Hong Kong Anniversaries

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point about the individuals involved. Does he agree that HSBC, headquartered in London, is a business that regularly breaks the law? It is the money-laundering choice for a number of illegal operations and has been fined three times. HSBC is not only involved in Xinjiang, but in Hong Kong it has frozen the accounts of individual protesters—people who were trying to restore democracy in Hong Kong. Does he agree that the Government could do more to influence or control that dreadful bank?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because that is correct. I had clashes with HSBC when it froze the accounts of those who had fled Hong Kong under the Government schemes. The same applies to Standard Chartered. HSBC’s answer was that it has to obey the law. My answer to the bank is, “You are headquartered in London. You take advantage of the freedoms in London, yet you behave like a brutal part of the Government in Hong Kong in obeying their every whim. You cannot ride both horses.” Those who take advantage of our common law purpose and the rights that exist in London need also to obey the norms of how those things came about and how they are operated. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The abuses of those banks are shocking and the Government should pay attention. I was going to raise that appalling situation, but now he has done.

On other issues, I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s support for the withdrawal, finally, of serving UK judges from the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. I was surprised that we had to campaign for that at all, and that judges, whose responsibility in the UK is to arbitrate fairly in disputes in a democratic country under the rule of law, should so position themselves in Hong Kong while arbitrary detention was taking place, and carry on earning a living while serving in the UK. I am enormously pleased that that has now come to an end.

The President of the Supreme Court, Lord Reed, has agreed that High Court judges will no longer act in Hong Kong, but retired judges continue to do so. He said:

“the judges of the Supreme Court cannot continue to sit in Hong Kong without appearing to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression”.

We obviously welcomed that decision, even though it was overdue, but I would have thought that retired judges were bound by much the same principle. If the Supreme Court has reached the opinion that its judges can no longer appear to act with an Administration who have departed from the values of political freedom and freedom of expression, how is it that retired judges, who are meant to be bound by the same principles, can in all honestly look themselves in the mirror and say, “That’s all right, but we are different”? I appeal to them today, for the sake of all those who are being traduced, arrested, tortured and dealt brutally with: it is time for us to show the world that the legitimacy of the legal system in Hong Kong is no longer. I understand that they have defended their decision, and I am not going to go through the details, but we must now call time on it.

What should the UK be doing? This is important: we should implement individual sanctions against Hong Kong officials who are responsible for the crackdown on civil liberties in Hong Kong. The UK is yet to impose sanctions on any Hong Kong official, which is astonishing given the fact that we had a joint requirement to see fairness. We see it trashed, yet we have done nothing about those who are clearly and obviously guilty. Here is the irony: the USA has done exactly that, and it did not have the same responsibilities that the UK Government had. The outgoing Chief Executive, Carrie Lam—sanctioned. The incoming Chief Executive, John Lee—sanctioned. Seven officials of the Hong Kong special administrative regions—sanctioned. That is Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah, Xia Baolong, Zhang Xiaoming, Luo Huining, Zheng Yanxiong, Chris Tang Ping-keung and Stephen Lo Wai-chung—they have all been sanctioned by the US Administration. I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister: why have we not done the same? Should we not be leading the USA and others, rather than be following them? Bold action and a bold answer are required.

The Government should conduct an audit of assets belonging to Chinese and Hong Kong officials held in the UK. A recent Hong Kong Watch report states that 11 Hong Kong officials and legislators own property in the UK. We have already established over time, and particularly since the Russians invaded Ukraine, the level of abuse that has taken place in the UK property market. We are now at last bearing down on that, and sanctions are moving, yet for Hong Kong, where people have been abusing the system for some time, we have still not carried out the audit that has been requested.

The Government should further scrutinise and limit the export of surveillance technology to Hong Kong. Following the outbreak of protests in 2019, I welcomed the announcement that the British Parliament would stop issuing export licences for crowd-control equipment to Hong Kong and announced the extension of the arms embargo on Hong Kong. However, technology that can be used for surveillance, such as facial recognition, closed circuit camera systems and technologies fuelled by the mass collection of personal data, can still be exported if they do not fall under the scope of existing legislation. That needs to be shut down immediately.

We must introduce “know your customer” and due diligence requirements for entities that produce surveillance technology. I understand that a local branch of the UK company Chubb has been providing surveillance products and services to detention facilities in Hong Kong that have been involved in the inhuman treatment of detainees. The reality is that it is in our power to act, and I do not understand why we are so resistant. Surely it is the decent thing to do.