Ryan Cornelius: Detention in UAE

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Keir Mather.)

I am grateful for the opportunity to hold this debate on a matter of great importance, namely the arbitrary detention of a British citizen by a close ally and friend of the United Kingdom. This case is deliberately being raised as we approach the national day of the United Arab Emirates, 2 December, in the earnest hope that the authorities in Dubai will consider granting clemency and pardoning Ryan Cornelius as a gesture of friendship towards our country, building on our important alliance. As Members will know, this is not the first time that Ryan’s case has been raised. His name has featured in the press, and the matter has been scrutinised by the United Nations and raised by our Foreign Affairs Committee, and now by the new all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs, of which I am proud to be vice-chair. Before we start properly, I pay tribute to Ryan’s wife Heather, and her family, Chris, Diane, Gilly and Sam, who are in the Gallery.

Before getting to the details of the case, I would like to reflect briefly on the important relationship between the UAE, particularly Dubai, and the United Kingdom. The relationship is built on a long history of friendship. Since its foundation in 1971, the United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai, and the UK have been trusted friends. The country, and the emirate specifically, have been a source of stability, economic growth, and innovation in the region, and successive Governments in the UK have been a valued partner in its pursuits. Trade between our two countries covers a variety of areas, including energy, financial and professional services, education, healthcare, infrastructure, defence and aerospace.

In an era of global insecurity, the UK and UAE have a long-standing strategic defence partnership to preserve peace and stability in the Arabian gulf. The UAE is the UK’s third-largest trading partner outside Europe, behind China and the United States. More than 5,000 British businesses operate in the Emirates, and around 240,000 British nationals live and work in the UAE. Total imports and exports between the UK and the UAE reached £24.2 billion in 2023. It is a valuable trading relationship. According to VisitBritain, in 2023 the UK welcomed 477,000 visitors from the Emirates. Going the other way, there are approximately 1.4 million visitors from the UK to the Emirates every year. Those statistics demonstrate the closeness of our nations on matters of tourism, business and defence. However, I am increasingly worried that the continued arbitrary detention of Ryan Cornelius will start sending the wrong message to tourists, expats and businesses, potentially threatening our valued and historic relationship.

Before his detention in Dubai, Ryan had worked in the middle east since at least the 1980s, specialising in property and construction. At the turn of the millennium, with cheap credit, a booming market and plentiful opportunities, we all know that the Gulf began to attract many entrepreneurs, Ryan among them. He became an investing partner in three very large projects in Dubai, Bahrain and Pakistan. In the wake of the global financial crisis, Ryan’s lender, a German venture capital group, found itself unable to fund Ryan’s projects. Due to the dearth of alternative funding, he found himself drawn into restructuring negotiations between that group and their lender, the Dubai Islamic Bank. These negotiations resulted in a three-year repayment schedule, secured against Ryan’s businesses and personal assets. Repayments were made on schedule. The collateral provided by Ryan and his partners was considered more than enough to cover the borrowing from the DIB. Indeed, the Pakistan project that I mentioned—the Indus refinery—received two separate valuations in excess of $1 billion.

In 2008, when Ryan was returning from a trip to Karachi to find a potential buyer for the refinery so that he could clear his outstanding debt—which, as I say, he was servicing on time—he was arrested while transiting through Dubai. He was detained and placed in solitary confinement for six weeks, and the Dubai Islamic Bank commenced seizure of his personal assets and businesses, eventually including his London home. In 2010, Ryan was put on trial for fraud. The case was initially dismissed for lack of evidence. Following a retrial, Ryan was charged with theft from a public body and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was ordered to repay the outstanding balance and handed a $500 million fine. In May 2018, he was issued with a 20-year extension to his imprisonment, meaning that he will not be eligible for release until May 2038, when he will be 84 years old.

First, I commend the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. I spoke to him before it. I have always been a speaker for human rights, as he and the House know. Whenever I hear stories like the one he has outlined so well, it tells me that there is injustice. The friendship between the UK and UAE does not matter; this is about justice and doing right when somebody is discriminated against. Does he not agree that the inaction of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office—I say that respectfully—in respect of one of our citizens is incredibly concerning? The fact that Mr Cornelius has served his sentence, only to have the goalposts moved, does not speak of international justice, but injustice. I believe that our Foreign Office has an absolute duty to advocate for this British citizen.

The hon. Member makes an important point. I will return to the FCDO in a moment and perhaps address some of what he mentioned.

As I said, Ryan was issued with a 20-year extension to his sentence in 2018. The law sanctioning such extensions was not brought in until after Ryan’s arrest. In April 2022, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention completed a detailed investigation that found that the UAE’s treatment of him contravened eight articles of the universal declaration of human rights, to which the UAE is a signatory. The group ruled that Ryan has been held in conditions amounting to “torture”, that he had not received a fair trial, and that his detention was “arbitrary”. It called for his immediate release. As things stand, he has not been released. He remains an arbitrarily detained British national in the United Arab Emirates—a country that is an ally.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and pay tribute to him for his work, not just on behalf of Ryan Cornelius but on political prisoners and the rule of law more generally. Does he agree that it seems we live in a world where increasingly autocratic countries will take citizens of other nations into arbitrary detention, and that when it comes to the toolkit that was normally available to countries such as ours, options such as having consular access that makes a difference, and making representations, have been eroded? Does he feel that we need a new toolkit for this different landscape?

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point. He has also been vocal in his support for British citizens who have been arbitrarily detained, and on wider human rights issues. I commend him for his work on that agenda. The FCDO point about the toolkit is really important. The difficult question that we have to ask ourselves is: how have we reached the situation where one of our citizens is languishing in the jail of a friendly country—a close ally—with all the potential damage to UK-UAE relations that that does?

I have huge admiration for the work of the FCDO and its staff, and I know from colleagues and friends around the globe how much its work is appreciated and respected on the world stage. We have many fine diplomats and public servants, but I have to say in all candour that it has been failing for many years in its handling of state hostage taking and arbitrary detention of British nationals abroad, Ryan Cornelius included.

In the last Parliament, the Foreign Affairs Committee published a significant report with a number of recommendations, not all of which were taken up. It criticised the FCDO for its “unnecessarily defensive culture” in this area, which “impedes scrutiny”, harms victims and their families and undermines public trust. The report found that previous Governments of all stripes had failed to learn the lessons from responding to such situations, and had been slow or unwilling to call out guilty countries. Our Atlantic allies, the United States and Canada, have learned those lessons, and created official roles to co-ordinate the response to state hostage taking and arbitrary detention in order to get their people home, which is, of course, a priority for all of us. Indeed, the creation of such a role was one of the Committee’s recommendations to the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary.

This time last year, when the Foreign Secretary was the shadow Foreign Secretary, he committed a Labour Government to creating a special envoy for arbitrary detention and state hostage taking. I warmly welcome the Minister of State to her role—I think I can still call her a new Minister a few months into the new Government —and I know that she takes these matters seriously. I ask her to reflect back to her colleagues and the Secretary of State that we should stick to that commitment. Let us follow in the footsteps of Canada and the United States, and let us not be advised out of that promise by officials.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) for securing a debate on this difficult case. He referred to the fact that I am a new Minister—that is correct—but he is also a new Member, who clearly is doing his utmost to represent his constituents as powerfully as he can. He spoke eloquently about the case of Mr Cornelius, which I will come to in a moment. He also talked about the close relationship between the UK and the Emirates in business, tourism and defence. I agree that it is an important relationship. As he did, I recognise the many other parliamentarians who have been active on these issues, working on behalf of Mr Cornelius and his family both in this Chamber and in the other place.

The Minister for the Middle East—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Hamish Falconer)—is unable to take part in this debate because he is travelling on ministerial duties, so it is my pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government. I want to begin by recognising the awful toll that the past 16 years will have taken on Mr Cornelius, his wife and children, and the rest of his family and friends. I was humbled to hear from my hon. Friend that we are joined by some of them here this evening. I appreciate their presence.

Supporting British nationals overseas is at the heart of the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Our consular staff endeavour to give appropriate and tailored support to them and their families 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The new Government are reviewing how to strengthen our support for British nationals overseas, which includes the appointment of an envoy. We will ensure that we do as much as we can to learn lessons from what has worked and what may not have worked in the past. It is important that we draw on that evidence moving forward.

On this particular case, let me assure the House that since his detention in 2008, FCDO consular staff in the UAE have visited Mr Cornelius on a regular basis, most recently at the end of October. Consular staff here in the UK are in regular contact with his family. Let me also reassure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is so active on these issues, for which we are very grateful, that there has been ministerial activity as well as consular activity, which I will go on to explain.