Oral Answers to Questions

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK Internal Market Bill on the effectiveness of UK diplomacy.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK Internal Market Bill on the effectiveness of UK diplomacy.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

What recent assessment he has made of the potential effect of the UK Internal Market Bill on the effectiveness of UK diplomacy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dominic Raab]

No, I do not agree with that. The measures in the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill are a defensive, precautionary and proportionate, to safeguard the integrity of the UK. I was in Washington recently and had very constructive conversations on both sides of the aisle on the hill.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The way that the Government have used the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill to allow the United Kingdom to abrogate an international treaty in recent weeks has seen the UK take a step away from being a normative power committed to an international rules-based order. As my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal now faces his third anniversary in custody without charge in India, will the Secretary of State at least tell both my constituent and the House how he and his Government seek to remind the Republic of India of its obligations under international law, given that his own Government have so flagrantly disrespected it?

[Dominic Raab]

I am afraid I just do not accept the assertion, and I do not accept the equivalence. We have very clear understandings in relation to the positions we take in terms of consular access and upholding human rights. We engage with the Indian Government and other Governments right across the world. I have never had the pushback the hon. Member describes.