Speeches by Smith.

“I agree with my right hon. Friend. The point I am really getting at is that the days of the shifting jobs of generalists are long gone, I am afraid. I have often made the case, having run a Department, that the civil service and the Foreign Office need to catch up with what is happening outside. We need specialists in …”

“I was going to say it, but as the hon. Member has raised it, I will do so now: we must not forget those hostages. What has happened to them is appalling, and he is right to raise it. Families across the UK listening to this debate will be appreciative of that. A critical issue is the lack of a clear and proactive respo…”

“Before the Minister concludes, there is something that many Members have called for that he has not touched on. We passed an Act on Magnitsky sanctions some time ago. Should those sanctions not be part of our attack on hostage-taking and on people being detained abroad for no reason? Why are those involved not being th…”

“I absolutely agree. That case will be raised today. All of us who want to speak in the debate have agreed that we will make sure that individual cases are raised in detail. I will touch on some to summarise them, and I will detail a couple of them. The hon. Lady is quite right. What has happened is appalling, and we ne…”

“I completely agree. I have no problem agreeing on this matter. It has been a long-standing issue for families and Members of Parliament that, somehow, the FCDO puts a cloud of obscurity in the way of real knowledge about what is going on. For families, that can be incredibly difficult.”

“I beg to move, That this House is concerned by the number of arbitrarily detained British nationals at risk of human rights abuses abroad and the apparent lack of active support for those detained; and calls on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to provide regular reports on when it last raised the cases …”

“Freedom of religion and belief is important. The case of Jimmy Lai is illustrative because they do not have to, but the Chinese authorities have locked him away from any involvement with his faith. He cannot receive communion and he cannot give confession. For those who do not believe in it, I note that that really is …”

“I, like a number of others, served in Northern Ireland. We did not ask to go, and I lost a very good friend there—and others, at the same time. That man’s parents died without ever knowing what had happened to him, but it turns out that he may well have been dismembered and disappeared completely. There is no closure f…”

“I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—she is my hon. Friend in this case—on raising a really important issue. I also welcome another person on the Government Front Bench, who will remain nameless—I am sure that Hansard will pick them out. The …”

“Madam Deputy Speaker, I will see what I can do to speak on your behalf—even though you have no opinion on this matter.”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for giving way. The comparison point is important. The figures he has given for what would happen should Taiwan be blockaded or even invaded are worth relating back to the Ukraine effect from when Russia invaded Ukraine. We had a hit of about $1 trillion …”

“The Minister has mentioned the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire and his excellent opening speech. He posed a question that I hope she can answer at some point. Do His Majesty’s Government now believe that a blockade of Taiwan would be considered an act of war?”

“We will see if we can ascertain one in passing. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on securing the debate. That is not easy, as he knows, and it is really good to see so many hon. Members in attendance. As you pointed out, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am one of nine political sanctionees,…”

“The hon. Lady raises a really important point. Practitioners of Falun Gong talk about arrests, incarceration and illegal organ harvesting from people who are still alive, and about the high levels of state-based attacks and murders. It is quite staggering that China exports more organs than any other country in the wor…”

“I fully support the call for Mr el-Fattah’s release, but in the same area, Ryan Cornelius has spent 16 years illegally held by the United Arab Emirates, much of it in solitary confinement. The Secretary of State says that he will pursue these cases rigorously, but when he went to the UAE recently, he did not raise the …”

“I return the Prime Minister to his meeting with President Xi. He may recall that at the time, President Xi put four red lines, one of which was about democracy and human rights, which he said he would “allow no challenge”. I have been in contact with many Hong Kong refugees here, who fled Hong Kong, and they were worri…”

“I have known the right hon. Gentleman for a long time, and he will know that I have a high regard for him, so I simply offer him these words from my knowledge of all the battles one undertakes within government—always with the Treasury. Putting aside for one second any party difference on this, we all want a functional…”

“I have sat watching both Governments on this one, and I do not think that any Government have the right to accuse the party that was formerly in power and talk about what it got wrong, because that Government got it all wrong and this one are getting it all wrong as well. The key point is this. The Minister has referre…”

“I have many friends who served out there, and the after-effects of that disaster—death, burnt human beings—still bang on and resonate with them today. All they want is to know why they were there at the wrong time. Who gave the orders? The report is critical. It is not just a case of them being damaged or killed by ene…”

“Given that the Mauritian Government, with whom the Minister was dealing, have failed and are no longer in power, is this not a case of a deal with the wrong people at the wrong time for the wrong reasons, which has abandoned the Chagossians? The Chagossians made it very clear throughout—the fact cannot be misrepresente…”