Conflict in Gaza

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 20th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for his passionate and articulate plea for peace from the Dispatch Box. In doing so he speaks for us all, and I know that he has witnessed the suffering and feels it very deeply, as we all do. The renewed bombing in Gaza cannot be justified, the renewed siege of Gaza cannot be justified, and it is difficult to see how either of those things are compatible with international law. It will be for a court to decide, and there will be a reckoning.

The question, however, is what is going to happen now, because whatever it is that the British Government are doing in the region, it is clearly not working. What is plan B? Now that the Israeli Government have abandoned the fragile course of peace, what is plan B for the west bank, which still faces the threat of annexation? Following reports that the strikes may have American endorsement, what is plan B when it comes to uniting our international allies, to make sense of this senseless violation of the peace process? We must ensure that this is met not just with words, no matter how passionate or articulate. We have to do something internationally and with our allies. It is time to stop talking about it, and to do something.

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I know that she was in the region recently, discussing these very same issues at the Knesset. I understand that the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, is flying into the region as we speak, and I hold out hope that we can once more get a ceasefire that gets us to the plan, which was to the end of the Passover period—I cannot give up hope on that. She says that we must have more than words, and she knows, as I do, that the business of diplomacy is words, conversations, and using our influence to bring this about. That is why we are working closely with the United States, with our Arab partners and, of course, with our E3 partners, in particular, and the European Union at this time, and I will do everything I can to get us back to that ceasefire.

G7

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 17th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I am so pleased to see the Foreign Secretary continuing to lead our allies in support of Ukraine, and equally pleased to see that he has expressed his support for moving from freezing to seizing Russian assets—we have £18 billion-worth of them held in the UK. However, if we are serious about doing that, we need to start getting on with it. What moves is his Department making—for example, putting legislation on the books to allow us to seize those assets when the right time comes? I am glad to hear that there are discussions on that, but has pressure been put on our G7 and EU allies, who still sit on the remaining £300 billion-worth of assets, which perhaps need to be seized at this stage? Has he considered putting forward a UN General Assembly resolution to provide the legal basis for co-ordinated asset seizures?

[Mr Lammy]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her question and, of course, for her leadership of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I reassure her that we continue to work closely with our allies on this issue, including through the lengthy discussions that we had at the G7, but let me emphasise that it is important in this particular area that any way forward involves a pooling of that exercise. I do not believe that it would be right for the UK to act unilaterally in this instance; therefore, this is a multilateral endeavour and discussion. She is right to emphasise that we should work at pace, and I reassure her that we are doing so.

Syria

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 10th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his statement, and I echo his horror at the killing of civilians in Syria this weekend. I agree that this is a critical and fragile moment for the country.

In a letter to me last week, the Foreign Secretary made it clear that the Government’s policy is to push for an inclusive political process and accountability in Syria. This is, of course, exactly what is needed to deal with the tensions formed by decades of civil war and brutal dictatorship, but what are the Government actually doing to make sure this happens? We hear about aid and the loosening of sanctions. Is this the full extent of their plan? If there is more, can it be implemented properly when we do not have an embassy in Syria and when our special representative has visited Damascus only twice this year?

[Mr Falconer]

My right hon. Friend raises some important points, including about what the transitional Government will look like. And the answer is that all of Syria’s diverse communities need to feel that they have a presence in the new Government of Syria. Of course, many Alawites, many Druze, many Kurds and many Christians across Syria feel very nervous at the moment, and we call on the interim Administration to do all they can through their actions, not words, to reassure those communities that they are welcome in the new Syria.

As the shadow Foreign Secretary noted, I discussed this with my Turkish counterpart last week. I can confirm that we have delivered these messages clearly and consistently to the interim authorities, that we have raised the most recent violence with them, and that we are seeking urgent clarification on the confusing events at the coast, which, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) says, are absolutely horrifying.

On the question of a future British presence in Syria, I will return to the House when I am in a position to give a fuller update.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Since the election of the Labour Government last July, I am proud to say that Britain is back on the world stage. When we are at our best, we are a respected and influential global player. We have many things to our advantage: we are the bridge between the US and Europe; we have a place on the Security Council; and our security services and defence are very respected. Under recent Governments, it must be said that we lost our way, fighting among ourselves about Brexit and everything else and threatening to break international law, but under this Government we are taking a lead again.

The question is: are we going to step up to the challenge? We are more than capable of that, but we cannot do it on two Chewits, a button and a postage stamp. Alongside a pivot to hard power, the Prime Minister has set out his priorities for the reduced aid budget: Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine. To achieve peace, we need that investment in hard power, but if we abandon Britain’s soft power strength we cannot secure it.

In Ukraine, for example, political and financial investment and military might are key to ending the war, but when we reach the ceasefire, there will be shockwaves across eastern Europe that must be absorbed. There are many ways in which Russia will continue on the offensive, and that is not just about tanks; it is about misinformation, telling lies and trying to influence people by not telling the truth. The best way to counter that is to tell the truth.

How are we going to tell the truth? Well, we could rely on the BBC World Service, which is internationally respected and recognised. There is nothing like the BBC World Service, yet we spend only £137 million on it, which is given from the Foreign Office, and roughly 80% of that comes from ODA. Russia and China combined spend more than £8 billion each year on their state media. When we vacate the airwaves, which we have done, Russia moves in and takes over the same frequencies.

[Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I entirely endorse what the right hon. Lady says about the BBC World Service. There used to be a ringfenced grant for BBC Monitoring as well, but now that falls on BBC general income and expenditure. Does she agree that that monitoring service performs an equally crucial role to the World Service in terms of open source information?

[Emily Thornberry]

I do, although I think that the role has changed given the rise of the internet.

If we lose the World Service, will this be remembered as the moment not just when Britain abandoned Africa to the Chinese, but when we abandoned our historic role of telling the truth and speaking the truth of a united west around the world?

The second priority for the aid budget is Gaza. I visited Jordan last week with the Foreign Affairs Committee. Jordan, which relies on US and UK aid, has absorbed over 2 million Palestinian refugees. Its continued stability is fundamental to a lasting peace in the region. Can that be guaranteed if we no longer have a humanitarian budget to spend on it?

The third priority from the Prime Minister was Sudan, where we are the penholder and we face a situation where Russia has secured a Red sea base that it has long coveted. The situation reminds me of warnings given by Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, that every pound cut from spending on development today risks costing us more in future military operations.

Soft power is not just a nice-to-have; it is core to peace and security. I have looked into the numbers following the latest cuts, and after taking into account the ODA money spent on asylum costs as well as our commitments to the UN and the like, we have only about £1 billion left for the Foreign Office to spend on overseas aid. Is that really going to be enough, even just for those three priorities and the money that needs to be spent on that?

I am concerned that the ODA cuts will not be the last of the challenges. There are also rumours that the Foreign Office is expecting cuts, on top of those, of between 2% and 11%. In that scenario, it will sell its buildings. Will embassies shrink? I am concerned that we will lose the British Council, which only receives 20% of its funding from the FCDO and generates the rest of its income itself. I trust that an enormous amount of work is being done on the details of the cuts, but at the moment, we have heard nothing more than an aspiration about where the other funding will come from. I fear that we may look back at this time and say to ourselves, “This is when Britain left the world,” and yet, it really should be the time when we are able to say, “Britain is back, and we are back as a force for good.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. For clarification, when I made my contribution, I referred to Jordan. I should have referred the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I recently went to Jordan at the invitation of the King, and I should have said so.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Member for putting that point of clarification on the record.

Gaza

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I have just come back from the middle east, where I went with the Foreign Affairs Committee. While the world watches with increasing alarm the disintegration of the peace process in Gaza, we were warned in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the west bank and Israel that the far-right Government in Israel may have no long-term plan on Gaza, but that there is a long-term plan for the west bank, and that is annexation. The international community is well aware of that. It sees the evictions, the demolitions, the increasing number of Israeli settlements, and that 40,000 people have recently been displaced. In these days of hard power, what is plan B? What will the international community do to stop the annexation of the west bank? It will not be enough to simply condemn it once it has happened.

[Catherine West]

I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for her ongoing interest in this important matter of foreign policy, and for the work that she and her Committee have done, including through personal interviews and visits to the region. That is all part of the supportive role that the UK must play. It must take an international role in pushing for peace.

The UK Government have taken a very tough position on militant factions or groups attacking Palestinians in the occupied territories and the west bank. We continue to look at the measures available to get our message across in not just words, but actions. With my right hon. Friend’s permission, I will write to her as Chair of the Select Committee with an updated assessment of the situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

May I congratulate the Foreign Office on the inspired appointment of our new ambassador in Washington DC? Not many candidates would be able to fill the shoes of Dame Karen Pierce, who has represented UK interests so exceptionally in both New York and Washington; she is an inspirational leader and a skilled diplomat.

Lord Mandelson’s appointment is unusual, however. It is not often that circumstances demand that the UK appoint someone who is not a career diplomat to be our ambassador to such a key NATO ally. To silence critics and to show respect to Parliament and its Committees, will the Foreign Office agree that we should return to the policy of the previous Labour Government, and allow Lord Mandelson the time to come before my Committee before he leaves for the United States? That will allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him, and to learn what his priorities are in this crucial diplomatic role.

[Stephen Doughty]

We are absolutely convinced that Lord Mandelson will do an excellent job as our representative in Washington, and it was a pleasure to meet him last week and discuss his plans as he prepares to take up his post. Obviously we have one ambassador at a time, but I am sure that we will consider any request that my right hon. Friend makes in due course in the normal way in which we consider requests from her Committee.

Northern Gaza

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

May I begin by paying tribute to the bravery of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) in continuing to fight for the population in Gaza, even as her own family and friends are suffering?

My Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Israel-Palestine conflict, and we have heard again and again from witnesses, including both Israeli and Palestinian voices, that the UK could, in fact, be doing more to bring the conflict to an end. We have also heard from witnesses, including the former Member for North East Bedfordshire, who is also the very respected former Minister for the middle east, that where UK action has come, it has been too little and too late. While I know that the Minister is unable to comment on any ongoing negotiations, I would like to know this: what role is the UK playing in convening post-conflict discussions and what does he see as a viable, long-term resolution for Gaza?

[Mr Falconer]

This Government have taken a very different approach from the one that came before us. We have taken immediate, rapid action, calling for a ceasefire, making decisions on arms, which have already been mentioned, increasing the amount of aid available to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, being absolutely steadfast in our support to UNWRA and restoring funding that had been cut. Let us not think that there is no difference between the policy position taken by the Ministers here on the Front Bench and those that came before us. My predecessor, mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), is a good and wise man who has done much in the service of his country. Yet let us not have any illusion; there is a difference between what a Labour Government have done in relation to the middle east and what our predecessors did.

I reassure my right hon. Friend that we are very engaged in the questions about what must happen next in Gaza. Clearly, Gaza needs a solution that works for its people, where Gaza is governed by the Palestinians under their own legitimate authority, in safety and security. There are a wide range of international views about how we might get to that objective, and we are playing our full part diplomatically to try and ensure that there is consensus.

Syria

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Across the House we all celebrate the end of this terrible regime, but the very last thing that the Syrian people want, as my right hon. Friend said, is for one tyrant to be replaced by another, but with an Islamic flag. There is another way, but it will not be easy.

I am glad to hear that my right hon. Friend has begun talking to the UN special representative, because Syrians have been working on other plans—other constitutions and laws—over a long period, under the auspices of the United Nations. What is desperately needed now is to ensure that inclusive transitional arrangements are put in place that can take Syria into a brighter world, with the political system that the long-suffering Syrian people need and deserve, to give them an extraordinary, multi-ethnic, multi-background country. I hope that that is our priority and that we do not simply step back and say, “Oh well, what can we do?”

[Mr Lammy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to ensure that Druze, Alawites, Christians, as well as Sunni and Shi’a Muslims and Kurds, have a place in this vast, ancient and important country, and that civilian life is protected. That is why the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer) spoke to representatives of civil society just yesterday, and why I was discussing what happens now. For example, Iran supplied the oil to Syria. Who will supply that oil now? We must find ways in which public officials in Syria can be paid so that they can do that job. Over the coming hours we desperately need to get policing back in Syria, so that there is not widespread disorder. For all of those reasons, my right hon. Friend is right that we must work with civil society and local partners.

Detained British Nationals Abroad

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree with my right hon. Friend. The point I am really getting at is that the days of the shifting jobs of generalists are long gone, I am afraid. I have often made the case, having run a Department, that the civil service and the Foreign Office need to catch up with what is happening outside. We need specialists in place, and we need that to be considered an important job.

In cases where British nationals are detained abroad, the families of those detained have often found the UK Government reluctant to act to prevent torture or to seek accountability where it occurs. If they are acting, they do not relay that to the families, so the families are left believing that nothing has happened, even if something has happened. For instance, when Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual citizen, was detained in Iran, her family first raised allegations of torture with the FCDO in 2017. It was not until May 2021—following outside pressure from Redress and others, by way of a submission to the FCDO of a medical report as evidence of her severe suffering—that the then Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, an old colleague of ours, acknowledged that she had been a victim of torture. Why did it take so long? It seems to me that this is pointless.

In the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, a British national tortured by police in India, FCDO officials would only raise the allegations of torture with the Indian authorities once they had sought consent from him directly, which took two to three months. I know that the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) intends to speak about that case, but I just raise it generally as an illustration of what is going wrong.

Families of detainees face significant challenges in their engagement with the FCDO. Many report vague or inconsistent communication, which breeds mistrust. There is a critical need for a designated point of contact for families, as happens in the States, to ensure transparency and accountability in the handling of cases. Without that, families feel abandoned by their own Government while simultaneously battling the detaining state with few tools.

The FCDO also lacks a consistent policy on the treatment of dual nationals, often citing states’ refusal to recognise dual nationality as a barrier to action. That is a practical challenge, not a legal one, and it should not stop UK officials from attempting to access prisons or courts. When the Government fail to act, it risks sending a damaging message to dual nationals that they are less British and, by extension, less deserving of protection.

For instance, that reasoning was used very much in the case of Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen. China decided, because it does not recognise dual nationality, to call him a dual national. He has never been a dual national, and I have lost count of the number of times that I have literally shouted at Government Ministers in Westminster Hall that he is not a dual national. When they got up to speak, they just said that he is a dual national. He has never been a dual national. He is a proud British citizen. He got into Hong Kong long before he was of an age to have a nationality in that sense or a passport. He has been a British national non-stop since then.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it does not matter whether someone is a dual national or not? If they are British, they are British and they are proud to be British. We should simply talk about them being British citizens, and not even bother talking about dual nationals.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Lady, and I welcome her to the debate as Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. She is absolutely right, but the problem in this case is that dual nationality was used as an excuse for why the Government did not want to raise the matter, because China did not recognise that British citizenship. She is right that if someone is a British citizen, they are a British citizen, and the inside of the passport tells us why that is important. It seems to be ignored too often.

We know that sanctions are a vital tool for deterring and punishing state actors involved in arbitrary detention, yet that tool is often underutilised by UK Governments. I will touch on that later, because compared with the Americans, we fail to utilise it as a possible way to leverage changes to what is going on outside.

Another area of concern is the inconsistent application of Government policy regarding international legal standards. When the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box, will he confirm the Government’s official definition of arbitrary detention? How does it align with international legal standards, such as those established by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention? I have never been able to get an answer out of any Foreign Minister yet, but I ask him, given his experience in the Department, to kindly find out the definition for us and let us know.

I said I would raise specific cases, so I will run through some of the list. Ryan Cornelius is a British citizen unjustly detained in Dubai for more than 16 years, originally in isolation. His case represents an egregious violation of human rights and, importantly, of due process. He was arrested in 2008 on false fraud allegations relating to a $500 million Dubai Islamic Bank loan, and his 10-year sentence was extended by 20 years in 2018 through retroactive application of a new law without proper legal proceedings. The bank seized assets worth $1.6 billion from Mr Cornelius, far exceeding the original loan amount. The UN working group on arbitrary detention has ruled categorically that Ryan’s detention is arbitrary and in violation of international law, calling for his immediate release and compensation. However, there still appears to be FCDO resistance.

Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani became DIB chairman shortly before Mr Cornelius’s arrest. He appears to have orchestrated Mr Cornelius’s continued detention and the asset seizure. Mr Al Shaibani holds influential positions in Dubai’s Government, indicating an abuse of power. Mr Cornelius is now 70 and has suffered severe health issues in prison, including tuberculosis that went untreated for 18 months. Meanwhile, his seized property, originally claimed to be “worthless” by the bank, is now being redeveloped as a luxury project called The Acres, worth, strangely, $3 billion.

Under the last Government, I raised Mr Cornelius’s case finally with the former Prime Minister Lord Cameron while he was Foreign Secretary. Subsequently, he engaged personally in seeking clemency for Mr Cornelius. He met the family, raised the case with the UAE Foreign Minister and wrote personally to the ruler of Dubai. That was a first, because everybody else seemed to have shied away from this one, not wanting to upset the UAE, it appears.

To be fair to Lord Cameron, he got the issue and he started to tackle it, and that was important. The present Foreign Secretary, who replaced Lord Cameron in July, failed to raise Mr Cornelius’s case in his recent visit to the UAE in September, which perplexes me, given that it had already been raised. That just encourages a country like the UAE to carry on and to double down. I do not understand why.

In response to my written question to the Foreign Secretary, I received this answer:

“The Foreign Secretary raised the importance of consular issues, although not this specific case, during his visit to the UAE on 5 September and first meeting with Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.”

I understand that on Sunday, the Prime Minister is expected to visit the UAE and, I think, Saudi Arabia. Will the Minister make it clear to the Prime Minister— I believe this is the view that will be expressed in this debate—that he must not only raise the case, which is important, but demand categorically that Ryan Cornelius is released into the hands of his family without delay? I hope that whatever is summarised from his meetings, that specific issue is there in black and white for this House to record.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) raised Mr Cornelius’s case several weeks ago in an Adjournment debate, when he was reassured by the Minister for Development, the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), that:

“the case will continue to be raised with the UAE authorities”,—[Official Report, 19 November 2024; Vol. 757, c. 241.]

and yet it was not. If Ministers give assurances in this House, Madam Deputy Speaker, do you not agree that they should actually back up those assurances? I wonder if the Minister present will explain why that was the case.

Although individual cases are raised with international counterparts, often no concrete action follows. I hope the Minister agrees that once a case is raised, it will be followed up. In Mr Cornelius’s case, I believe the path could culminate in sanctions, so there is a process. It is clear that raising the case with the UAE authorities has yet to produce a result. What we want is a real record that the authorities are now being warned that should they fail to take action, individual sanctions under the Magnitsky rules will follow.

Will the Minister therefore now look to imposing targeted Magnitsky sanctions on those responsible for Mr Cornelius’s arbitrary detention and asset seizures? There are a number of them: His Excellency Mohammed Al Shaibani, who was the chairman of the DIB; Yahya Saeed Ahmad Nasser Lootah, the vice chairman of the board of directors; Hamad Abdulla Rashed Obaid Al Shamsi, who was a board member; Ahmad Mohammad Saeed Bin Humaidan, a board member; Abdul Aziz Ahmed Rahma Mohamed Al Muhairi, a board member; Dr Hamad Buamim, a board member; Javier Marin Romano, a board member; Bader Saeed Abdulla Hareb Al Mheiri, a board member; and Dr Cigdem Kogar, a board member. All were involved in this case; all are eligible for Magnitsky sanctions. Mr Cornelius should now be released immediately, or sanctions, I believe, should follow.

I will deal reasonably quickly with the case of Jimmy Lai, and then I will give way to others in the debate. Jimmy Lai is a renowned pro-democracy campaigner, journalist and media owner. I wear the badge to free him with pride. This man has been treated abominably—he is a hero, and we should recognise that. He is 77 and a proud British citizen. He is also a Catholic, and has been denied the normal communion that he would expect as a believer in Catholicism; it has been shut off from him for a long time, which matters a great deal to him. He is a prisoner of conscience. He could have fled Hong Kong after the Sino-British agreement was trashed, but he chose to stay. Why? He wanted to set an example for the many who could not flee and who were going to be arrested—that he was not going to run away just because he had money. This is a brave man.

Mr Lai is currently on trial in Hong Kong for alleged offences against national security and alleged sedition, said to arise out of his work as a newspaper publisher and his pro-democracy activism. His case is emblematic of the crackdown on the media in Hong Kong, civil society and the rule of law. On 15 November 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention published its opinion that Jimmy Lai is being unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and called for his immediate release. The working group found multiple violations of Mr Lai’s rights and freedoms, expressed alarm at his prolonged detention in solitary confinement and stressed that he should not be on trial at all.

This case, I say to the Minister, is very urgent. Mr Lai has been arbitrarily detained in prolonged solitary confinement for nearly four years, often in insufferable heat during the summer months. Securing Jimmy Lai’s release requires effective action across the Government to bring him home and reunite him with his family in London. At the moment, he is bravely giving evidence in his trial—at which, by the way, a number of Members present have been named. I have been apparently named. I am already sanctioned by the Chinese, but I have also been named as being party to the case being brought against him. I have to say publicly that I have, sadly, never met Jimmy Lai or corresponded with him. I wish that I had. I wish that I could tell him what a brave man he really is. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Will the Minister outline today what urgent steps the Foreign Office is taking to secure Jimmy Lai’s release?

I remind the Minister and others that what we see in front of us now is a rise in hostage taking by nation states. The biggest abuser of this process is, of course, Iran. I worry about this abuse growing more and more in Iran. In January 2023—we must not forget about this—Iran executed British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari, who was arrested, charged and executed on spying charges, which he denied and which were totally untrue. It was the first execution of a dual national since the 1980s. Only four months later, the Iranian authorities executed a second dual national, Swedish-Iranian Habib Chaab. In October 2024, it executed a third dual national, German-Iranian Jamshid Sharmahd. At least one more dual national, Swedish-Iranian Ahmad Reza Djalia, has been sentenced to death since 2023.

I conclude on the simple basis, as I raised at the beginning, that we can no longer go along with the idea that we somehow lose influence if we raise these cases publicly. We can no longer go on with this idea that we can manage a generalist approach to this in the Foreign Office. As has already been raised, we need a much more professional, deliberate and permanent status in the Department to deal with this matter.

Finally, we have in our hands the Magnitsky sanctions legislation. With the case of Ryan Cornelius and others, it is high time that those who were party to the arrest and incarceration of innocent British citizens find themselves facing Magnitsky sanctions, unless they recant and that individual is released. That at least gives us a tool. I ask the Government to get to the Dispatch Box, when the time comes, and commit to that process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing today’s incredibly important debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the time to debate it.

Throughout my time in Parliament, I have seen far too many sad and desperate families protesting outside the Foreign Office; going on hunger strike; standing for election against the Prime Minister, as one of my constituents did in support of Andy Tsege; singing Christmas carols, as I did outside the Foreign Office in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe; and organising petitions. They do everything they can to get their loved ones back, believing—rightly or wrongly—that the Foreign Office genuinely does not seem to be doing enough, and does not seem to care.

The public understandably have huge amounts of sympathy for these individuals and for the families of those who have been arrested, and I believe the standing of the Foreign Office is undermined as a result. We are told that the Foreign Office does everything it can, but it needs to do most of that quietly and behind closed doors, and the difficulty is that it is hard for some families to see the difference between doing nothing and perhaps doing a great deal. That is the dilemma. When those families see detained people from other countries being released—whether those are Canadians, Americans, French or Germans—and the Brits are not, they do wonder whether it is because the Foreign Office is simply not doing its job properly. That is the issue.

The Minister will be assured that I do not want to spend all the time I have in this debate just moaning about the Foreign Office. I have some positive suggestions, which I hope will be taken seriously, because I believe that this is an issue on which we could do much better. There are some ideas that are currently circulating, and they are not all mine—I am stealing other peoples’ ideas and trying to put them together in order genuinely to try to help.

The first of those ideas is that we have to put this in context. There are now many more Brits travelling all over the world and going to all sorts of places—the numbers are going up all the time—and that is to be encouraged. Of course, while more Brits are travelling around the world, we are also in a world where fewer and fewer countries pay much attention to anything that might be seen in any sense as any form of rule of law, so Brits get themselves into terrible trouble and some of them are arbitrarily detained. As I say, I am stealing other people’s ideas, so I want genuinely to compliment the previous members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The problems of arbitrary detention and how to solve people being detained abroad are complex and cases that many people have worked on, so the work of the previous Select Committee, very ably chaired by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), needs to be mentioned in dispatches. I am proud to be the second female Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I hope that my Committee can meet the standards set by the hon. Lady.

The previous Committee’s report on state hostage taking made recommendations which, had they been implemented by the previous Government, would have been very effective in cases that have been raised today. Chief among them were the recommendation to formalise and publish the criteria for determining whether the detention of a British national by a foreign state is considered arbitrary, and the recommendation to establish a senior position in the Foreign Office solely committed to arbitrary and complex detentions.

There are examples of criteria: the United Nations has criteria and the Americans have criteria. They are different criteria, but they are very interesting and I certainly hope there is someone in the Foreign Office at this moment looking at potential criteria and looking to draft some. I agree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green that it is about time we had established criteria, so there is a little more transparency on this issue.

It was very disappointing that a number of the previous Government’s Foreign Secretaries disregarded and kicked into the long grass the recommendations set out by the Committee. It does not have to be that way. I am encouraged that the Labour party has, since October last year, been committed to having a special envoy for UK citizens seized abroad. Last week, in front of my Committee, with Sebastien Lai and Sanaa Seif sitting behind him, my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary reconfirmed his commitment to that. I am encouraged to see that the Labour manifesto went further than the previous Foreign Affair Committee’s recommendations on consular access. Labour pledged to ensure the legal right to consular access and I certainly hope the Government will deliver on that, but we must act quickly because the likes of Alaa and Jimmy and their families cannot, and should not, have to wait any longer. I therefore call on the Government to be clearer in their timelines for implementing those promises.

Having thought about that, and having met families of a number of those detained, I think we should institute an office in the Foreign Office that is committed to arbitrary detention which establishes proper criteria for categorising someone as wrongfully detained. As soon as someone is arrested, the local consular office should inform the Foreign Office, which should apply the criteria to the case and make recommendations to the Foreign Secretary. It would then be up to the Foreign Secretary to decide whether that case would be given the benefit of the special envoy, who would then take leadership of the case. There will not be many of them, but those determined as victims of arbitrary detention will be very special cases, and will have the sorts of resources and focus that they need and deserve. It will be the job of the envoy to get their prisoner out, first and foremost, using all the levers of the state. They should be given permission to think laterally and be creative, and to think of every way we can ensure we get our British citizens out. It will also be their job to keep in close, active and respectful contact with the families, so that they know what is going on.

I know that a number of people have concerns. I have heard the counter-arguments and I understand them, but if we look at what the Americans are doing, many of those concerns may be allayed. Let us look at what is going on at the moment in the United States. I am grateful to the officials from the United States Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs who spoke with me at some length yesterday. I found the conversation I had with them as enlightening as I did inspiring. I want to go into that in some depth, because I want to enlighten and inspire Members who are listening to the debate today, so that they will agree with me and continue to put pressure on the Foreign Office to get on with things.

The office is based in the US State Department. It deals with about 35 to 45 wrongful detention cases a year, as well as the more black-and-white cases of US citizens taken hostage by the likes of ISIS. The office is responsible, in collaboration with other Departments, for making recommendations, on the basis of 11 criteria, on whether an individual’s detention is arbitrary. The recommendation is made to the Secretary of State, who remains responsible for signing off each individual case. It is a civil servant-led unit that applies the criteria, but with ministerial oversight.

The team is about 30 people. There are experts in negotiation, experts on a specific region and experts in supporting families. Within those teams are people whose sole role is family engagement, including trained psychologists. In much the same way as the police in this country, where victims of crime will have a dedicated family liaison officer in really serious cases, one main function of the office is to support the family. In our discussions yesterday, they told me that within hours of a US citizen being categorised as wrongfully detained, the special envoy calls the family of the individual to introduce themselves and explain the next steps. The envoy or his staff then remain the direct contact with family members, providing them with regular updates and answering questions they may have, including answering the phone at eleven o’clock at night to calm down a parent who fears they will never see their child again.

We need to do things better. The Foreign Office’s communication with families is not good. In my belief, it is clearly inadequate. As Laila Soueif told the media, she thought she was being ignored by the Foreign Secretary since he had taken up the post. I should make it clear that I am glad that he has since had time to see the family, but the message cannot be sent out that the Foreign Secretary is simply too busy to meet detainees’ families. It makes those families feel ignored and feel that the Government do not really care. The reason that families want to see the Foreign Secretary is that that is the best way for them to get reassurance that the Foreign Office is paying attention. They should not need to see the Foreign Secretary if they are being looked after properly by a specially dedicated team whose only job, other than ensuring that the family is reassured and kept in the loop on what is going on, is to get their loved one out.

I know the Foreign Office remains committed to the release of all arbitrarily detained individuals, but even the perception that they are not doing all they can to get someone released is not only incredibly distressing to a family who have already suffered such unimaginable pain, but damages the credibility of the diplomatic service, the Foreign Office and the Government as a whole. None of us should want that. Quite simply, we should not look like we are incompetent, incapable or uncaring.

I was also told that the moment a Secretary of State declares a case to be one of arbitrary detention, the SPEHA team kicks the whole Government system in motion to work on the case. They work across Government Departments, as well as with Congress, external organisations, private industry and the media, immediately gathering a strong team effort to begin putting sustained pressure on to the country holding their citizen.

A key point that struck me from my conversation with them is that without an office solely focused on these cases, the team simply does not come together. In my discussions with British detainees and campaign groups, I have heard one major concern for years, which is the UK Government’s lack of cohesion on these cases. Let me give a recent example. Why did the Department for Business and Trade organise an industry delegation to Cairo in June 2024, and UK Export Finance help host an Egypt-UK investment opportunity forum in London in September, all while the Egyptian Government had one of our citizens, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, wrongfully held in prison without consular access? Who thought that through? Did anybody think that through? Or was it one of those things that, because there is not a focus, just happened? I suspect that it is the latter and that is why we have to change.

I am fully committed to this Government’s rigorous focus on growing the economy, and I support the building of a prosperous UK-Egypt trade partnership. It is so important that we get investment into this country. But I wonder what mixed signals we are sending. What leverage do we have when one Department is criticising a Government for detaining our citizen, while another Department is also trying to encourage British businesses to invest and form partnerships in that country? What message is that sending to a detainee’s family?

When I raised this question with the Americans, and asked them, “Do you not step on the toes of ambassadors? How do you not send out mixed messages?”, they were keen to stress that it actually made life easier for the ambassadors, because they were there as the hard cops. They were there as almost a self-contained unit. Their job was to get people out, and that is what they did: they pulled the levers together in order to ensure that they did. They described ambassadors as their secret weapon, experts on the country who knew the key players and, most important, knew what ideas would work. They said that they were there to remove the “boulder” when ambassadors have to deal with cases of this kind, because it takes up so much bandwidth that the poor ambassadors cannot deal with other issues. Obviously they will still give advice, but there is that special team to deal with arbitrarily detained people so that the ambassadors can get on with our financial relationship with Europe. I believe that if we had a similar unit in the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office would be more effective, and it would be of great assistance to the Foreign Secretary, who cannot give his full attention to these uniquely complex cases. It would also give the families a senior point of contact on which they could rely.

The American unit has the power to impose specific sanctions, through the Levinson Act, that target those who are responsible for, or complicit in, the unlawful or wrongful detention of US nationals. We should be making better use of our sanctions policy to deter the wrongful detention of British people, or as a tool to apply pressure to those who hold British nationals. I have even heard stories of jailers being sanctioned. This can be done by those who are sufficiently ambitious, can think laterally and have the necessary focus. If we had better parliamentary scrutiny of our sanctions policy, perhaps we would make better use of it, but that is a debate for another day. Perhaps we simply do not know how the Government decide what cases warrant sanctions.

However, the whole-government approach, using the embassies in the country, the regional experts in the State Department and the negotiation experts in SPEHA, strikes me as absolutely the right approach. I think it is a lesson that we should learn from the Americans, and I hope that the Foreign Office takes this recommendation seriously, because it is about time we changed things. We cannot go on like this. I do not want to see anyone else outside the Foreign Office starving themselves in the hope that, somehow or other, that will help their son or daughter to come back to this country, so I say, “Please focus on this, and please sort it out.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Hamish Falconer]

I am afraid that, as the right hon. Gentleman might expect, I will not provide a detailed commentary on whether we are considering sanctions in any of these cases. Our position has been that we do not like to discuss sanctions in the House before we implement them, but I recognise the thrust of what he says. I think he is asking me to ensure that there is no diplomatic lever that we would not consider pulling to ensure the safety of our nationals, and I can confirm that.

[Emily Thornberry]

I thank my hon. Friend for being so clear, but can he say whether the criteria for deciding whether a British national has been arbitrarily detained will be published?

[Hamish Falconer]

I recognise the work of my right hon. Friend and her Committee, the detailed report on this subject that the Foreign Affairs Committee published during the previous Parliament, as well as the work of the APPG on these matters. As she said about the American experience, it is important for an envoy to be appropriately focused, and to have a limited number of cases. We are keen to engage with the House on how to ensure that the envoy is focused on a limited number of cases, and on what criteria are most appropriate. My view is that the process will continue to require ministerial discretion, as the shadow Minister said, but I look forward to talking to both my right hon. Friend’s Committee and the House again in more detail once we are in a position to bring forward more concrete proposals.

Unless any other Members wish to intervene on me, I will conclude. These are some of the most difficult issues that the Government and Members of the House face. I pay tribute not only to the families in the Gallery and beyond, but to right hon. and hon. Members. During this debate, there have been allusions to the historical preference of the British Government for not discussing consular cases in public in any great detail. In some cases, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson said, that is for reasons of safety or judgment, the Foreign Office having assessed what is most likely to assist the British national in question. However, I recognise that as hon. Members have said, this issue is of real importance to many Members of the House, and I will make myself available to all Members who have complex consular cases that they wish to discuss with me.

Georgia

Emily Thornberry Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I read with some alarm the reports about the Georgian elections, including a report by the OSCE on vote buying, multi-voting, Russian disinformation and intimidation. Is the Minister aware that the European Parliament passed a motion last Thursday stating that the elections had been neither free nor fair, and should be rerun? Is the British position the same?