That this House has considered visas, security and access to services for Hong Kongers living in the UK.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. As a new Member of Parliament, I am happy to say that this is my first Westminster Hall debate, and I am delighted to have secured it on such an important set of issues.
Support for Hongkongers is a priority of mine for two main reasons. First, my constituency is home to a large diaspora of Hongkongers. We take great pride that so many have chosen our community as the place to rebuild their lives, having fled from tyranny and oppression. Secondly, the Labour party has a proud history and record of standing up for human rights, from Northern Ireland to Kosovo, and of supporting those who have come to our country having fled authoritarian rule. I am confident that our new Government will uphold that fine heritage. If they are to do so, however, support for Hongkongers is essential, as I am sure the Minister will agree.
There has never been a more important moment to stand with Hongkongers than now. We all know about the tragic erosion of democracy and human rights that has occurred in Hong Kong since the imposition of the national security law in 2020 with more than 10,000 arrests of those protesting for freedom, 900 journalists losing their livelihoods simply for speaking the truth and a rapid growth in the number of political prisoners, matched only by the rapid decline in due process as authoritarianism continues to spread. With the article 23 legislation now set to make the situation even worse, these are worrying times for Hongkongers wherever they are in the world. Given the increasing need for Hongkongers to leave Hong Kong and come to the UK, it is important to take this moment to consider the future of the British national overseas visa scheme.
I genuinely congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this early opportunity to ventilate the issue. He talks about those who flee persecution, and he is right, but the truth of the matter is that even when Hongkongers are in this country, they are not beyond the reach of the Chinese Communist party. We have seen instances of illegal police stations operated by the Chinese and of persecution on campuses around the country. Does he agree that our responsibility to Hongkongers coming to this country does not end when they arrive at Heathrow? That is simply when it starts.
Yes, absolutely. I thank the right hon. Member for making that important point, which I will come on to later in my remarks.
On the BNO visa scheme, for the sake of fairness, I should start my remarks by giving credit where it is due: the scheme is one of the best things that the Conservative party did in its 14 years of government. Even though it is top of what I might consider a vanishingly small list of achievements, that should not distract from what a resounding success it has been. About 150,000 Hongkongers have been able to flee tyranny because of the scheme. Our country should be deeply proud of that. I will be grateful if, when the Minister responds, she could spell out that this Government’s commitment to the scheme matches that of the previous Government.
I also want the Government to consider the loopholes within the BNO visa scheme. We know that the scheme was initially designed for Hongkongers who, as adults, had applied for BNO status prior to the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. In 2022, the scheme was expanded to allow younger Hongkongers born after the 1997 handover, who never had the chance to apply for that status themselves, to come to the UK as part of the visa. However, there is a group in the middle.
Thousands of Hongkongers born between 1979 and 1997 are caught by a loophole as they are not old enough to have applied for BNO status before the handover, but not young enough to qualify under the 2022 expansion. I encourage the Minister to engage on this issue with Hong Kong Watch, which has proposed practical ways to close the loophole and open up the path to escaping oppression for thousands of Hongkongers, allowing family reunions that would mean so much to those living in the United Kingdom.
On the subject of design flaws with the visa scheme, I also encourage the Minister to look at visa and asylum applications that have been refused on the grounds of the applicant having a criminal record. Although that may be perfectly reasonable in other circumstances, we know that some pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong are getting criminal records, and that in and of itself should not be a reason to deny them safe passage to the United Kingdom, as I am sure all colleagues would agree.
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. To allow Mr Rand two minutes at the end to wind up, I will be calling the Front Benchers from 2.28 pm. If Members could limit their contribution to five minutes, I will have no need to impose a time limit.
The context of this debate is that since the Chinese Government’s national security law was imposed and since the 2019 Hong Kong protests in support of democracy and human rights, 10,000 people have been arrested and 2,300 charged, and 150,000 Hongkongers have fled to Britain under the British national overseas visa scheme. To be clear, the scheme allows individuals to come and live in the UK, but does not grant formal refugee status. That is a point that I will return to shortly.
I want to pay tribute to the Hongkongers in my constituency of Bolton West, many of whom live in Westhoughton and in Horwich. In the most difficult of circumstances, they have moved thousands of miles away from their homeland in search of a better life. Yet all too often, Hongkongers tell me about their concerns for themselves and their families, loved ones, and friend —both those here in the UK and those still in Hong Kong. Let us not forget why we are having this debate today.
With that in mind, I wish to touch on a couple of points raised by my constituents. First, the BNO visa scheme, which was expanded in November 2022, allows individuals born after the handover of Hong Kong on 1 July 1997 to apply for the scheme independently of their BNO passport-holding parents. What that expanded scheme failed to address, as my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) has already mentioned, was that Hongkongers under the age of 18 on the day of the handover were unable to apply for BNO status themselves. Therefore Hongkongers born between 1 July 1979 and 30 June 1997 are currently stuck in a loophole, neither old enough to have applied for BNO status before the 1997 handover nor young enough to qualify under the November 2022 visa scheme expansion. My view is clear: Hongkongers within that age bracket should be able to access the BNO scheme to allow them to flee political persecution and join family members here in the UK. I ask the Government to look afresh at the operation of the scheme.
I thank the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) for securing this important debate. It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. Hongkongers live across the UK and in my constituency of Farnham and Bordon, including in Haslemere and Liphook. I declare an interest—this is also a plug—in that I am a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. If any Member in this room wishes to join, I encourage them to do so. We are not favoured by the Chinese Communist party, I can tell you that.
Among the many wise and important decisions that the Conservative Administration made over the last 14 years, one of the most important was launching a special immigration route in June 2020, in response to the escalating political situation and the Chinese Communist Government’s implementation of the dangerous and oppressive national security law. The visa has welcomed Hong Kong residents who hold British national overseas status, and their immediate families, to live, work and study in the UK, away from restrictions on their freedoms and political rights. Since the launch of the scheme in 2021, as has been mentioned, more than 150,000 Hongkongers have moved to Britain using that bespoke immigration pathway, with more than 26,000 emigrating over the past year. For many people, the scheme has not only been a lifeline, but has ensured their families’ survival and their own. We have seen many cases, including those mentioned today, involving brave political and democratic prisoners such as Jimmy Lai, Joshua Wong and Benny Tai.
First, I will address the important role that Hongkongers have played in key sectors, such as healthcare, which is my own background. My work in the health and social care system means I have seen the impact that BNO visas have had on the core institutions in this country, such as the NHS. As of June 2023, more than 700 Hongkongers are working in the NHS, with Asian people being the second largest nationality, next to British, working in our healthcare system. Access to services such as the NHS is available to anyone who resides in the UK, and BNO visa holders pay the immigration health surcharge during the application process. If they contribute to our system through their employment, it is only right that they benefit in their times of need.
It is a pleasure to speak under you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand), who will clearly be a massive asset on this issue. I thank the many organisations that have chipped in on it, but I want to speak to three points raised primarily by constituents who are directly affected as BNO Hongkongers on their practical experience here.
The first point is to reiterate what has been said about university and non-home fees. Many BNO Hongkongers are simply priced out of higher education in the UK, despite the reason why they are here—persecution in Hong Kong. They already have to pay the health surcharge. There are higher fees for being here to begin with, before even looking at paying the overseas student fee rate, which is not applicable to others. This is a doubly egregious issue, because residents from almost all British overseas territories have been eligible for home fee status at UK universities since 2007, but BNOs are not eligible, because they had their rights stripped away in 1997. I hope that the Minister will commit today to at least examining the restoration of those rights, to allow more Hongkongers to benefit from reduced rates.
There is, of course, the parallel with those who are granted leave under other schemes; those for Ukrainians have already been mentioned. I would like to see that generosity extended to those who make a permanent home in my Southwark, London constituency, as well as other constituencies that have been mentioned.
Time is tight, so apologies if I am rattling through this rather fast, but the Mandatory Provident Fund is also of significant concern. Hongkongers are being denied the £3 billion of compulsory retirement savings that has been mentioned, despite proof that they have resettled abroad. The Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority released a statement in March 2021 saying that because the BNO passport was no longer recognised by the Hong Kong Government as a valid travel or identity document, those trying to withdraw funds could not use the BNO system. That has led to funds being frozen, in contradiction to what representatives of some of the firms involved have told our colleagues in the Canadian Parliament. I hope to hear from the Minister that the collapse in Sino-British relations will not prevent Ministers from probing the companies directly involved about delivering on their legal obligations.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) on securing this debate. I associate myself with his comments about how the previous Government should be congratulated on honouring the BNO scheme in the first place.
My borough of Sutton is home to more than 5,000 people on the BNO scheme. I represent the eastern half of the borough in Carshalton and Wallington, and my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) will talk about the west side in Sutton and Cheam later. We have had lots of constituents coming to us to share their concerns, some of which have been aired already. The one that came up most on the doorstep and in the events that I hosted was about access to jobs, and qualifications not being recognised. More specifically, in our area it was about social work. There seem to be quite a lot of Hongkonger social workers in my area. Their qualifications were not being recognised because they had not had the required conversion courses or because an unco-operative Hong Kong Government were holding back proof of their careers and qualifications.
I am also a local councillor and I was aware that Sutton council desperately needed social workers, so I reached out to my local council and asked whether there was anything we could do. I am pleased to say that next month we will be launching an innovative internship programme where we have linked up with a local university, Kingston University, which has been providing formal study for Hong Kong social workers that we have identified. They will also get the opportunity to get some in-the-field experience with social workers who are already employed by Sutton council. We hope that that will result in the necessary recognition of their qualifications by Social Work England.
I am sure that that problem is widespread across the UK and perhaps in other professions, too. I know that there are some debates about what constitutes formal study, but I would really like to work with the Minister to see whether we can find a way of scaling up this kind of initiative across the country so that we can get a lot more of these qualified Hongkongers recognised and into the work that they are skilled at.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) on securing this debate.
Before I was elected, I worked with dissidents, democrats and human rights defenders, including many in the territory of the People’s Republic of China. Earlier this week, along with the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), I was elected to chair the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, and like the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) I am a member of IPAC. These issues have always been of political interest to me, but since my election they have also become constituency issues. As with many other Members, many of the 144,000 Hongkongers who have come to join us in this country have decided to settle in my constituency of East Renfrewshire, and in particular in Newton Mearns. They always say three things: first and foremost, that they are delighted to be here; secondly, that they wish the weather were better in Scotland—
Thirdly, those Hongkongers say that, although they are now living in a free country, they are not living free from fear. It is little wonder, given that in Glasgow we had a similar story to the one the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington recounted: there were reports of a secret police station being run in the basement of the Loon Fung Chinese restaurant. Like the previous Government, this Government have made it clear on many occasions that such oppression on British soil is not acceptable, but I would be interested to hear what more can be done and whether we can keep under review the diplomatic privileges given to organisations such as the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office to ensure they are not used as organs of transnational repression.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) asked what extra support can be given to make diaspora groups serving Hongkongers in the UK more resilient to that repression. In addition, can work be done to come up with an accepted definition of “transnational oppression”? This debate is about Hongkongers, but autocrats are increasingly reaching beyond their own borders, so this issue affects many other diaspora groups.
Other Members mentioned Jimmy Lai, and his case rests on all our consciences. He is a 77-year-old man whose health is failing, and he is in solitary confinement in a Hong Kong jail, in the baking heat. He has been denied independent medical access and consular access, and is facing a life sentence after a trial without a jury. That case rests heavily on the minds of Hongkongers, who are unsure whether they will be able to access consular assistance if something goes wrong. I urge the Minister to address that and assure Hongkongers, including BNOs, that by default they will be treated as British nationals for the purpose of consular assistance.
I echo the concerns other Members have mentioned about electronic travel authorisation. The assumption that if someone has had a custodial sentence of more than 12 months they would be refused such an authorisation particularly worries Hongkongers, because if someone has been a political prisoner—or they are one of the more than 1,000 political prisoners still in Hong Kong— the average sentence is far longer than 12 months. It would make it far harder for them to flee here if they needed to.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship for the second or third time this week, Mr Vickers. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) on setting the scene so well. By pursuing this debate he has given us all an opportunity to make a contribution in support of his thoughts. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall), and I look forward to many more debates together.
I have long been an advocate for the people of Hong Kong, and for their right to live in Hong Kong without bowing the knee to China. The outrageous actions by the Chinese Government have ripped through the Sino-British joint declaration. I say this with great respect, but I believe that our lack of fulsome responses embolden the Chinese, as has been exemplified by the fact that the Chinese continue to break international treaties. I still believe that diplomatic action should be taken, but that is not the focus of today’s debate.
I welcomed and supported the Conservative Government’s approach, and I am pleased to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), in his place. He, I and others in this Chamber supported the BNO visa, and have welcomed the 150,000 Hongkongers who have used it, some of who came to my constituency. I welcome the Minister to her place; she and I have been friends for many years on the Back Benches where we warmed the seats regularly. She is now a Minister and I wish her well; I look forward to her answers to the points we will make.
The visa for the Hongkongers allows them to come to our shores and live a life free from oppressions. They have indefinite leave to remain and qualify for permanent residency after five years, and British citizenship after six years. It is right and proper that we offer them a way of escape, and that is exactly what it is. It is a chance for some freedom and liberty.
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Although the visa scheme is important, it is also vital, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, that we ensure Hongkongers living in the United Kingdom can live happy, safe and prosperous lives. The point on safety is particularly crucial. Members will be aware of the long arm of the Chinese state, which is a daily source of fear and anxiety for many Hongkongers, including those in my constituency—both for themselves and for the fate of loved ones they have left behind.
Each act of Chinese aggression—political interference in this place, sanctions against parliamentarians, or outright acts of espionage, as we have seen—heightens the fear of Hongkongers that they might be next. In July and December, under the Hong Kong national security policy, arrest warrants with £100,000 bounties were issued for six exiled Hong Kong activists living in the United Kingdom. Closer to home, we had the incident at the Chinese consulate in Manchester. I hope that the Minister will reassure Hongkongers in my constituency today by setting out the measures the Home Office has in place to ensure their safety, given the unique threats they face.
As well as guaranteeing the safety of Hongkongers in the United Kingdom, we must work to ensure that their lives can be as happy and prosperous as possible. I will briefly touch on two related points before wrapping up. The first is the issue of accessing retirement savings. The Mandatory Provident Fund is a compulsory retirement scheme for the people of Hong Kong, which, for most Hongkongers, is their main pension pot. In theory, they should be able to withdraw it in full even if they choose to leave Hong Kong; in practice, vindictive policies stop them doing so, and have made it almost impossible for Hongkongers who have fled their homeland to access vital money for rebuilding their new lives. It is estimated by Hong Kong Watch that Hongkongers who have fled to the UK are being denied access to £3 billion in savings. Would the Minister be willing to have a conversation with colleagues in the Treasury about what more can be done to tackle this grave injustice?
I also encourage the Minister to have conversations with colleagues in the Department for Education on the issue of tuition fees. For many Hongkongers in England and Wales, higher education is rendered unaffordable by the requirement to pay the international rate of tuition fees, which stands in contrast with students who have come to the UK on other humanitarian pathways, such as those from Ukraine and Afghanistan, who have home fee status. This feels like an unfair discrepancy, and if we want Hongkongers to thrive in the UK, it is something that we should seriously look at.
I know that I have several asks of the Minister today, and that many of my colleagues will no doubt have done the same about various other important causes, at a time when, I know, asks of the Home Office are extremely significant, but we must not lose sight of Hong Kong. It cannot be forgotten about or pushed to the margins. That is not just because of what supporting Hongkongers says about our country’s commitment to the fundamental value of freedom, but because I know, from my own constituency, that if those who arrive from Hong Kong are given the support that they need, they can make an immense contribution to the communities that they now call home.
That takes me to my second point: many Hongkongers who hold BNO status are unable to access university education in the UK without student finance, because they are not eligible for home fee status. Some young Hongkongers find themselves in a position where they fled persecution but are having to pay up to £50,000 a year in university tuition fees. That not only prices them out of courses but denies them the opportunity to pursue professional careers. Whether that is because the BNO visa scheme does not grant refugee status is unclear to me, but I hope that the Government will be able to rectify the issue so that young Hongkongers who have fled persecution can proceed with their university studies.
Finally, I want to touch on repression. British citizen Jimmy Lai has been in prison in Hong Kong for over 1,500 days in solitary confinement. I take comfort from the Prime Minister’s comments earlier this week that securing his release “is a priority”, and we must urgently see that release happen.
Closer to home, I know from conversations with my own Hongkonger constituents that many continue to live in fear for their security, even here in the UK, and there has been a worrying pattern of behaviour over recent years. We have seen the Hong Kong national security police issue bounties for exiled Hongkongers now living in the UK, and we all remember the shocking and frankly unacceptable event in October 2022, when a BNO visa holder who was peacefully protesting outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester was assaulted by masked men, having been dragged into the grounds of the consulate. Those actions are unacceptable, constitute an assault on human rights and must be condemned in the strongest terms. I welcome the continued support that the Government provide to Hongkongers in the UK and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West for securing this important debate.
My second point is about our security and defence policy. Alongside its allies Iran and Russia, the Chinese Communist party—the Government of China—is the single greatest threat to democracy, peace and freedom here in the United Kingdom and across the western world. As has been mentioned, that is evidenced by the crackdown on political and freedom of speech, as happened with Jimmy Lai, and its integration into international universities and education systems. We saw that specifically in the UK with the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which was shelved by the Education Secretary over British universities’ desire to protect their operations against authoritarian states such as China. The protection granted to the Chinese state amid crackdowns on freedom is disastrous for not only British students, but for Hongkongers in the UK, and it creates problems with security. China does not believe in the dual national status of descendants, so they will continue to be recognised as Chinese nationals and therefore denied UK consular access, as in the case of Jimmy Lai. Only yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition reiterated Mr Lai’s case, and the Prime Minister agreed with the Opposition that his imprisonment was a breach of the 1984 treaty. In his party’s manifesto, the Prime Minister committed to continuing the Conservative-instated BNO visas.
However, the repression of democracy is not exclusive to the mainland and Hong Kong. As has been mentioned, we saw it here in the UK in the attacks on Hong Kong protesters in Chinatown in London, a 20-minute walk away from here, and outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester a year later. As a result, and for the protection of those to whom we issue BNO visas, it is essential to gauge a better understanding of the transnational threat that BNO holders face in the UK. I call on the Foreign Secretary, when he meets the Chinese Government, to raise these issues and absolutely confirm the new UK Government’s commitment to standing up for Hongkongers and against the Chinese Communist party. I have submitted questions over this to the Home Office about naturalisation and British citizenship protections.
Finally, in the 20 seconds left to me, I want to reiterate my earlier point about freedom. China is a country where dissent is stifled and free speech tightly controlled. The internet, a tool of liberation and information in many parts of the world, is censored. Citizens who speak out against the Government or challenge the state’s narrative can face imprisonment or worse. We must not let the plight of Hongkongers in Hong Kong or in Britain be ignored or put to the side, so I ask this of the Minister. We must stand up for them, and I welcome the commitment that I hope she will give in a moment to that cause.
No one should be prevented from accessing their funds just because they hold a BNO passport or visa, but there are already examples of that happening in the UK, including to a Hongkonger single mother who was unable to afford a heater for her son. She was denied £57,000-worth of her MPF, and a family of five were unable to afford a wheelchair-accessible property for their disabled child because their MPF was withheld. I think that the Minister is probing some of the companies. Just to give an example, HSBC oversees five MPF schemes and manages approximately 29% of the total MPF market. This should not be ignored. Although I welcome the audit, we cannot wait for the end of it to look at some of the interplaying issues and relationships. We need action on this, and perhaps it would be useful to call in some of these companies to examine how they are supporting BNO Hongkongers now. Hongkongers have asked for documents that they can present to the MPF holder, representing a formalised commitment to apply for British citizenship. I hope that the Minister will look at that.
My final point is on security. We have heard about Manchester, and there are examples in Surrey and in my own constituency of cyber-security issues, as well as physical harassment and intimidation, following, the disruption of meetings and the prevention of the booking of meetings at venues. Those are simple things that are being done to try to deny people the right to rebuild and live a normal life here in the UK. Transnational repression is completely unacceptable. Some of those responsible have been shown to work for the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office here in the UK. Why does it still have diplomatic status? I have asked Ministers about that. Again, the audit is one area that might look at that in the longer term, but we could look at it now. The US has sanctioned 49 Hong Kong representatives. We are yet to move in the same way, and Ministers should look at that now.
Will the Minister give us a steer on protective measures that could come forward sooner? We have the Community Security Trust to protect synagogues and the protective security for mosques scheme. Something similar that specialises in the situation that Hong Kong BNO holders face, as well as training and support for the police authorities involved, would be incredibly useful. I have written to the Security Minister on that specific issue and I hope to hear from him soon that that offer of security will be afforded, because we cannot let those who have fled communist persecution abroad be subject to communist persecution here in the UK.
I have a statistic that I want to share. Somebody told me that up to 98% of the Hongkongers that have arrived in recent years have a degree. They have the skills and we need those skills, so let us make sure that they can put them to good use. My next point around university admissions has already been raised a couple of times. It has been a frequent complaint that despite the fact that all the arrivals are extremely well qualified academically, as demonstrated by the figure that I just mentioned, they are worried about their children not being able to access the same level of education because of the scale of fees that international students face. They tell me that they have British national status, but that it does not feel that way when applying for university, so that is something we need to fix.
Finally, the point about security has been well made already. It is critical that Hongkongers feel safe in the United Kingdom. We all know why they fled, but they are still living in fear of surveillance and persecution here. I have mentioned the Hong Kong Government holding back qualifications so that Hongkongers cannot get the work that they need here, and there is evidence of other records that they need access to being destroyed. They have been holding on to criminal records for things that we should not recognise in this country, such as taking part in protests. Pension entitlements, which I think have already been mentioned, are also being held back.
Closer to home, for a long time there were widespread reports of some sort of secret Chinese police station operating out of Croydon, around the corner from me. I have to put it on record that the Met found no evidence out of that, but that demonstrates the fear among the Hong Kong community. We have also heard repeated concerns about Confucius institutes at universities, which have called for lecturers and others to be sacked and intimidated Hongkongers so that they feel they need to be silent.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle) mentioned cyber-harassment. My borough council experienced that when an event we put on to welcome Hongkongers was subject to a series of threatening posts telling people that they should not attend and making up all sorts of reasons why it should not go ahead.
As a local MP, I will always stand up for my constituents’ rights. As a country, we have a duty to ensure that all our citizens feel this is a democratic, free country, full of opportunity for them. I hope we can deliver that for Hongkongers.
What I and other hon. Members are asking the Minister today is about the principle that Hongkongers are British, and because they are British they deserve the same protections, privileges and opportunities as any British citizen. That has a wider symbolic importance for us, as well. We are engaged in a global struggle between autocrats and liberal democracies. The people of Hong Kong stood up and said what side of that battle they were on. For all the brutality and repression they face, we have to show that we as a country will continue to stand beside them, and that we have clearly chosen a side in that global struggle.
I want to put on record, as the Library briefing outlines, that a single adult can apply for a five-year BNO visa and would pay £250 application fee and an immigration health surcharge of £5,175. The visa gives people permission to come and live in the UK with few restrictions, and it also gives them access to most benefits, tax credits and housing assistance paid by the state. I put that on record because it is my opinion that this is the bare minimum, and that we must enhance their ability to apply for help with, for example, home fee status or student finance in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, for which their third level students are currently ineligible. I ask the Minister whether we can review that. I know that she is eager to help, and I am sure she will do her best to come back with something positive.
Security concerns remain for Hongkongers living in the UK. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) is not here, but he made that point clearly in his intervention. Reports of police service stations have been made. I have been contacted by some constituents about their safety in Northern Ireland, and I have made the police in my constituency of Strangford aware of that. People from other constituencies in Northern Ireland have contacted me to say that their phones are being tapped. My constituent came with all the evidence, and the PSNI became involved.
People have concerns about their family back home in Hong Kong, and because they have family they are conscious that whatever they do or say, the Chinese authorities—or whoever it may be—are keeping a tab on them. They believe that this is operating in Belfast, and the evidence seems to prove that. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, and I will give another example of an incident that happened this year. Statements that the APPG put out were hacked. I do not understand technology and am very old school—pens and pencils are my method—but they reworded articles that asked questions about the actions of the Chinese, and turned them into favourable pieces on the APPG website. We took the necessary action to knock that on the head.
That shows that there is an evidential base for Chinese intrusion into every bit of life, for anybody that happens to have a different opinion or expresses it in a different way. Those who believe themselves to be under scrutiny most likely are.
I fully support the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West prioritising this issue in his role as an MP. I support the calls for greater support for those people who understandably feel, and which has been evidentially proved, that they have been abandoned and left at the mercy of the Chinese. We can all say with great honesty that mercy and the Chinese Communist party are two alien concepts—they do not usually go together. We must do more. I look to the Minister to begin to do more today and I say to her that we are here to support her in those efforts.