Nationality and Borders Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-10
Topic: Mixed Topics
David Alton (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, Amendment 179 stands in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patten of Barnes, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and myself. In some ways, it says everything which needs to be said. That a former governor of Hong Kong and a former Lord Chancellor are two of the signatories to this amendment shows that it is not just cross-party but has support across both Houses. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, has taken a personal interest in this and I really appreciate the time she took in organising a meeting and being willing to address the issues during a long discussion on the subject. I am indebted to her, and I know that she gets the message of this amendment. It stands after Clause 78 and concerns the visa eligibility of British nationals (overseas). The amendment would rationalise the UK’s policy by offering courageous young people in Hong Kong a lifeboat out of the city. I declare my interest as a patron of Hong Kong Watch and as the vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong I warmly welcome the Government’s creation of the BNO visa, which was opened up just over a year ago, allowing those holding BNO status in Hong Kong to come to the UK to live the life of freedom that they were promised would continue after 1997. However, as the former Foreign Secretary and leader of the Conversative Party, the noble Lord, Lord Hague, noted last week in his column in the Times, the policy has immense benefits: "Improvements to this scheme can still be made, in particular by creating equivalent rights for those born after 1997—there are many young people who want to leave Hong Kong even though their parents want to stay, and they should be welcome here." The Government’s commitment to the people of Hong Kong and the unanimous cross-party support that this has received shows that we are a country which does not turn its back on the persecuted. However, I have become increasingly concerned at the exclusion of young people born after 1997, who are unable to access this lifeline visa route, even though these are the very people who flooded the streets of Hong Kong and stood up for the freedoms throughout the protests in 2019. That was when I was part of the international team which monitored the last free elections in Hong Kong; it was an extraordinary thing to see at first hand Research published at the end of last year showed that 93% of the defendants in protest-related prosecutions in Hong Kong were under the age of 25. In happier times, I chaired a meeting here in your Lordships’ House at which two young Hong Kongers spoke. One was Joshua Wong, one of the most heroic young defenders of Hong Kong’s freedoms and, for this, he is now incarcerated in a Hong Kong prison. In 2019, I was able to take the Westminster Award for Human Rights, Human Life, and Human Dignity to Hong Kong and present it to him. That was after he was refused permission, even then, to travel to the United Kingdom. The other person at that meeting was Nathan Law, the youngest member of the Hong Kong Legislative Council. The noble Lord, Lord Patten, might remember that in my day I was briefly the youngest Member of the House of Commons, and I told Nathan that we babies of the House should stick together. Nathan is now in exile in the United Kingdom and last week we stood together at an open-air rally in London focusing on the destruction of Hong Kong’s freedoms and other aspects of the erosion of freedoms elsewhere in China.