Business of the House

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 30th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. His views of what should happen and mine are very close. I would point out to him that there are quite a few Bills currently in their lordships’ House, which they are working through patiently; of course, every peer has important views that they wish to express on many of these issues. Those will come back, and as they come back, that will take up our time. But there is good news for my right hon. Friend: although it is not necessarily right for me to announce the Bills that are coming, because other Secretaries of State may wish to announce them individually, I have a feeling that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary may be cooking something up that he will like very much.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

I am sure that the well-informed and intelligent Leader of the House will know that written on the first page of every UK passport is a commitment to

“afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary,”

yet the Government this week stated that British citizens unlawfully arrested and detained abroad have no right to consular assistance. There is serious concern among my constituents in Hampstead and Kilburn that the Government are not taking seriously their responsibilities to British citizens abroad, so may we have a debate in Government time about the UK’s duty to help those such as my constituent Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has been held hostage in Iran for nearly five years now?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, and the shadow Leader of the House, for their tireless campaigning for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, which is a model of how Members of Parliament ought to behave when seeking redress of grievance for their constituents. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) is absolutely right. The words in the passport are:

“Her Britannic Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty”.

We are, I believe, the only country that both requests and requires. When Government documents say such things, I expect them to be factual. The Foreign Office helps 30,000 British nationals each year. As I said earlier, it is a fundamental point that the British Government must protect Her Majesty’s subjects.