Belarus

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I make the point to the noble Lord, who asks an important question, that yes, of course, we introduced entrepreneur visas to try to attract bright talent to the UK to help to grow the economy, but that does not mean that we should give visas to people who have come by that money wrongly. One of the things I did as Prime Minister was to announce the London property register which is now coming in and will make a huge difference by confiscating people’s ill-gotten gains and returning them to the countries and the people from which they came so they can benefit. On the noble Lord’s specific question, I am very happy to take that away and look at it more, but it is important to recognise that we use the sanctions, we will keep using the sanctions, and we are watching closely what Belarus is doing.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I also welcome the Foreign Secretary to his new role. I am glad to hear of his concern about political prisoners and the use of sanctions against those responsible, largely, for their being incarcerated. In that context, I raise the fact that Lukashenko is currently visiting China and President Xi. I am concerned as to whether we are making the same efforts in relation to the sanctioning of those responsible for imprisoning people; for example, in Hong Kong using the National Security Law. Jimmy Lai is there in prison, facing trumped up charges and he was a voice for democracy in Hong Kong. In the short period since he has been in office, has the noble Lord got to know about Jimmy Lai and is he raising his incarceration?

[Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. Yes, I am aware of the case of Jimmy Lai. It is very important that we raise such cases in interactions with the Chinese Government and that is exactly what I have done.