Chinese Consul General: Attack on Protesters in Manchester
Debate between Mike Kane and Anne-Marie Trevelyan(1 year, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent 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
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
I will take that point away and discuss it with the team. Just as we have in many countries, there are consulates general not only at the main embassy but across large areas. Thinking of our own, the One HMG programme was done to help us bring together our trade and agriculture experts and those working in-country. He is quite right that we see consulates general across the UK for many embassies that are accredited to the Court of St James’s. I will take that point away.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I join the Minister and the Opposition Front Bencher in praising Greater Manchester police. We should have not seen scenes such as that in our great city. I am disappointed that this issue has had to be raised as an urgent question, because the Foreign Secretary was making a statement on his Department’s media channel about it last night. I am concerned that he is not here.
The Minister summed it up: these diplomats are accredited, so what happens when they are replaced in the consulate of Manchester? Will those officials have a semblance of the common good and allow encounter and dialogue, or will they be replaced with further state-sponsored thugs?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
The Chinese embassy and Beijing will no doubt send a new consul general in due course. We will be clear, as we always are with all those who come to serve in their embassies in the UK, that we expect the highest standards from all staff. That will continue to be the case.