Foreign Affairs Committee (Hong Kong Visit)

Robert Flello Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I value his support on the Committee. We have approached this inquiry with an open mind, and I think the Chinese Government and the Hong Kong authorities are missing a real opportunity by declining to give evidence to us. Indeed they do not even recognise the Committee as they continue to call this a “so-called inquiry.”

Finally, Hong Kong is the largest stock market in China and its main financial services hub, supporting a fifth of the world’s population. It currently has free flows of money, goods and services. What sort of message does this send to future investors? This arbitrary action can only harm China’s reputation and financial interests in an increasingly global world. In Asia, a stable Singapore looks a much better place to do business at the moment.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I have been listening with great interest to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, which I think is absolutely spot-on. Does he agree that the Chinese are looking at this in the following way: “Well, there was all that fuss about Tibet and we just got on with it, and there was all that fuss about our appalling human rights record but we have just got on with it. So over time, this too, will all go away and we’ll continue to trade and be able to sell our goods around the world and nobody will take a blind bit of notice”?

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. After the spat over the Dalai Lama, Anglo-Chinese relations were on the right trajectory, and I think this is a very serious hiccup now, which will give a lot of people reason to pause and reflect.

We will continue with our inquiry, but this decision cannot go unchallenged. As Members of this House are well aware, as we enter this Chamber we pass under the archway which has been deliberately left with the damage inflicted by a bomb in the second world war. It is a reminder of the damage that can ultimately be caused by the enemies of freedom. The anchor in our world today is freedom. It gives us our sense of direction. It is how we decide between right and wrong. I invite the Government to condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.