Emily Thornberry
MP for Islington South and Finsbury · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Israeli Minister Ben Gvir has said, “It is time for the state of Israel to publicly recognise that the Falkland Islands are Argentine territory under occupation”, and that we, the British, are not merely occupying the territory but, in carrying out oil drilling there, are stealing money from the Argentine people.”
“At last! I am so very happy to see a British Government—a Labour British Government—finally doing the right thing and taking a strong stance against the illegal building of settlements in the occupied territories of Palestine, no longer a bystander wringing their hands.”
“I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on taking such a brave stance, and on his powerful and moving statement. I am so proud that this has finally happened; but could Ministers and officials meet my Committee and me, and some of our officials, to discuss whether we can implement these sanctions as quickly as possible?”
“However, at the last local elections, the Greens registered candidates with the Electoral Commission as “first choice candidate” or “lead candidate”, so that, in an election with three votes, there was an instruction on the ballot paper as to who someone should vote for. That is an abuse, and it should be stopped.”
“No, I have only got two minutes. Come on! People should just pay their taxes and get involved. New clause 86 proposes that a donor would have to be a total citizen. It is not enough to come back to Britain and go, “Oh well, I’m here now.”
“I recommend the report to Members, if they are in any doubt about the ways in which malign actors, either state or non-state, are trying to influence and undermine democracies across Europe, but if we think that we are free of that because we are on the other side of the channel, we have got another think coming.”
The complete record
Every one of 612 lines we hold for Emily Thornberry, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 6 of 13.
“I have just come back from the middle east, where I went with the Foreign Affairs Committee. While the world watches with increasing alarm the disintegration of the peace process in Gaza, we were warned in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the west bank and Israel that the far-right Government in Israel may have no long-term plan on Gaza, but that there is a long-term plan for the west bank, and that is annexation. The international community is well aware of that. It sees the evictions, the demolitions, the increasing number of Israeli settlements, and that 40,000 people have recently been displaced. In these days of hard power, what is plan B? What will the international community do to stop the annexation of the west bank? It will not be enough to simply condemn it once it has happened.”
“The difficulty is that after refugee costs, admin costs and the Department’s commitments to things like the World Bank and the UN are taken into account, it is hard to believe that there will be enough left in the budget to provide meaningful humanitarian support in those priority areas. Does the Prime Minister understand the concern of so many that these cuts could in fact, in the long term, hobble the very leadership that he has shown this weekend, which has finally given the world some hope?”
“We all watched with alarm and distress the scenes from the White House on Friday, but equally, across the country, we were extremely grateful that we had a Prime Minister who had such a pitch-perfect response at the weekend. As he works towards a just peace for Ukraine, he has the support of the whole country in doing so. Here is the question. The Prime Minister said on “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg” that following the cuts to the aid budget, he would go through line by line to ensure that the priorities of Ukraine, Sudan and Gaza were all prioritised in a lasting peace.”
“Q14. It was such great news when the Government decided that it was right to pay compensation to the LGBT veterans who had unfairly lost their jobs. Unfortunately, those veterans are not alone. There are others who have been prepared to lay down their lives on behalf of the country who have also been treated disgracefully. I include in that list my constituent who was sacked from MI6 simply for being gay. Will my right hon. and learned Friend please commit to righting that wrong and to meeting my constituent?”
“That will allow my colleagues to hear directly why the Prime Minister has appointed him, and to learn what his priorities are in this crucial diplomatic role.”
“May I congratulate the Foreign Office on the inspired appointment of our new ambassador in Washington DC? Not many candidates would be able to fill the shoes of Dame Karen Pierce, who has represented UK interests so exceptionally in both New York and Washington; she is an inspirational leader and a skilled diplomat. Lord Mandelson’s appointment is unusual, however. It is not often that circumstances demand that the UK appoint someone who is not a career diplomat to be our ambassador to such a key NATO ally. To silence critics and to show respect to Parliament and its Committees, will the Foreign Office agree that we should return to the policy of the previous Labour Government, and allow Lord Mandelson the time to come before my Committee before he leaves for the United States?”
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Doctors throughout the NHS, no matter who employs them, have blanket maternity agreements, but nurses do not. When I visited the River Place health centre, I found that nurses employed by Whittington Health were working alongside nurses employed by the GP practice who got completely different maternity leave and pay. As we turn out our hospitals into the community and do much more work in that way, such anomalies will get worse. It is not fair and I wonder what my hon. Friend is going to do about it.”
“While I know that the Minister is unable to comment on any ongoing negotiations, I would like to know this: what role is the UK playing in convening post-conflict discussions and what does he see as a viable, long-term resolution for Gaza?”
“May I begin by paying tribute to the bravery of the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) in continuing to fight for the population in Gaza, even as her own family and friends are suffering? My Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Israel-Palestine conflict, and we have heard again and again from witnesses, including both Israeli and Palestinian voices, that the UK could, in fact, be doing more to bring the conflict to an end. We have also heard from witnesses, including the former Member for North East Bedfordshire, who is also the very respected former Minister for the middle east, that where UK action has come, it has been too little and too late.”
“I have a constituent who was not a member of the armed forces, but a member of the secret service. He lost his job in the 1980s because he was gay. There is no compensation for him at the moment. I suspect it may not be the responsibility of my right hon. Friend, but does he not agree that there should be parity of treatment across the forces? We rely on our secret service as much as we do our armed forces. Surely what is fair for them should be fair for those who have given their time and risked their lives in the service of our country.”
“Across the House we all celebrate the end of this terrible regime, but the very last thing that the Syrian people want, as my right hon. Friend said, is for one tyrant to be replaced by another, but with an Islamic flag. There is another way, but it will not be easy. I am glad to hear that my right hon. Friend has begun talking to the UN special representative, because Syrians have been working on other plans—other constitutions and laws—over a long period, under the auspices of the United Nations. What is desperately needed now is to ensure that inclusive transitional arrangements are put in place that can take Syria into a brighter world, with the political system that the long-suffering Syrian people need and deserve, to give them an extraordinary, multi-ethnic, multi-background country.”
“Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it does not matter whether someone is a dual national or not? If they are British, they are British and they are proud to be British. We should simply talk about them being British citizens, and not even bother talking about dual nationals.”
“However, the whole-government approach, using the embassies in the country, the regional experts in the State Department and the negotiation experts in SPEHA, strikes me as absolutely the right approach. I think it is a lesson that we should learn from the Americans, and I hope that the Foreign Office takes this recommendation seriously, because it is about time we changed things. We cannot go on like this. I do not want to see anyone else outside the Foreign Office starving themselves in the hope that, somehow or other, that will help their son or daughter to come back to this country, so I say, “Please focus on this, and please sort it out.””
“It would also give the families a senior point of contact on which they could rely. The American unit has the power to impose specific sanctions, through the Levinson Act, that target those who are responsible for, or complicit in, the unlawful or wrongful detention of US nationals. We should be making better use of our sanctions policy to deter the wrongful detention of British people, or as a tool to apply pressure to those who hold British nationals. I have even heard stories of jailers being sanctioned. This can be done by those who are sufficiently ambitious, can think laterally and have the necessary focus. If we had better parliamentary scrutiny of our sanctions policy, perhaps we would make better use of it, but that is a debate for another day. Perhaps we simply do not know how the Government decide what cases warrant sanctions.”
“They described ambassadors as their secret weapon, experts on the country who knew the key players and, most important, knew what ideas would work. They said that they were there to remove the “boulder” when ambassadors have to deal with cases of this kind, because it takes up so much bandwidth that the poor ambassadors cannot deal with other issues. Obviously they will still give advice, but there is that special team to deal with arbitrarily detained people so that the ambassadors can get on with our financial relationship with Europe. I believe that if we had a similar unit in the Foreign Office, the Foreign Office would be more effective, and it would be of great assistance to the Foreign Secretary, who cannot give his full attention to these uniquely complex cases.”
“What leverage do we have when one Department is criticising a Government for detaining our citizen, while another Department is also trying to encourage British businesses to invest and form partnerships in that country? What message is that sending to a detainee’s family? When I raised this question with the Americans, and asked them, “Do you not step on the toes of ambassadors? How do you not send out mixed messages?”, they were keen to stress that it actually made life easier for the ambassadors, because they were there as the hard cops. They were there as almost a self-contained unit. Their job was to get people out, and that is what they did: they pulled the levers together in order to ensure that they did.”
“Let me give a recent example. Why did the Department for Business and Trade organise an industry delegation to Cairo in June 2024, and UK Export Finance help host an Egypt-UK investment opportunity forum in London in September, all while the Egyptian Government had one of our citizens, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, wrongfully held in prison without consular access? Who thought that through? Did anybody think that through? Or was it one of those things that, because there is not a focus, just happened? I suspect that it is the latter and that is why we have to change. I am fully committed to this Government’s rigorous focus on growing the economy, and I support the building of a prosperous UK-Egypt trade partnership. It is so important that we get investment into this country. But I wonder what mixed signals we are sending.”
“Quite simply, we should not look like we are incompetent, incapable or uncaring. I was also told that the moment a Secretary of State declares a case to be one of arbitrary detention, the SPEHA team kicks the whole Government system in motion to work on the case. They work across Government Departments, as well as with Congress, external organisations, private industry and the media, immediately gathering a strong team effort to begin putting sustained pressure on to the country holding their citizen. A key point that struck me from my conversation with them is that without an office solely focused on these cases, the team simply does not come together. In my discussions with British detainees and campaign groups, I have heard one major concern for years, which is the UK Government’s lack of cohesion on these cases.”
“The reason that families want to see the Foreign Secretary is that that is the best way for them to get reassurance that the Foreign Office is paying attention. They should not need to see the Foreign Secretary if they are being looked after properly by a specially dedicated team whose only job, other than ensuring that the family is reassured and kept in the loop on what is going on, is to get their loved one out. I know the Foreign Office remains committed to the release of all arbitrarily detained individuals, but even the perception that they are not doing all they can to get someone released is not only incredibly distressing to a family who have already suffered such unimaginable pain, but damages the credibility of the diplomatic service, the Foreign Office and the Government as a whole. None of us should want that.”
“The envoy or his staff then remain the direct contact with family members, providing them with regular updates and answering questions they may have, including answering the phone at eleven o’clock at night to calm down a parent who fears they will never see their child again. We need to do things better. The Foreign Office’s communication with families is not good. In my belief, it is clearly inadequate. As Laila Soueif told the media, she thought she was being ignored by the Foreign Secretary since he had taken up the post. I should make it clear that I am glad that he has since had time to see the family, but the message cannot be sent out that the Foreign Secretary is simply too busy to meet detainees’ families. It makes those families feel ignored and feel that the Government do not really care.”
“There are experts in negotiation, experts on a specific region and experts in supporting families. Within those teams are people whose sole role is family engagement, including trained psychologists. In much the same way as the police in this country, where victims of crime will have a dedicated family liaison officer in really serious cases, one main function of the office is to support the family. In our discussions yesterday, they told me that within hours of a US citizen being categorised as wrongfully detained, the special envoy calls the family of the individual to introduce themselves and explain the next steps.”
“I want to go into that in some depth, because I want to enlighten and inspire Members who are listening to the debate today, so that they will agree with me and continue to put pressure on the Foreign Office to get on with things. The office is based in the US State Department. It deals with about 35 to 45 wrongful detention cases a year, as well as the more black-and-white cases of US citizens taken hostage by the likes of ISIS. The office is responsible, in collaboration with other Departments, for making recommendations, on the basis of 11 criteria, on whether an individual’s detention is arbitrary. The recommendation is made to the Secretary of State, who remains responsible for signing off each individual case. It is a civil servant-led unit that applies the criteria, but with ministerial oversight. The team is about 30 people.”
“It will also be their job to keep in close, active and respectful contact with the families, so that they know what is going on. I know that a number of people have concerns. I have heard the counter-arguments and I understand them, but if we look at what the Americans are doing, many of those concerns may be allayed. Let us look at what is going on at the moment in the United States. I am grateful to the officials from the United States Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs who spoke with me at some length yesterday. I found the conversation I had with them as enlightening as I did inspiring.”
“As soon as someone is arrested, the local consular office should inform the Foreign Office, which should apply the criteria to the case and make recommendations to the Foreign Secretary. It would then be up to the Foreign Secretary to decide whether that case would be given the benefit of the special envoy, who would then take leadership of the case. There will not be many of them, but those determined as victims of arbitrary detention will be very special cases, and will have the sorts of resources and focus that they need and deserve. It will be the job of the envoy to get their prisoner out, first and foremost, using all the levers of the state. They should be given permission to think laterally and be creative, and to think of every way we can ensure we get our British citizens out.”
“Friend the Foreign Secretary reconfirmed his commitment to that. I am encouraged to see that the Labour manifesto went further than the previous Foreign Affair Committee’s recommendations on consular access. Labour pledged to ensure the legal right to consular access and I certainly hope the Government will deliver on that, but we must act quickly because the likes of Alaa and Jimmy and their families cannot, and should not, have to wait any longer. I therefore call on the Government to be clearer in their timelines for implementing those promises. Having thought about that, and having met families of a number of those detained, I think we should institute an office in the Foreign Office that is committed to arbitrary detention which establishes proper criteria for categorising someone as wrongfully detained.”
“They are different criteria, but they are very interesting and I certainly hope there is someone in the Foreign Office at this moment looking at potential criteria and looking to draft some. I agree with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green that it is about time we had established criteria, so there is a little more transparency on this issue. It was very disappointing that a number of the previous Government’s Foreign Secretaries disregarded and kicked into the long grass the recommendations set out by the Committee. It does not have to be that way. I am encouraged that the Labour party has, since October last year, been committed to having a special envoy for UK citizens seized abroad. Last week, in front of my Committee, with Sebastien Lai and Sanaa Seif sitting behind him, my right hon.”
“I hope that my Committee can meet the standards set by the hon. Lady. The previous Committee’s report on state hostage taking made recommendations which, had they been implemented by the previous Government, would have been very effective in cases that have been raised today. Chief among them were the recommendation to formalise and publish the criteria for determining whether the detention of a British national by a foreign state is considered arbitrary, and the recommendation to establish a senior position in the Foreign Office solely committed to arbitrary and complex detentions. There are examples of criteria: the United Nations has criteria and the Americans have criteria.”
“Of course, while more Brits are travelling around the world, we are also in a world where fewer and fewer countries pay much attention to anything that might be seen in any sense as any form of rule of law, so Brits get themselves into terrible trouble and some of them are arbitrarily detained. As I say, I am stealing other people’s ideas, so I want genuinely to compliment the previous members of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The problems of arbitrary detention and how to solve people being detained abroad are complex and cases that many people have worked on, so the work of the previous Select Committee, very ably chaired by the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns), needs to be mentioned in dispatches. I am proud to be the second female Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
“The Minister will be assured that I do not want to spend all the time I have in this debate just moaning about the Foreign Office. I have some positive suggestions, which I hope will be taken seriously, because I believe that this is an issue on which we could do much better. There are some ideas that are currently circulating, and they are not all mine—I am stealing other peoples’ ideas and trying to put them together in order genuinely to try to help. The first of those ideas is that we have to put this in context. There are now many more Brits travelling all over the world and going to all sorts of places—the numbers are going up all the time—and that is to be encouraged.”
“The public understandably have huge amounts of sympathy for these individuals and for the families of those who have been arrested, and I believe the standing of the Foreign Office is undermined as a result. We are told that the Foreign Office does everything it can, but it needs to do most of that quietly and behind closed doors, and the difficulty is that it is hard for some families to see the difference between doing nothing and perhaps doing a great deal. That is the dilemma. When those families see detained people from other countries being released—whether those are Canadians, Americans, French or Germans—and the Brits are not, they do wonder whether it is because the Foreign Office is simply not doing its job properly. That is the issue.”
“I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing today’s incredibly important debate, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us the time to debate it. Throughout my time in Parliament, I have seen far too many sad and desperate families protesting outside the Foreign Office; going on hunger strike; standing for election against the Prime Minister, as one of my constituents did in support of Andy Tsege; singing Christmas carols, as I did outside the Foreign Office in support of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe; and organising petitions. They do everything they can to get their loved ones back, believing—rightly or wrongly—that the Foreign Office genuinely does not seem to be doing enough, and does not seem to care.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for being so clear, but can he say whether the criteria for deciding whether a British national has been arbitrarily detained will be published?”
“While Europeans spend barely the cost of two cups of coffee a week on support for the war in Ukraine, 41% of Russia’s total expenditure is spent on the war. They have had to cut social security and raise taxes to pay for the war effort. While speculation about the future of the war is understandable in the current circumstances, it is really important that we remain firm. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must remain steadfast in our support for Ukraine? We stand with Ukraine.”
“I read with some alarm the reports about the Georgian elections, including a report by the OSCE on vote buying, multi-voting, Russian disinformation and intimidation. Is the Minister aware that the European Parliament passed a motion last Thursday stating that the elections had been neither free nor fair, and should be rerun? Is the British position the same?”
“During the Syrian civil war, millions of Syrians moved to Turkey and southern Lebanon, so they have already been displaced once. In Turkey, Erdoğan has been encouraging them to go home to Syria, and in southern Lebanon they have had to move back into Syria to flee from the invasion. Multiple traumas have been suffered by multiple innocent families, who have no guilt in any of this but are simply victims again and again. When families face such multiple traumas, what assistance are the British Government able to give them?”
“I will also ask my right hon. Friend about Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, and perhaps if I ask in a different way, we might get an answer. Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton tells us that before the last general election, the Foreign Office was working up potential sanctions against those two most controversial and infamous settlers and Ministers. I appreciate that sanctions are kept under review, but is my right hon. Friend in a position to tell us when a decision might be made, or if one has already been made, about those Ministers?”
“The International Criminal Court was created when 120 countries put their names to the Rome statute and signed up to the principle that certain basic standards of behaviour must be enforced internationally, with those laws applicable to everyone, no matter who they were. From the time when Winston Churchill led the Conservative party, this country has been a proud supporter of international law. It is wrong for us to try to undermine it. Does my hon. Friend share my deep disappointment that the Conservatives have fallen as far as they have?”
“At this time of such great uncertainty and with so many threats, there has never been a more important time for Britain to be back on the world stage, and we have been missed. We can be a force for good, and our great friend, the sadly missed John Prescott, would be cheering the Prime Minister on as he takes a leadership role in tackling the most important threat of all—climate change. John was an early champion of that. Will my right hon. Friend give us more details about how the UK-led global clean power alliance uses our convening power on international finance to unlock private finance, support the climate transition and help the developing world?”
“The verdicts and sentences of the 45 are, like the 2020 national security law itself and the treatment of Jimmy Lai, clear violations of the Sino-British joint declaration on Hong Kong. Following the meeting between President Xi and the Prime Minister, will my right hon. Friend please share with the House what steps the Government plan to take to ensure that the joint declaration is adhered to?”
“Members of my Committee and I have been meeting large numbers of European friends and neighbours, not just Ukrainians. Last week we met the Foreign Minister from Estonia, who told us that North Koreans were fighting on European soil only a few hundred kilometres from his country. Yesterday, we met Moldovan Members of Parliament, who pointed out that Russian rockets had been in their airspace the night before. We are hearing mounting concern from everyone that the change in leadership in the United States and potential elections in Germany might mean there is a challenge to the united support that we, in the west, have had for Ukraine over the last 1,000 days. What strategy does my right hon. Friend have to ensure that we remain strong, and that we all understand that a defeated Ukraine and an emboldened Putin is a defeat for all of us?”
“UNRWA staff are expected to uphold neutrality, and receive compulsory training on humanitarian principles. It shares staff names and ID numbers with host countries. It has its 1,300 buildings inspected quarterly, and it commissioned a report from a group led by a former Foreign Secretary of France, who concluded that UNRWA upholds the principle of humanitarian neutrality. While of course there are changes that can be made, does my right hon. Friend agree that the recommendations are relatively peripheral, and fundamentally UNRWA does deserve the trust of the international community?”
“My right hon. Friend has rightly outlined the complex nature of our relationship with China. May I add to the long list the tension in the strait of Taiwan and the effect that that is likely to have on international trade if it goes wrong? The fact that the relationship is complicated, however, does not mean that we should not get clarity. That is important not just for Members of the House but for others, whether they are promoting British exports overseas or are human rights campaigners such as Sebastien Lai, whom I met last week, or are British representatives in Mongolia. We need clarity in our approach to China, so we urgently need to know when the China audit will be completed. Will my right hon. Friend tell us when that is likely to happen, and will he also commit to appearing before my Committee to answer questions about it?”
“The new Government’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and in Gaza is, of course, greatly welcomed. However, today we hear that one of UNIFIL’s watchtowers was bombed by the Israel Defence Forces. First, was that one of the watchtowers that we have provided? Secondly, what conversations has the Minister had with his colleagues about beefing up our support to UNIFIL and taking our troop numbers up from one?”
“My right hon. Friend speaks with great eloquence about how completely wrong it is for UN peacekeepers to be attacked in the way that they have been. They put their bodies on the line, keeping warring parties apart, and they were able to maintain peace—a rough peace— on the blue line for nearly 18 years before the conflict began. Is it possible for us to go further than just condemning it? Given that there are 10,000 UNIFIL peacekeepers from 50 countries and that the full complement ought to be 15,000—Italy provides 1,000, France and Spain provide over 600, Ireland provides nearly 400 and Germany provides more than 100, while we provide one—might it be possible for the Government to reconsider the number of peacekeepers who are sent to UNIFIL, and whether Britain could make a bigger contribution?”
“On this anniversary, the House unites in its condemnation of the murder of more than 1,000 Israeli citizens and makes a united call for the release of 100 hostages. Parliament also stands behind a belief in the rules-based international order—a belief that all civilian life is equal and must be protected. Today, we mark a year during which more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 742 people have been killed in the west bank and more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon. Will the Prime Minister confirm that all British actions in the middle east will be guided by the principles of de-escalation, peace and diplomacy, and the protection of all civilian life?”
“Will the Foreign Security inform the House what provision has been made to ensure the ongoing protection of this unique part of the world once the administration of the islands is handed over to Mauritius, and what involvement the Chagossians have had in that process?”
“In a parallel reality, may I ask the Foreign Secretary about a particular aspect of the treaty that I do not believe will get a great deal of attention in all the heat and fury, but that is very important? At a time when our oceans have never been under such stress, the British Indian Ocean Territory is one of the last ocean wildernesses in the world, and tuna trawlers are lining up on the boundary of the no-take zone, trying to entice fish across into their nets. Artisanal fishing by Chagossians who have come home is quite possible in this ecosystem, but licensed fishing is not, and any break in environmental protection will lead to a huge spike in illegal fishing.”
“I have not been known for praising the Department over the years, but we are very grateful in Islington South for the support that we have been given by the Department until now.”
“I endorse what the Minister says about our hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I, too, had the great honour of serving on his Committee many years ago, and at that time the focus was very much on housing. In relation to building safety in Islington, where we all live on top of each other in flats, in 2021 there were 31 dangerous blocks of flats, which was terrifying for my constituents, many of whom were in fact private tenants, not social housing tenants. We did an audit in my office, and have been pushing. We now have only four blocks left, but it ought to be put on the record how terrifying it was over the years for those local residents, who had to pay for fire watches, could not sell their flats, and did not know what was going to happen.”
“In anticipation of this urgent question, I asked a constituent friend of mine who is currently in Kyiv what questions I should be asking the Foreign Secretary. That friend of mine will be reassured that we are increasing the amount of armaments and weapons being sent to Ukraine, because it is in desperate need of them. Overnight, Kyiv was hit 20 times by missiles, and the overwhelming question that she wants me to ask is this: what pressure can the UK Government put on the Americans to allow the Ukrainians to hit the missile sites in Russia?”