure—and do the universities have the right advice to ensure—that those students, if they start to explore democratic ideas and if they say slightly the wrong thing in front of another Chinese student of a different political persuasion have the right security and support? Is there help for universities, which will not necessarily have the political understanding and knowledge to realise just what the risks are? Are the Government doing enough to support all that?

I have just about run out of time, and I have lots of things here. There is one other thing I want to talk about in the rest of my time. This morning, I spoke to a group of King’s College London summer school students about the wonderful development of Magnitsky-style sanctions. They arose from civil society campaigning and are a social innovation brought about through the activities of civil society. The Government have followed along and adopted them. I am not going to ask the noble Lord the obvious questions because I know exactly what formula answer I will get. I will simply point out that the UK has yet to impose sanctions on anyone implicated in the crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong and that in responding to the bounty announcement, James Cleverly said:

“We will not tolerate any attempts by China to intimidate and silence individuals”.


The background briefing to the press release states that

“the UK continues to lead international efforts to stand up for the people of Hong Kong”.

Do we really? Where are the Magnitsky-style sanctions?