Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest Debate
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Layla Moran
Main Page: Layla Moran (Liberal Democrat - Oxford West and Abingdon)Department Debates - View all Layla Moran's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
Chinese Consul General: Manchester Protest
Layla Moran Excerpts(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Jesse Norman
I personally was not aware of any further demonstrations, but the House has now been made aware of them. I will ensure that officials make some notification of that. This is a Home Office matter, so it will go through the Home Office. Even within the Home Office network of relationships, our police are independent of Government, and rightly so for the best rule-of-law reasons, so we will respect that. I am not sure yet that what happened here necessarily was a failure of policing. In this case, it certainly appears that way, and we expect the Greater Manchester police to be able to do whatever they can the next time round.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
Frankly, this is now just ridiculous. I hope the Minister can see the force of the will of the House and that it helps him in what he needs to do next. Article 41 of the Vienna convention on diplomatic relations states that diplomats need to
“respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State.”
Article 9 states that the receiving state has the right to declare that person “persona non grata” at any time with no explanation. The Crown Prosecution Service then says that that is done when the police have sufficient evidence to justify court proceedings. Given the video and the admission, the lack of action by the Government is frankly laughable at this point. This is now a political decision. Can the Minister explain why he is not making them persona non grata now?
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady quotes the convention, and it is very interesting, but she skated over the key phrase, which is when police have “sufficient” evidence, and we are not in that position yet. When we are, as I have assured the House, there will be consequences if that evidence proves to be dispositive.