Media Freedom Coalition

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right to draw our attention to that. One of the key themes that we want to use our leadership to do is to address exactly those issues around women journalists: women journalists and the persecution that they face—online as well these days—and also, too often, the experience of journalists working in newsrooms, which can present additional challenges, if I can put it that way. We want to use our position on the Media Freedom Coalition to address, in particular, those issues that face women.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the efforts that my noble friend Lord Ahmad made in setting up the Media Freedom Coalition, which is, as the noble Baroness said, an excellent organisation. As she mentioned in her opening remarks, there are many countries and cases that we could raise, but one particular well-known journalist in prison, of course, is Jimmy Lai. I know the Government are doing all they can to raise his case. The last statement of the media coalition on that issue was in 2023. Could the UK use its co-chairmanship to continue to raise that with the Chinese authorities?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I am sure that that will be the case. As we have said many times—I know that we all agree with this, but it is worth repeating—Jimmy Lai should not be imprisoned and should be released immediately.