Layla Moran
Main Page: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)Hong Kong Arrests Under National Security Law
Layla Moran ExcerptsUrgent 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
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend speaks with great passion. I assure him that his point is heard by the Government. I repeat what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we do not talk about future sanctions designations. However, I absolutely hear the point about it being completely inappropriate for British parliamentarians to be sanctioned, and we will listen carefully to the point that my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend have made.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important urgent question. I feel that in the five years I have been here, there has been a repeated deterioration in the situation in Hong Kong. Words are one thing, but action is something else. We should absolutely put in place sanctions, but Hong Kong Watch recently produced a report showing that dirty money gained through corruption—money that is being spent by families of officials from Hong Kong—is flowing in our economy. Will the Minister look carefully at that report, and commit to carrying out an audit of that dirty money, and to using the new powers in the economic crime Bill to root it out from our society?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady makes an important point about the economic crime Bill. That piece of legislation is being brought through the House specifically so that we can address dirty money that may be flowing through the UK, and I can assure her that the report that she highlighted will be read. This is not my portfolio, but I suspect it already has been read by those at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.