Blair McDougall MP: speeches

Speeches

• 19 Jun 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  The town of Barrhead in my constituency is full of extraordinary young people, which is why my Scottish Parliament colleague Paul O’Kane and I have reinstated the Barrhead Young Citizen of the Year award. However, after years of Tory and SNP neglect, Barrhead is also blighted by youth-led antisocial behaviour. Will the Leader of the House make time to debate that issue, so that we can put pressure on the SNP Government in Edinburgh to give the hard-pressed police in Barrhead the resources they need to tackle this problem, and so that those young people are not left behind and Barrhead is not left paying the price?

• 18 Jun 2025 · Political Prisoners · Hansard source

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  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?

• 13 May 2025 · Consular Assistance: Statutory Right · Hansard source

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  One British citizen denied consular access is Jimmy Lai, who faces life in prison for exercising the rights guaranteed to him under the joint declaration between the United Kingdom and China. My hon. Friend will have seen reports that America intended to raise the case of Jimmy Lai during its recent talks with China in Geneva. What steps can the Government take to capitalise on America’s renewed interest in his case so that we can secure his freedom?

• 27 Mar 2025 · Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) on securing the debate. However, I do not thank her for giving me that familiar feeling of dread—I am discovering that we often get it in this place—when the speaker immediately before makes almost identical points to those I had intended to make. Perhaps my speech will now be a little shorter. I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests and to my position as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Uyghurs. We are having this debate towards the end of the holy month of Ramadan. Across the Uyghur region, Uyghurs will be imprisoned for observing the fast. When they are imprisoned, they will be forced to eat—often, to eat pork—and they will be forced to drink alcohol. Where once they might have gathered for iftar in mosques, they will find those holy places are now piles of rubble. I have lost count of the number of times I have spoken in the House about the crimes against humanity that are taking place in the Uyghur region, but the right hon. Lady made the really important point that those crimes against humanity exist alongside a framework of financial crime. Uyghurs suffer because their suffering is profitable. Of course, there is an ideological element and a religious element to it, but it makes the Chinese regime a lot of money, so when we see women being sterilised and raped, children being stolen and millions of people in labour camps, we can never separate that from the mass slave labour that is going on. Earlier this week in the Chamber we were discussing the role of Uyghur slave labour in the green energy sector, but it is really important to note that it is far from limited to that sector. We spoke a lot about the proportion of solar raw materials infected by Uyghur slave labour, but that is also true of electric vehicles and cotton. We all remember the remarkable scenes recently at the Business and Trade Committee when Shein was simply unable to give convincing answers about whether its products contained slave labour materials from the Uyghur region. It is also increasingly clear that the agricultural sector is exposed to this, particularly in tomatoes and peppers. We see household names such as Kraft Heinz, Nestlé and L’Oréal implicated in the use of agricultural products from Xinjiang that we believe have been made with forced labour. This week’s debate about solar energy and slave labour had a sense of déjà vu for many of us who have been working on Uyghur slave labour for a long time. We can look back to the Health and Care Bill under the last Government and how they were under similar pressure. We will continue to have this debate every time issues of public procurement are raised in the House until we fix our modern slavery legislation. As the right hon. Lady was talking about the legislation, I was thinking of how it is similar to me: 10 years ago, it was fresh and perhaps a thing of beauty, but now it is tired and showing its age. [ Interruption. ] I thank the House for the “Noes” there; that was reassuring. We have to update the modern slavery legislation, not least because much of the rest of the world—ironically, inspired by what we did 10 years ago—has moved to update its protections against slave labour goods. The right hon. Lady mentioned the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States and the due diligence directive and forced labour regulation in the EU. On forced labour goods coming into the UK, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is simply not designed to deal with that issue. The right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands spoke about the things that have changed in the last decade. Few of us would have imagined that industrial slavery involving millions of people—thought to be a relic of the 19th or early 20th century—would have become so prevalent in the experience of Uyghur Muslims. Neither would we have envisaged how difficult it would become in Xinjiang to do any sort of due diligence. That is what leads many of us to the argument that there must be a presumption that goods from that part of the world have involved modern slavery. Because of the Uyghurs, we know the Modern Slavery Act is not working. Almost every day, a cargo flight arrives into this country from Ürümqi, the ground zero of slave labour for Uyghurs. Section 54 requires companies with a turnover of more than £36 million to produce a statement on slave labour. Looking back at the last 10 years and seeing one in 10 companies choosing not to do that without consequence, it is clear that one of the Act’s major failings was the lack of a penalty. I also want to talk about justice. We know that the workers who are exploited in places such as Xinjiang will not find justice in their own jurisdictions. Under the Modern Slavery Act, neither can they get it here. It is time to say that if a company operates in the UK and is implicated in such human rights abuses within its supply chain, there should be an opening for the victims of that to seek justice in the UK courts. For those who have tried to do that in other cases—some of which are live, so I will not raise them—it has taken years and real legal struggle to get them heard. In order to be a disincentive for companies doing the wrong thing, that needs to be made easier. As we are talking about the behaviour of companies that operate in the UK, after the behaviour of Shein and the spectacle of the evidence given to the Business and Trade Committee, allowing that company to register on the stock exchange here would be unthinkable. It would send a signal that this is an economy that is willing to be based on the competitive advantage that comes from not paying workers. On the subject of justice, I want to mention the organisation Hope for Justice and particularly my constituent Euan Fraser, who has been a source of real help and advice to me since I was elected. He makes the point that back in 2018, when the Government did their last study of the economic and social impact of modern slavery in the UK, it was costed at £4.3 billion. Might the Minister be able to refresh that and give us a new insight? Will she also be willing to meet Hope for Justice to discuss its proposals for independent modern slavery advocates? They are individuals who can work with survivors and ensure that their legal entitlements are realised, not just on things such as getting justice on slavery, but on housing, immigration and, importantly, compensation, so there is more of a disincentive for companies. To conclude, as the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands said, we are trying to rebuild the British economy, but we cannot do that at the cost of being complicit in the destruction of an entire people. On this 10th anniversary, it is high time to modernise the Modern Slavery Act.

• 4 Mar 2025 · Hong Kong Democracy Activists · Hansard source

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  I draw the House’s attention to my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong. I welcome the Minister’s recognition that the bounties on the heads of these British Hongkongers are for exercising rights guaranteed to them under the joint declaration. I do not wish to repeat what other right hon. and hon. Members have said, but at some point, when Ministers come to the House again and again to talk about the infiltration of the royal family by Chinese agents, the putting of bounties on people’s heads or secret police stations, there have to be consequences for the relationship with China. I have a practical question. The fear felt by those who have bounties on their heads here is nothing compared with those who remain in Hong Kong who fear that they may not be able to leave. What practical assistance can we give to Hongkongers who have had either their BNO passport seized or other travel documents frozen, so that they are able to come to the safety of the United Kingdom?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Prison Conditions · Hansard source

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  Katie Allan was a beautiful and bright young woman, and would have been a constituent of mine but for the fact that, aged 21, she found herself, after a youthful stupid mistake, in Polmont young offenders institution, where she died from suicide. The fatal incident inquiry recently published into her death and the death of William Brown found that they both might be alive today were it not for a catalogue of errors by the Scottish Prison Service. The families of those who have lost children in such circumstances are campaigning for Crown immunity to be removed from prisons across Britain, so that there is proper accountability and more young lives are not lost. Will the Minister meet the families to discuss that proposal?

• 7 Jan 2025 · Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests · Hansard source

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  I associate myself with the Minister’s comments about the contribution that Hongkongers have made to the UK, which is particularly true in East Renfrewshire. The Hongkongers in my constituency will welcome the strong comments from the Minister and the Foreign Secretary. However, we have heard those comments many times from the Front Bench, and the response from Beijing has been to imprison dozens more people, put more bounties on the heads of British people, escalate transnational repression and keep people like Jimmy Lai in prison. At what point do the consequences come for these actions? As other Members have asked, I ask not just when our senior Ministers will stop going there, but when we will stop welcoming Hong Kong officials here. I also ask whether the Government can and will meet the British nationals who have had bounties put on their heads, and whether they are being given specific security advice.

• 12 Dec 2024 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  Given the widespread revulsion at the violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Georgia, will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on that matter? Imedi TV, the main propaganda arm of that brutal Government, operates and is directed from the UK through a company called Hunnewell Partners, so in such a debate we might be able to discuss whether it is time for a National Crime Agency investigation into those operations and the direction from this country of pro-Russian propaganda and incitement to violence against peaceful protesters.

• 5 Dec 2024 · Detained British Nationals Abroad · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing this debate, and on continuing to be a discomfort in the derrière for successive Governments on these issues. The right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) talked about the brightest and the best going into the Foreign Office, so I will begin by recognising the unfairness of this debate. We will all stand up and talk about the worst failings of the Foreign Office, and I recognise that the debate will be responded to by a Minister who represents some of the best efforts of civil servants, who go into incredibly dangerous and difficult circumstances to try to serve our constituents. I want to put that on the record. There is a lot of talk in this Chamber about the legacies that this Government have inherited, and it is good that we are talking about one of the worst ones: our country’s record of securing the release of those who have been arbitrarily detained overseas. I will come to some of the policy issues that other Members have touched on, but I will deal first with the principle behind such cases. Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote: “To sin by silence, when we should protest, Makes cowards out of men.” What is true of individuals is also true of nations. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), spoke about the example of the US, which is relevant here. When other countries’ citizens are held unjustly, it is treated as an affront, an injury to all and a national slap in the face. Yes, quiet negotiation takes place politely behind the scenes on behalf of those countries’ prisoners, but alongside that polite and patient diplomacy is their citizens’ full-throated outrage. I know that the staff working on this issue in the Foreign Office care deeply about it, but the right hon. Members for Chingford and Woodford Green and for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) both raised the case of Jimmy Lai. We have to ask why Canada was successful in securing the release of the two Michaels, and how Australia secured the release of journalist Cheng Lai. Just last week, the Americans secured the release of three more of their citizens, yet Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen and one of us, and who has been arbitrarily detained in solitary confinement for nearly four years, has not been freed. We could talk about Jagtar Singh Johal, Alaa Abd el-Fattah and so many others. Our first responsibility as a Parliament, a Government and a country is to be publicly, vocally and unanimously furious about this issue. Everything else follows from the righteous anger that we should all feel on behalf of our citizens who are rotting in foreign jails. That anger should drive us to ask what is behind the failure of British diplomacy in the past. A lack of strategy is certainly part of the answer. Like the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, I was encouraged by the noises that the Foreign Secretary made last week about making good on his promises, both on the issue of a special envoy and on the right to consular access. I welcome the Government’s commitment to step up the engagement on these cases, but that needs to be part of an entirely new approach. I am not naive: I know that it is only because we are having conversations with foreign Governments about trade that we are able to get in the room and discuss our citizens who have been unjustly detained. Indeed, when I was an adviser in the Foreign Office, the role of Minister for trade and human rights was a stand-alone Cabinet position. Because I believe we must make deals around the world—our constituents’ standard of living depends on it—I question whether our current policymaking framework on arbitrary detention can ever deliver the kind of response that we would all expect if we found ourselves in a prison cell in one of the darker corners of the world. For me, this is about the balance we strike between charming and chastising those we are negotiating with. I wonder whether our current approach to those who are arbitrarily detained makes it inevitable that attempts to secure the release of our people become either a prologue or an epilogue to the main story, which is one of securing our economic self-interest. Are we sending our representatives into these negotiations with red lines that those on the other side of the table know are written in pencil rather than in pen? After 16 years in a Dubai jail, Ryan Cornelius has had more time than anyone to contemplate that tension. He shared with me a letter he has written to the Prime Minister ahead of the Prime Minister’s trip to the Gulf on behalf of the UK, in which he identifies the inherent challenge in diplomacy I describe: “Making it clear to your interlocutors that there can be no normal relationship with a friendly country which treats our citizens in this way may be an uncomfortable thing for you to do on this visit…if you look the other way in the interest of sealing a few deals you will have diminished this country’s standing in the eyes of the rest of the world.” For me, Mr Cornelius’s letter gets to the heart of the matter. In asking our delegations and diplomats to balance arbitrary detention against trade outcomes, the risk is that they will leave those rooms having failed to achieve either objective. If the arbitrary imprisonment and mistreatment of our citizens is not a red line, what is? If it is a red line, it cannot be something that the people we send into these rooms might have to give up in order to secure other Government priorities. The release of our people must be understood by those on the other side of the table as non-negotiable. That is why it is essential that any special envoy we appoint has the power, the status and the degree of independence from Ministers to make it an immutable principle not just that the policy on the release of hostages will not be sacrificed for other priorities, but that it cannot be sacrificed for other priorities. My right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury, the Chair of the Select Committee, was far too delicate, perhaps not wanting to appear engaged in a power grab, when she said that this is a debate for another time, but we have to debate the fact that other jurisdictions place the power for designating state hostages, or for applying sanctions in response to such cases, in the hands of the legislature. The value of such an approach is that it allows the Executive and their diplomats to honestly say in those negotiating rooms that they cannot separate their wider relationship with a country from the mistreatment of citizens by its Government. I know that the suggestion of losing such power would be greeted with horror in the corridors of King Charles Street, but we cannot simply continue with the current model, which has left British citizens in jail. As well as greater independence in policymaking, there should also be a degree of automaticity in our policy response. As has been suggested by the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, when an individual is designated as being arbitrarily detained, there has to be a consistent application of Magnitsky sanctions. This would not only provide an incentive to release the British citizens already held, as it would hold perpetrators to account, but it would also act as a disincentive to those who might target our people in the future. Inconsistent action in these cases simply emboldens those regimes and makes our citizens less safe. Finally, we have to act in concert with like-minded countries that are similarly committed to the rule of law. Recent years have seen the erosion of norms around arbitrary detention by autocracies that are increasingly working in concert with each other. Only co-ordinated action by democracies, and by those committed to the rule of law, can help recreate a global order in which such actions are deemed universally unacceptable. There is no cause more urgent than ensuring the liberty and freedom of our own citizens. I commend the right hon. Gentleman for securing this debate.

• 26 Nov 2024 · “Get Britain Working” White Paper · Hansard source

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  If we search the record of this place, we see the phrase “no child left behind” mentioned over and over again, but during the pandemic, children were left behind. They have been washing up on the shores of social work, of the police sometimes, and of childhood mental health services, and I know from visiting my jobcentre in Barrhead that they are now washing up on its shores as well. What will this White Paper do to help that covid generation who were left behind?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Jailing of Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists · Hansard source

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  As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong, I thank Ministers for their efforts and recognise the efforts of the Prime Minister. However, after nearly four years in solitary confinement for Jimmy Lai and with a trial beginning in a court that we know will only ever find him guilty, at what point does the delicate diplomacy have to give way to something more like a demand for his freedom?

• 19 Nov 2024 · Ryan Cornelius: Detention in UAE · Hansard source

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  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?

• 22 Oct 2024 · Chinese Communist Party: Threat to Democracy · Hansard source

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  My constituency is also home to a new and growing population of Hongkongers who, although they are now in a free country, live in fear of the repression that the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) described. That is not least because of the reported presence until recently of a secret police station in Glasgow, run by the Chinese Communist party. Will the Minister join me in sending a clear signal to the Chinese state: “hands off Hong Kong Scots”?

• 17 Oct 2024 · Hongkongers in the UK: Visas, Security and Services · Hansard source

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  We do. 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. 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.