Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests
Blake Stephenson Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Catherine West
This urgent question is about Hong Kong, but I think it is very important that when international courts make decisions—be that on the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, or other international court judgments—we comply with them.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that the national security law for Hong Kong is in direct conflict with article 23 of the Basic Law for Hong Kong and a clear breach of the Sino-British joint declaration?
Catherine West
We have been relentless in pushing back on the erosion of freedoms in Hong Kong. When meeting civil society organisations in Hong Kong in November, I reassured people there of the values of this House. For those of us who were founding members of Hong Kong Watch, when the Prime Minister of the time was having a pint with Xi Jinping, we will never turn away from underlining the importance of those fundamental rights and what Hongkongers enjoyed in the past. It is terribly sad to see the erosion of those rights, but we cannot just give up and walk away. We have to have a dialogue, we have to keep pointing out our point of view, and we have to keep pushing back.