Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai.

The Foreign Secretary raised Mr Lai's case with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on 31 August. The Minister for the Indo-Pacific also raised Mr Lai's case with Christopher Hui, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury of Hong Kong, on 18 April. Senior officials have and will continue to raise cases such as Mr Lai's with the Hong Kong authorities. We continue to press for consular access to Mr Lai and diplomats at our Consulate-General in Hong Kong attend Mr Lai's court proceedings. In September, the UK led a side event at the UN Human Rights Council on media freedom in Hong Kong, supported by 24 other countries.