Human Rights: Consular Services

Anna McMorrin Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2024 Westminster Hall

[Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Caroline. I thank the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) for securing this important debate, and I thank colleagues for such a good and wide-ranging debate. We have heard some powerful speeches today, not least from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on freedom of religious belief, and from other Members with personal stories about why these consular services must be strengthened.

The Labour party firmly believes that the protection of British citizens should be central to our foreign policy. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on that today. Consular assistance is a core function of the FCDO and a vital tool to respond to a spectrum of situations affecting British citizens overseas, including serious human rights abuses. For any British national, the idea of being wrongly detained overseas or denied due legal process is the stuff of nightmares. Kept away from friends and family, dealing with foreign laws and customs, subject in some cases to arbitrary processes with an uncertain outcome—that is a situation that none of us would want for any of our loved ones.

I know that Foreign Office consular officials regularly go above and beyond to provide reassurance and support to British nationals who get into difficulty, but there have been several high-profile cases—we have heard of some today—of FCDO Ministers receiving criticism from families and the media for failing to secure timely release of British citizens detained abroad. No one doubts the difficulty of these cases, but too often the Government’s efforts to secure the release of nationals unjustly detained abroad have been, according to the families themselves, arbitrary, haphazard, unco-ordinated and lacking resource and transparency.

Members right across the House will know the harrowing case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian citizen detained in Iran for six years on false spying charges. She and her husband Richard, who campaigned tirelessly for her release, have been articulate critics and advocates for change. It was here, in this very room, just a few years ago that I, along with many of my colleagues in the House, spoke so passionately about the need for the FCDO and the Government to do more to secure her release. I remember speaking to her directly, knowing that she could hear the speeches here, and saying that she must believe her release would one day come.

Today, I want to raise the issues facing some of those who remain unfairly detained abroad. Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a human rights activist who spent almost a decade in prison in Egypt. Alaa is a British and Egyptian citizen, a courageous voice for democracy and a prisoner of conscience. The UK Government have not managed to gain consular access to him in prison.

Mehran Raoof is an activist currently in Iran held under arbitrary detention at Tehran’s Evin prison after being arrested by agents of the revolutionary guards in 2020. He is enduring prolonged solitary confinement, contravening the prohibition of torture.

For Jagtar Singh Johal, it is over 2,000 days since he was detained in India, and the current Foreign Secretary is the sixth to be in post since his arrest. Jagtar’s family and representatives are exhausted by having to start all over again when a new Foreign Secretary is appointed.

As others have mentioned, Jimmy Lai has been detained in Hong Kong for pro-democracy protests and accusations of endangering national security. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Vladimir Kara-Murza is held in Russia for denouncing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. His declining health while being held in harsh conditions in Siberia and moved around from prison to prison is of huge concern. I could go on.

There are so many others, though, who do not share the high profile of those five and who go under the radar. Families of those victims have called upon this Government for support, and promises have been made to them that they are yet to see. Can the Minister confirm whether the Foreign Secretary has met with the families of any of those I have mentioned here today? If so, which ones?

The Vienna convention on consular relations recognises the vulnerability of foreign nationals facing prosecution and imprisonment abroad. A country that is party to the convention has a legal duty to provide the UK with access to its detained citizens, including the right of consular officers to visit and assist detained nationals. However, there is no corresponding legal obligation for the UK Government to provide consular assistance to a UK citizen, even in cases involving allegations of torture or arbitrary detention. At present, consular support for British citizens abroad is entirely at the discretion of the Foreign Office and Government Ministers.

Does the Minister agree that a right as basic as consular assistance should not be based on the generosity or discretion of a particular Minister or civil servants? I believe that most of our constituents would be very surprised to learn that they do not have that right already. It is a fundamental duty of Government, and it is what citizens should rightly expect. That is why the shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), has made two pledges.

First, a Labour Government will seek to legislate for a new right to consular assistance. Putting that on a statutory footing will help raise consistent standards in consular assistance while sending a clear message to other countries that the UK will always raise cases of poor or unfair treatment of its citizens, particularly where we are dealing with cases involving allegations of serious human rights abuses. I welcome the ideas raised in this debate about how that could be delivered.

Secondly, we would appoint a special envoy for Britons wrongly detained abroad. That would strengthen the capacity of Government to work on the cases of those wrongfully detained. It would provide a single point of contact for affected families. It would also help to strengthen efforts with allies and partners to challenge and deter the worrying rise in the use of arbitrary detention as a tool of foreign policy.

I believe that these two proposals together can make a real difference. It remains the first and foremost duty of a Government to keep their citizens safe. A Labour Government will always take that duty seriously.