Hong Kong Debate
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Lord Collins of Highbury
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Hong Kong
Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the response to the Urgent Question, and he is right to say that we should not jump to conclusions. Yesterday, the Minister in the other place, Dr Murrison, said that it is probably not sufficient simply to have an internal police inquiry, which is what the IPCC would be in the Hong Kong context. He went on to say that,
“it really does need to involve Hong Kong’s excellent and well-respected judiciary”.—[Official Report, Commons, 22/7/19; col. 1098.]
What are the Government doing to ensure that there is such an independent investigation and inquiry, and that the judiciary is properly involved?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble Lord raises an important point. My right honourable friend the Minister of State, Dr Murrison, has been quite clear in the other place that we want an independent and robust inquiry. If I can amplify his statement from yesterday, we need to know the extent to which the inquiry will be full, comprehensive and independent. A purely internal police inquiry is unlikely to achieve that objective.