Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Hannah Bardell(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
British Nationals Detained Overseas
Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Hannah Bardell(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Ms Ali. I thank the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing the debate, and it is always good to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) when we probably fundamentally agree completely on something.
This is not the first time that I have risen to my feet in Westminster Hall to speak on this very subject, and many here today will have heard me speak about it before, so I will do my best to say something new about the subject. There are many parts of the job that we are elected to do that our constituents expect us to do. Making speeches is one of them, as is helping constituents with the issues we all come up against as we deal with the authorities that be. There are, of course, others we do not expect to be involved in. I can say now, after eight years in this place, that dealing with constituents who are themselves in some sort of distress, or getting in contact on behalf of their family members who are, is certainly one of those things that we cannot prepare ourselves for before being elected.
Whether it is the distance, the unfamiliarity with the language and the culture, or just an enhanced feeling of helplessness, there is always a heightened feeling around such cases. I am afraid to say that the added extra in such cases always tends to be the disconnect, which is fairly unique in these instances, between what the UK citizen and their family expect and what services are actually available to them, as I think was alluded to by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. In this debate today, we are talking about UK nationals imprisoned overseas, but much of what I will say will also applies to many of those who come into contact with consular services.
Let us remind ourselves of the words that form part of our passports—recently updated, of course—to which, again, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green alluded:
“His Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of His Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.”
I would say that, for example, prisoners—those accused or convicted of wrongdoing—are the very definition of vulnerable people at the mercy of the state and how it administers justice. Regardless of their culpability within any jurisdiction, the very least the UK Government can ask of countries in which their citizens are imprisoned is that they are treated consistently and fairly.
Indeed, when I have previously spoken about the case of my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal, who was alluded to by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), I have used three phrases: transparency, due process, and the rule of law. Those are three things that I would hope any Indian national imprisoned here in the UK could rely on and should be the very least we expect in Jagtar’s case.
The case of my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal is a considerable matter of public record, and I have spoken in debates here and on the Floor of the House on a number of occasions since Jagtar’s initial detention in November 2018—coming up for six years ago. The circumstances of Jagtar’s arrest—being snatched off the street by unidentified men, held incommunicado, and then signing a confession, which, it later emerged, was extracted through torture—meant that the case got attention. His family, though understandably frantic, managed to have the presence of mind to bring together many of the elements within the Scottish, UK and global Sikh diaspora that eventually became the “Free Jaggi Now” campaign, which has fought tirelessly on his behalf.
Jagtar’s family also very quickly got in touch with their MP. I raised his case immediately in a point of order, and then at Foreign Office questions, when the then Minister stated at the Dispatch Box that the UK Government
“take extreme action if a British citizen is being tortured.”—[Official Report, 21 November 2017; Vol. 631, c. 858.]
I and the family were surprised to hear those words at the time, and they seem increasingly like a cruel joke for Jagtar and those close to him. On one level, we were fortunate that there was the initial publicity in the case and that the Minister’s words at least made the case something of a priority. Not every UK citizen—full UK national—detained will be able to say the same. As time has gone on and I have heard more about the plight of those in similar positions, as has been spoken about today, the more I have seen the gap between the expectations of families and what the FCDO can deliver.
I should say something about the consular prisons team before I take their superiors to task. Along with the staff at post in Delhi, who have made great efforts to visit Jagtar—bringing news from home and taking notes from his family to him—the team in King Charles Street have really done its utmost to keep up very good communications with the family, even with the political aspects of the case being uncertain or, indeed, negative. The professionalism that they have shown has been greatly appreciated by me and the family, and their ability to go above and beyond, putting in long hours in the offices at the top corner of KCS, never quite knowing when another crisis may strike, is to be commended. So why do they remain so deprived of the resources to do a job that is very much the bare minimum that UK citizens should expect from their Government?
Whenever I sit in on these debates, I hear the same list of grievances. I hear kind words from the Front Bench, but we continue to see the de-prioritisation of consular budgets. I reference at this point the excellent report published by the all-party parliamentary group on deaths abroad, consular services and assistance, led by my very good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell). It is an APPG set up in the wake of a similar realisation to the one that I have described with my constituent.
The report is a testament to the work that the APPG did in giving those families a voice. It is full of excellent recommendations to ensure that the importance of consular services is recognised and informed by the lived experience of those families, in an attempt to ensure that their trauma in such situations is recognised. Consular services should have a much clearer identity within the FCDO, and the obligations it has towards UK citizens should be stated in a much clearer manner. One thing that I also hope that approach would achieve is helping families navigate what can be quite an intimidating bureaucracy.
Despite the initial statements about an extreme reaction, we now appear to be getting ready to announce the UK-India free trade agreement—quite a statement of priorities from a succession of Governments. I know that I need to come to a conclusion.
Consular Support for British Citizens
Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Hannah Bardell(2 years, 4 months ago)
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Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
It is always good to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I hope his new blue passport will open up doors on the issue we are discussing today—even though the passports are made in France.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) and their staff—their team; I hate the word “staff”—for the immense work they have done on behalf of the all-party group on deaths abroad, consular services and assistance, of which I am also a member. I also thank the all-party group for coming together in a cross-party sense to discuss an issue that crosses the desks of Members of this House more regularly than ever before. Importantly, I also thank the families that gave evidence to the all-party group. I want to specifically concentrate on the families of my constituents: Lisa Brown, believed murdered in Spain, is still missing and Jagtar Singh Johal is being arbitrarily detained in the Republic of India, now for a fourth year.
Let me take Lisa’s family’s case first. I have been part of it since her sister and brother first came to me and my team. Their experience is in some ways not dissimilar to that of the vast majority of those who seek Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office support for someone believed murdered and missing abroad. There was limited information via a consular office in a location with a high percentage of UK nationals either living there or on holiday. There was scrabbling around for translators and lawyers. All the while the family were dealing with the trauma of a missing sister presumed murdered who has a young son left behind. Sadly, the case of Lisa is still open. During this time Lisa’s mother sadly died without the answers she and the rest of Lisa’s family have required.
Then there is the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, with which I hope the Chamber is well acquainted, who was abducted in the streets of the Republic of India, with an accusation of torture against the state of India, an ally and a member of the Commonwealth. No charges have yet been placed, there is consistent postponement by Indian judicial authorities every time the case comes to court, and there has been the familiar “We can’t do this and we can’t do that” approach over a broad swathe of the period of his detention.
Like many others, I lost count of the number of consular staff who were moved during the last four years of Jagtar’s detention, but let me put on the record once again my thanks to those staff in the FCDO who have gone beyond the call of duty to support my constituent and his family. They are not paid appropriately, they have been moved from pillar to post and—I have to be very clear—there has been a lack of political leadership on this issue. I have also lost count of the number of Prime Ministers, Foreign Secretaries and Under-Secretaries we have had, not only in Jagtar’s case but in every other case that the report mentions. In the last four years, we have seen three Prime Ministers, five Foreign Secretaries and three Under-Secretaries. That demonstrates the issue of political leadership.
I pay tribute to the families: to Lisa’s family and to Jagtar’s family. What all the families in the report understand—my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston alluded to this, and I hope the Minister takes it in a cross-party sense—is the requirement to consider the enshrinement in law of the right to consular assistance. Murder victims and those considered murdered overseas should get parity with victims of terror, and the criminal compensation scheme should be amended accordingly.
The FCDO and the Ministry of Justice here in England—again, my hon. Friend alluded to this—should make targeted assessments of who gets help and what that looks like, to assist the families and, more importantly, to inform the future provision of consular services and plan the delivery of the improved service that Members have alluded to. If we do not gain the facts, we cannot improve the service. We heard earlier from the hon. Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton), talking about their Committee’s report on the treatment of women in the armed forces, that if we do not do the groundwork and understand what is going on, we cannot make change. In addition, the Government should publish an introductory range, but not an exhaustive list, of what basic assistance families and individuals can gain from the FCDO online process—of what basic assistance people should expect.
There must also be timely reviews of local legal representatives and translation services. Members have alluded to people picking up the phone to someone who not only does not speak English but wants €25,000 up front. There need to be consistent reviews, at least twice a year, but we would leave it to the appropriate officials to recognise what needs to be done to improve the basic access to information and legal and translation services.
Fundamentally, we must provide a substantial budgetary increase for consular support teams, not only in Whitehall and in embassies, but in those consular offices where large numbers of UK and Northern Ireland nationals are traditionally found either living or holidaying, such as on the eastern coast of Spain.
Hannah Bardell
My hon. Friend’s point about tourism hotspots, and Spain particularly, is really important. I went to Madrid with my chief of staff, Stephanie, and met the ambassador and the staff in the embassy and the consulate who deliver the services. They could see the value and the opportunity in improving services and communication and in having a proper link-up. That is one of the recommendations that we want to put in place—a protocol to ensure that people travelling from the UK to Spain have a higher level of service, because so many tourists go there from Britain.
Martin Docherty-Hughes
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, which makes my point. If the United Kingdom Government want to be global Britain, they should be the global Britain of the 21st century, not buccaneers going into the Caribbean or the Indo-Pacific. This really is about recognising what is happening to citizens on the ground on a regular basis. As my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Dave Doogan) alluded to, it is not irregular to hear of these cases anymore. It is not regular, but it is not irregular and we, as Members, face these tasks on a more regular basis.
Finally, let me pay tribute not only to the family of Lisa Brown and Jagtar Singh Johal, but to all the families mentioned in the report. I hope the Minister will understand that it comes from a place of wanting to work together, so that no other family is left without access to appropriate support, that no other person is left in a hospital dead with their family having to have crowdfunders to bring them home, and that families are met if they are going to visit someone in prison, whether it be in the Republic of India, Iran, Australia or the United States. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston for securing this debate.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Hannah Bardell(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)