Imran Khan: Imprisonment

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. Obviously, there is an important difference between the cases of Jimmy Lai and Imran Khan, because Jimmy Lai is British. We have specific responsibilities and obligations towards our citizens that, whatever else we might think about these cases, do not apply in the same way when we are talking about someone of a different nationality. However, I assure my noble friend that Ministers and officials have raised, in the appropriate way, as she would want them to do, our concerns about cases when we need to, including the case of Imran Khan.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I think anyone who is paying attention understands that Imran Khan has been denied access to lawyers and to his family, including his two sons, who are my nephews. He has been denied access even to doctors. We understand that he has spent much of his time in prison in solitary confinement, and his health is deteriorating rapidly. Does the Minister agree that now is the time for us to reconsider our aid contributions to Pakistan—Pakistan is often at the top of the list of recipients of UK aid—until that country’s Government demonstrate a clear, unambiguous commitment to the Commonwealth Charter that it signed up to, which commits it to an independent judiciary and the rule of law?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It is important—and we maintain this position for all those held in prison—that people get access to healthcare and to their families. We have made that case, because that is consistent with the position of this Government and the previous one, and we will continue to do so. The noble Lord asks about our development spending. As he knows, we made a decision around this time last year to cut our development spending by around 40%, and we will be making further announcements shortly about the detail of that—what will be happening in which countries, and what it will be spent on.