Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Conservative — Chingford and Woodford Green

Speaking in the House of Commons on 18 June 2025

Debate

Contribution

I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing. However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should. I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.

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