Human Rights in Hong Kong

Janet Daby Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of human rights in Hong Kong.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. It is another week, and yet another debate on China and its abuses—of its citizens and beyond its territorial borders. In this Chamber and the main Chamber, we have discussed the abuses against the Tibetans, the Uyghurs and other people within the confines of China and beyond. Today I want to discuss the situation of dwindling human rights in Hong Kong.

Fortuitously, it is particularly topical to debate this motion today, during the pantomime of the trial of Jimmy Lai that continues in Hong Kong. Also today, as we speak, the Chinese Government face their universal periodic review at the United Nations. I will say more about that later.

The implementation in 2020 of the notorious national security law has led to the drastic erosion of the freedoms of the people of Hong Kong that were once greatly enjoyed under the Sino-British joint declaration. Beijing’s introduction of that draconian law is a direct attack on the “one country, two systems” framework that we have a particularly strong interest as well as a duty and obligation to make sure is being upheld. The future of human rights in Hong Kong is bleak. I want to thank Hong Kong Watch, the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, not just for the various briefings they have provided for the debate but for their ongoing sterling work in this area to highlight the injustices being done to the once democracy-loving people in Hong Kong.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for his introduction and for securing such an important debate. He mentioned Jimmy Lai; the trial began last December, and China is treating him as a Chinese citizen even though he has dual nationality. Does the hon. Member believe that the Government should follow Labour’s idea, and appoint a special envoy for arbitrary detention for British and dual nationals held abroad? If not, what does he suggest?

[Tim Loughton]

I will come to Jimmy Lai. I was not aware of any policy statement that the Labour party may have made, but the particular point about Jimmy Lai is that he is not a dual national: he is a British citizen. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I, with others, have espoused that argument in this Chamber on numerous occasions and have got absolutely nowhere with Ministers, until recently with the new Foreign Secretary, from whom, I am glad to say, we have at last had the admission that Jimmy Lai is a British citizen—end of story. As such, he is entitled to all the consulate and other protections to which any other British citizen being persecuted against all natural tenets of law is entitled. I will come back to the Jimmy Lai trial.

There is no greater symptom or expression of the oppression that is going on in Hong Kong than the mass exodus of its citizens on a daily basis. Since the introduction of the national security law in 2020, Hong Kong residents have felt the strangulation of their freedoms. As a consequence, many have chosen to leave what has been their home for decades and generations, to escape persecution under that draconian law.