Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

I am certainly willing to do that. Let me reassure the noble Lord that our position is quite clear. China is our fourth-biggest trading partner and the second-biggest economy. Trade between these countries has existed for some time. The United Kingdom Government, under both parties, have been very clear and robust about these breaches of international law. To suggest that we have done nothing that the Chinese Communist Party has been annoyed about is not true. The noble Lord can grimace, but the fact that we have given BNOs the right to come here was very much a concern of the Chinese Communist Party. We have acted—this has included sanctions for four Chinese officials and one entity for serious systematic human rights violations—and we continue to act. The idea that we can simply conflate our very strong condemnation of human rights abuses and then say that therefore we are not going to have any economic ties is simply not in the interests of this country or of the global economy.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that last answer. He is quite right that we should not be pivoting on the basis of headlines; we should have the closest relationship compatible with our national security and the principles that we uphold. None the less, I am sure the Minister will recognise that there was a substantive change in Chinese policy towards Hong Kong from 2020. Until then, the letter, if not always the spirit, of the Sino-British declaration had been honoured. With the national security law and the cancellation of the LegCo elections and change in the rules, China is now blatantly in violation of the “one country, two systems” deal, which was the basis on which the transfer of sovereignty was made. Whether it is by the kind of targeted sanctions suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, or by some other mechanism, surely there must be some response from the British Government when we see such an overt violation of a treaty to which we are one of the two parties.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Ongoing breaches of that agreement have been registered with the United Nations. As I have said, one of the biggest consequences of those was the United Kingdom Government’s actions in facilitating BNOs being able to come to this country—a very successful operation, on which I congratulate the previous Government. It was the right decision. It certainly annoyed the Chinese Communist Party, which saw it as a breach of the agreement, whereas it was a reaction to its ongoing breaches of the agreement. We are taking every possible step to raise our concerns about human rights violations, not only the introduction of the security legislation in Hong Kong but the ongoing breaches of human rights in other parts of China.