Political Prisoners

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the detention of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners internationally.

It is a real honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I speak today on behalf of my constituent Jimmy Lai, who has been detained abroad since December 2020. Mr Lai was on trial for alleged offences against national security and alleged sedition through his work as a newspaper publisher. The offence has been ruled unlawful and arbitrary by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention. I called for this debate to draw attention to what Mr Lai has suffered over the course of his detention and to bring together parliamentarians from across the House to speak with one voice on the matter of his detention and the detention of other political prisoners abroad.

Mr Lai is a much-loved father and grandfather, and a British citizen. He is 77 years of age, and is being held in solitary confinement in the blistering Hong Kong heat. This will be his fourth summer suffering temperatures that regularly reach 40°.

I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing.

However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should. I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for our task today and for raising that important case.

Despite Mr Lai’s being told that his trial would last only 80 days, today marks the 1,630th day of his detention. Every day that he is detained, his health deteriorates further and his family rightly worry about his chances of survival in prison. The detention of Mr Lai is a human tragedy that undermines the very principles of democracy, freedom and the rule of law on which our international order relies. The idea that a British citizen can be detained by a foreign Government for standing up and expressing the British values of democracy and freedom of speech is an affront to all of us in this House, and across the country, who hold those principles dear.

Mr Lai’s son Sebastien has campaigned tirelessly and admirably for his father’s release; I know that many hon. Members here have had the honour of hearing directly from him and Mr Lai’s legal counsel. At this very moment, Sebastien is addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and recently he has been in the United States and Canada to meet senior officials and lawmakers in both countries. Next week, he travels to Brussels to meet European parliamentarians and the European External Action Service.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She has just mentioned Canada; I understand that the Canadians are considering granting honorary citizenship to Jimmy Lai, as a small but significant contribution to demonstrating their commitment to him. Does she agree that that is something that the British Government could consider?[Official Report, 19 June 2025; Vol. 769, c. 2WC.] (Correction)

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention; later in my remarks, I will come on to using all possible levers to secure Mr Lai’s freedom.

When Sebastien is at home, he is my constituent—a man deeply concerned about his father’s welfare. That is the position in which I speak to the Chamber today: as a Member of Parliament standing up for my constituents in the face of unbelievable, state-sanctioned cruelty.

I am grateful for the work of this Government and Members across the House to secure Mr Lai’s freedom. Already, Sebastien has met people across Government, and it has been encouraging to see the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister call for Mr Lai’s immediate and unconditional release. We cannot stay silent while Mr Lai remains detained. The Government calls for his release are welcome, but I want to see those included urgently in any trade negotiations and international meetings that Ministers of all Departments conduct with their Chinese counterparts.

I also support the calls for the Prime Minister to meet Sebastien to discuss his father’s case. We must use every lever at our disposal to make the case for Mr Lai’s safe return. The attention and time of our most senior politicians represent a clear signal from our Government that we will not let the international spotlight shift from Mr Lai’s arbitrary and illegal detention.

Mr Lai is not the only British person to be detained politically overseas. He was not the first and he will not be the last, and this debate is about the wider issue of unlawful detention. We cannot forget Craig and Lindsay Foreman or Alaa Abd el-Fattah, British citizens who remain imprisoned in Iran and Egypt, respectively. The events of the past few weeks, months and years have shown that inter-state relations have significant potential to get more tense, not less, and with that comes the potential for more political imprisonment of British nationals. We need to ensure that all British citizens imprisoned overseas have the same support and advocacy that Jimmy Lai has had.

Every day that my constituent Mr Lai remains in detention abroad is a day that the life and health of a British citizen is put at risk by a foreign state, and another day when democracy is undermined across the world. We must bring him home and we must bring him home now.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this important debate. It is heartening—at least, I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of this debate, but I think there will be cross-party unity on this issue, and an important statement from the UK Parliament not only to our Government, but to the world that we stand united behind the need to free Jimmy Lai. I am honoured to speak on his behalf.

Recently, I met Sebastien Lai and his legal team in Parliament. I was struck by the determination that Jimmy Lai’s son is demonstrating, not just here in the UK, but around the world, to galvanise international diplomatic support. There are expressions of support from the US Congress, other international organisations and Parliaments around the world. I am afraid it feels as though the UK Government are lagging behind, particularly when we remember that we are talking about a British citizen.

As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, Jimmy has now been imprisoned for more than four years. He has been imprisoned under the Chinese state’s Hong Kong national security law, which effectively criminalises democracy and citizens’ freedom of speech against the Communist dictatorship. He has been denied his choice of legal representation and refused access to independent specialist medical treatment in prison. In October last year, Amnesty International recognised Mr Lai as a prisoner of conscience, and in November the UN working group on arbitrary detention published its opinion that Jimmy Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, and called for his immediate release.

As I said, the call for Jimmy’s release is backed by not just the United States of America, but Australia, the Canadian Parliament and the European Parliament. I learned from my meeting with Sebastien and the legal team that his trial has been the victim of an abuse of process; it was originally set for a date earlier this year, but it was pushed back and adjourned and we now have a trial date for 14 August this year. Procedural rules have been perverted and twisted against Mr Lai’s legal team. We can see this for what it is: a perversion of justice and a distortion of human rights.

As the right hon. Lady is posing her questions to the Minister, perhaps she will come to this one, but if she does not, will she agree to add that the Government need to get together a coalition of international Governments who are on our side—she has already named some—to put significant pressure on the Chinese authorities to do the right thing and release Jimmy Lai?

Absolutely. The irony cannot be lost on us that this is a clear case of human rights violations. I note that the legal team representing Mr Lai hails from Doughty Street Chambers—a renowned human rights chambers in London and the old stomping-ground of our very own Prime Minister. If there were ever a human rights case for the Prime Minister to work on and be an advocate for, this is it. I can imagine that many years ago, he might well have taken up this case, had it come through the doors of Doughty Street Chambers. We have our very own human rights lawyer in Downing Street; if there were ever a time for him to deploy his legal skills, his human rights zeal and his passion for civil liberties, it is here and now, on behalf of our British citizen Jimmy Lai. I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for his comments.

I will finish by recalling my experience at the Home Office and by asking the Minister some further questions on the broader issue of China. We are supposed to be challenging China, not appeasing it. At the Home Office, I saw the impact of Chinese bellicosity in the UK. The list is too long for this Chamber, but in recent years we have been on the receiving end of prolific and malicious cyber-activity by APT10—one of the best known hacking groups—on behalf of the Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army; the targeting of UK parliamentarians and diplomats; vulnerable policing and security services due to the prevalence of the digital asbestos of Chinese technology; transnational repression of Chinese dissidents in the UK through “Chinese police stations”; Confucius Institutes throughout UK academia, many of which are run effectively by the Chinese Communist party under the guise of their “Chinese talent programmes”; covert and unlawful acquisition of data; espionage; supply chain disruption and control of critical national infrastructure disguised as investment.

As Home Secretary, I enacted the National Security Act 2023, which set about injecting more transparency into how China does business and carries out activities in the UK. I have been urging the Government to list China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. They still have not done that, and they seem to be refusing to. I ask the Minister: on what grounds, particularly in the light of the human rights violations of Jimmy Lai, can the Government possibly justify not listing China on the enhanced tier of that scheme, if we are to take the threat posed by China seriously for the grave one it is? In conclusion, Jimmy Lai is an elderly man, a British citizen and the victim of grotesque human rights abuses. If we, in this House—and this Government—cannot stand up for him, then we do not deserve to be here.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) and congratulate and commend her on all she is doing to help secure the release of Jimmy Lai, and her tireless work to keep his case high on the political agenda of this House, the media and the public.

Today’s debate references other political prisoners. I would like to highlight the current ongoing arbitrary detention of my West Dunbartonshire constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal. Jagtar is a British national, who has been arbitrarily detained in India since 2017 on political charges carrying the death penalty, based on a confession extracted under torture. On 4 March 2025, Jagtar was acquitted of all charges in a case at the district and sessions court in Moga, Punjab, after the court rejected the allegations against him made by Indian authorities. Prosecutors had seven years to present credible evidence against Jagtar and failed to do so.

However, Jagtar has not been released because he is facing eight other cases, which are essentially duplicates—all are based on the same so-called “confession”: his name signed on a blank piece of paper after police tortured him with electricity and brought petrol into his cell and threatened to burn him alive. For Jagtar to remain imprisoned after his acquittal while standing trial in other cases based on the same facts, torture confession and inadmissible and unreliable witness evidence, would be a mockery of justice. Under the double jeopardy principle, which protects people from being put on trial twice for the same crime—and is enshrined in both international law and India’s constitution—the remaining cases against him should be dropped.

Following his acquittal, Jagtar’s conditions in prison have deteriorated significantly, and he has been placed in a solitary cell. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs on 2 April 2025, Jagtar’s brother Gurpreet said:

Order. I would like to get everyone in with about equal amounts of time. Hopefully, we can do so with four minutes each.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for setting the scene so well. I have spoken about the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai on many other occasions in Westminster Hall and asked questions about it in the Chamber. I declare an interest as the chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, because I want to mention the human rights that have been denied to him.

Democracy has been ignored. The hard hand of China and the Hong Kong authorities has come down strongly on democrats, of which Jimmy Lai is one, whose only crime was to speak up for democracy, liberty and freedom. It seems to me that those democrats did that without violence, but with a verbal strength, and I commend them for it. Hong Kong was once a bastion of western principles. I have supported many debates on it and sponsored pro-Hong Kong democracy events in this House to highlight Jimmy Lai and others.

The Chinese Communist party has denied Jimmy Lai his right to worship his God with freedom. He is a practising Roman Catholic. He is not able to have the mass he wants or the freedom of religious worship that he had before he was put in prison—for some 1,630 days, let us remember. His health has deteriorated and he is in a worsened condition.

Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. I say this circumspectly and with great respect to the Minister and the Government: there was a time when a British passport meant more than it perhaps means today. There was a gunboat diplomacy in that. If a UK citizen was under threat, they could expect the full weight of British authority to be used on their behalf. That does not happen today. But what we do, or try to do—the Minister and the Government do this all the time—is exercise the diplomacy that we need to.

Jimmy Lai’s staunch criticism of the Chinese Government led to his arrest in 2020. His story is a rallying point for those defending democratic values and human rights in the face of increasing authoritarianism. His trial began in December 2023, with his son Sebastien fighting for his release. Jimmy Lai testified for 52 days. Closing arguments were scheduled for August 2025. The 77-year-old has lived in Hong Kong since he was 12 years old. Having stowed away on a fishing boat from China and worked as a child labourer in a garment factory, he built up a fashion empire. He has been an advocate for democracy since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China. He set up a magazine in Hong Kong.

Order. We will now formally make speeches four minutes long.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing this vital debate. I commend her for her work fiercely fighting for her constituents. I declare an interest in this debate as the chair of the all-party parliamentary China group.

Jimmy Lai’s situation is desperate and his treatment wholly unacceptable. I am deeply concerned by the treatment that Mr Lai, a 77-year-old British citizen, has received at the hands of the Hong Kong authorities. He has been a tireless campaigner for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. He has already been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for a separate case relating to his now closed newspaper, Apple Daily. His lawyers have confirmed that he has been denied independent medical care and is allowed out of his cell for a mere 50 minutes a day. That is inhuman treatment. He is a frail, elderly man who is 77, has diabetes and has lost considerable weight, yet he remains a man of immense courage and unyielding spirit—qualities to which I want to pay tribute today. If he is found guilty he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

As chair of the APPG, I have raised Jimmy Lai’s case in person several times with Chinese officials, including in January when I visited Beijing as part of a visit by a cross-party group of parliamentarians. The Chinese believe it is an internal matter for them, but raising his case firmly has been my duty. It is important that a message is sent by this House and by UK parliamentarians that his treatment is not acceptable.

My hon. Friend makes an important point about making the case to China. Does he agree with me that this is about more than just Jimmy Lai, because the rights that Jimmy Lai was exercising when he was arrested were guaranteed under the joint declaration, and that brings into question whether China is a reliable partner on all sorts of other international agreements, too?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must not forget that Hong Kong still, it is said, has a common law system, so Hong Kong must observe the common law and the basic principles attached to a fair trial. That is the bedrock of what the common law is about. It has been a privilege and inspiring for me to meet Sebastien Lai and his father’s lawyers. I pay tribute to them and their work.

Because of our fundamentally different political and economic systems, conceptions of democracy and human rights in China and in Britain will inevitably be different. But we must not relent from pushing and raising the case, given that Hong Kong has a common law system, and the international obligations that apply to China and Hong Kong must be upheld. I was encouraged to see that the Prime Minister raised Jimmy Lai’s case when he met President Xi at the G20 in Brazil. I urge the Prime Minister to meet Mr Lai’s son and his lawyers. The UK must of course work closely with our allies to continue to raise his case with officials at every level of the Chinese Communist party. China and Hong Kong should understand that Mr Lai’s case and the treatment that he has received is damaging the standing of China and Hong Kong in the world.

But beyond questions of legality, reputation and soft power lies the case of a frail, elderly man who deserves better, more humane treatment. I call on the Hong Kong authorities to release Jimmy Lai.

Order. I am afraid I am going to have to reduce speeches to three minutes.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I join other Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this debate and on her powerful advocacy.

I want to focus specifically on the Jimmy Lai case and what it means to the sizeable Hong Kong diaspora that I am fortunate enough and proud to represent in Altrincham and Sale West. First, I briefly pay tribute to Jimmy Lai and the Lai family. I have been fortunate enough to meet Sebastien Lai, and I was struck by his dignity and resolve in the face of unimaginable difficulty. He told me in stark terms of his fear for his father’s health, and he was honest in saying that we are in a race against time to secure Jimmy’s release. I told Sebastien that I would do whatever I could to push and press our Government for his father’s release.

I have made the same promise to my Hongkonger constituents because for them the case feels deeply personal. It is a poignant illustration of why they were forced out of their homeland and a chilling reminder of what could happen to the loved ones they left behind. It is a reminder that, as one of them said to me, “If it can happen to Jimmy, it can happen to anyone.”

Every day that Jimmy Lai spends in jail, every bounty placed on pro-democracy activists and parliamentarians, and every act of Chinese aggression here and abroad strikes yet more fear into the hearts of Hongkongers in my community and around the world. That is one of the reasons why the case matters so much: not just because Jimmy’s release is morally right and not just because it would reunite an innocent man with his loving family, but because his ongoing imprisonment sends a message that China can disregard freedom with impunity. We must change that.

I know that the Government have raised the case repeatedly, but the situation has not changed—things are clearly not working, and historically the UK has a poor record of securing the release of UK citizens detained abroad. I ask the Minister: what new strategies can we adopt? Other Members have referred to trade talks, but surely, alongside important security considerations, the case must be an influencing factor in the decision on whether to approve a Chinese mega-embassy here in London.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), sitting on my right, who is Jagtar Singh Johal’s MP. It is about Jagtar that I will speak this afternoon.

Jagtar Singh Johal is a Sikh, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Although Jagtar is not one of my constituents, I represent the Wolverhampton West constituency, which has a large and engaged Sikh population. Not only the Sikh population but non-Sikh constituents have expressed deep concern about Jagtar’s treatment and have consistently urged me to encourage the UK Government to take meaningful action. The allegations of torture, the length of detention without trial and the lack of due process in Jagtar’s case amount to a serious and unacceptable breach of international human rights. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has concluded that his detention is arbitrary and in violation of international law.

On 6 November 2024, during Prime Minister’s questions, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire mentioned that Jagtar’s imprisonment had reached its seventh year. The Prime Minister replied:

“We are committed to pushing the Government of India on this important case. The Foreign Secretary has raised it and will continue to do so”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 302.]

I would like to know what developments have taken place since then.

In March this year, the Punjab district court found that there was no credible evidence for the terrorism and conspiracy charge brought against Mr Johal, and that he was not a member of a terrorist gang. However, he still faces eight charges, which are based on the same alleged confession and evidence on which his acquittal took place. He faces the death penalty. Jagtar has never been convicted of a crime, yet is in solitary confinement 24/7 and subject to surveillance.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this important debate. I put on the record my interest as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs.

I am going to speak in general terms about the issue of state hostage taking and arbitrary detention. Hon. Members have spoken eloquently about some of the cases and the constituents for whom they are fighting for so powerfully. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) talked about Ryan Cornelius, who has now been in prison for 17 years and in May 2018 was sentenced to a further 20 years, meaning that he will not leave prison in the Emirates until he is 84. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), who spoke strongly about his constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal. Many of us will know of the case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah as well. The individuals in those cases, along with Jimmy Lai, have something in common: they are considered by the UN working group on arbitrary detention to be arbitrarily detained. Their rights have been trampled on and they are being incarcerated effectively unlawfully, without any due process or regard.

When we talk about victims of arbitrary detention, we need to remember the impact on their families as well as on them. Ryan Cornelius’s son was six years old when his father was imprisoned; he is now 23. Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s mother, Laila, has been on hunger strike for some time now. The impact still scars those lucky enough to have been released. I saw Matthew Hedges last week and hon. Members will have met Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard, who fought so powerfully for her release.

We need to have a conversation about why the UK struggles, in some cases, to free its citizens from arbitrary detention abroad. I have the highest regard for the Minister and our excellent diplomats, but the Foreign Affairs Committee report “Stolen years”, from the previous Parliament, highlighted some clear failings in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office approach to those who are arbitrarily detained. It talked about the need for urgency and to be clear about when our citizens are facing torture, interrogation and having their rights trampled on. Indeed, the case of Ahmed al-Doush is being considered at the moment by the UN working group on arbitrary detention because the UK has not explicitly said that it believes his rights are being trampled on. Saudi Arabia has said, “Well, the United Kingdom has not raised any issue about his rights being trampled on” and uses that as an argument in the working group itself. We have to be extremely clear when we see our citizens’ rights being traduced.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The number of organisations involved was referenced earlier; in the case of Jimmy Lai, different countries and Congress have also lined up in support. What are my hon Friend’s reflections on the fact that even the support of all those organisations is still not making a difference?

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It sometimes seems that the full glare of publicity is needed to make any progress with a case; I am thinking particularly of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. As hon. Members have said, perhaps there is an argument for our being much more assertive in dealing with such cases—not to look solely through the lens of geopolitics, but to consider clearly and squarely the first priority of all Governments: defending their citizens. Other countries seem to have a better record on that.

Clearly, there are things that we can be doing. I am looking forward, hopefully, to a Government announcement about a special envoy of some sort whose sole role would be to focus on getting British citizens out of these horrible situations. I believe that a cultural change probably needs to happen in the FCDO as well. We need to change what Chris Patten calls “by the way” diplomacy; he mentioned it when he was with Sebastien Lai at one of our hearings. At the end of a high-level conversation between a Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister it is, “By the way, this person is arbitrarily detained by you.” That does not give the sense of urgency and importance that the case deserves.

We can do much more. I am sure that the Government will be enacting the recommendations. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says because the issue is about serving British citizens and getting them out of horrible situations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on bringing forward this debate on behalf of not only her constituent, but everybody who cares about freedom and democracy across the world.

The Liberal Democrats are concerned about British nationals being detained abroad without due process or fair legal justification. That is not just a matter of foreign policy, but one of principle, human rights and our duty to protect British citizens wherever they may be. Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. He is a courageous journalist, a businessman and a tireless advocate for democracy in Hong Kong. Since 2020, he has been unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese authorities.

Jimmy Lai is also a father, and his son has continued his good work with the same courage. I had the privilege of meeting Jimmy’s son Sebastien and hearing at first hand the story of his father’s resistance to being silenced. Sebastien spoke movingly about the family’s ordeal following his father’s imprisonment, and of his father’s unwavering commitment to the values of freedom and democracy. It was a powerful reminder that behind every political prisoner is a resilient family enduring unimaginable emotional pain.

For nearly two years, Mr Lai has endured solitary confinement, but his crime is nothing more than speaking up for the freedom and democracy we all believe in. This man has risked everything for the values we hold dear, yet the UK Government have failed to secure his release for the last five years. Can the Minister update the House on the detail and nature of the conversations he has had with his Chinese counterparts? On the point made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), we are worried that they may have part of “by the way” diplomacy and that the issue has not been raised in enough serious detail. The read-outs from the high-profile visits have not really told us anything, so I would appreciate it if the Minister told us more.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing the debate and for defending so courageously Jimmy Lai. He is not merely her constituent; he is one of us. He is a British citizen, and as such he deserves the full protection, advocacy and diplomatic support that the United Kingdom extends to all its nationals under threat abroad.

I thank all the hon. Members who have spoken up today for Jimmy and other political prisoners who are unlawfully detained. His Majesty’s Opposition will always support the Government in all their efforts to free British citizens who are locked up unlawfully in parts of the world where regimes carry out such atrocities.

Mr Lai, of course, is currently imprisoned in Hong Kong under Beijing’s draconian and unaccountable national security law, which has criminalised dissent and dismantled every safeguard that once distinguished Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. Jimmy Lai is being persecuted for the crime of believing in democracy, for founding Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s most popular pro-democracy newspapers, and for calling out the encroachment of the Chinese Communist party into the life of the city that once, under the British Crown, enjoyed liberty, autonomy and the rule of law. He has done all that at the age of 77, despite his serious health conditions.

Beijing has trampled on the promises made in the Sino-British joint declaration, a treaty lodged at the United Nations and signed in good faith. That agreement guaranteed Hong Kong’s freedom, rule of law and way of life, but today those guarantees lie in tatters and people such as Jimmy are paying the price.

Despite the cruelty inflicted upon him, Jimmy Lai’s spirit remains unbroken. His quiet defiance calls to mind the courage of dissidents during the final years of the cold war—acts of resistance that were welcomed and celebrated by leaders across the democratic world, not least by our own former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The same unwavering belief in liberty should, I believe, stir the conscience of every free nation today, just as it did then, and shame us into action.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I will try to keep my remarks brief in order to be able to hand back to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). I will make some progress through the cases that have been raised, as well as the general policy, and then I will be happy to take interventions.

The Government remain gravely concerned by the politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen, as so many Members have pointed out. His case remains a top priority. We continue to call on Beijing to repeal Hong Kong’s national security law, and we call on the Hong Kong authorities to end the prosecution of all individuals charged under it and immediately release Mr Lai.

As many Members know well from their constituencies —just as I know from Lincoln—the UK has deep and long-standing ties with Hong Kong, but the continued erosion of rights and freedoms threatens Hong Kong’s way of life. China’s imposition of the national security law has seen opposition voices stifled and dissent criminalised. Mr Lai is just one of those voices; prominent and outspoken, he has been silenced through a politically motivated prosecution.

The Foreign Secretary has committed to raising Mr Lai’s case with China at every opportunity. We have stood firm on that promise, and it is of the utmost importance to this Government. Ministers have regularly and repeatedly made clear the damage that Mr Lai’s ongoing imprisonment has done to Hong Kong’s reputation and the challenge that it presents to UK-China relationships more broadly.

Hon. Members asked me a number of questions about which Ministers have raised Mr Lai’s case and how. The Prime Minister has done so with President Xi, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) highlighted, and the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Foreign Office Ministers—in particular, the Minister with responsibility for China, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West)—Trade Ministers and Science Ministers have all raised Jimmy Lai’s detention with their Chinese counterparts. We will continue to do so.

With the utmost respect to the Minister, I made the case for Jimmy Lai being denied his right to religious worship. He is a practising Roman Catholic, but cannot have his mass or worship his God in the way he wants to. With that in mind, and as chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, I ask the Minister what has been done to ensure that Jimmy Lai has the freedom of religious belief that he should expect.

I welcome and commend the hon. Member’s efforts on freedom of religious belief, not just in Hong Kong but across the world. We have raised the circumstances of Mr Lai’s detention and will continue to do so. The UK will not stop pressing for consular access in that case, and indeed in all other cases where consular access is denied, and we will not stop calling for Mr Lai’s immediate release.

I thank the Minister for that. I referred to Canada and the gestures that it has made. What more can we do, in gestures or actions, specifically in the case of Jimmy Lai? What more could be done practically? I appreciate all the warm words and the efforts that have been put in, but are there not more physical things that we can be doing?

In each case, different things are likely to make progress. I am very conscious of my own experience—I negotiated the release of British nationals with the Taliban over a long period. I am sure that in that case publicity would have made the release more complex. It will vary case by case, and I am sure the Minister responsible for China will be happy to discuss these matters further.

I will end my remarks there in order to give my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster the chance to respond.

I thank all the participants in the debate: the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for raising the case that he did; the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) for highlighting the injustice; my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) for raising the case of Jagtar Singh Johal; the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for talking about religious freedom; my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for talking about his great work on the APPG; my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) for talking about the diaspora; my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) for highlighting, too, the cause of Jagtar Singh Johal; my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) for setting out the impact of detention on families; the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) for talking about detained people and Alaa Abd el-Fattah; and the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for setting out the Opposition’s determination on the release of Jimmy Lai.

Jimmy Lai, Jagtar Singh Johal and others have all suffered grievous injustice against their human rights. That matters because it could be any one of us; it could be our mums, our dads, our sons or our daughters. It matters for democracy and for freedom of the press. I am really heartened by the Minister’s remarks. I am also heartened that, when I raised Jimmy Lai’s case with the Foreign Secretary, he referred to a “massive” international coalition to tackle it, and that the Chancellor raised it when she visited China. I will continue to fight for the freedom of my constituent, Jimmy Lai, in order to honour his family’s campaigning work and his own human rights.

That this House has considered the detention of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners internationally.

Sitting adjourned.