Tim Roca

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It sometimes seems that the full glare of publicity is needed to make any progress with a case; I am thinking particularly of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. As hon. Members have said, perhaps there is an argument for our being much more assertive in dealing with such cases—not to look solely through the lens of geopolitics, but to consider clearly and squarely the first priority of all Governments: defending their citizens. Other countries seem to have a better record on that. Clearly, there are things that we can be doing. I am looking forward, hopefully, to a Government announcement about a special envoy of some sort whose sole role would be to focus on getting British citizens out of these horrible situations. I believe that a cultural change probably needs to happen in the FCDO as well. We need to change what Chris Patten calls “by the way” diplomacy; he mentioned it when he was with Sebastien Lai at one of our hearings. At the end of a high-level conversation between a Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister it is, “By the way, this person is arbitrarily detained by you.” That does not give the sense of urgency and importance that the case deserves. We can do much more. I am sure that the Government will be enacting the recommendations. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says because the issue is about serving British citizens and getting them out of horrible situations.