Lib Dems urge ministers to suspend China visit after MP blocked from Hong Kong

The Business Secretary has been urged to suspend plans to visit China, after an MP was denied entry to Hong Kong to visit her family.

Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was held and questioned at Hong Kong airport when she flew there to see her son and newborn grandson, before being sent back to the UK.

Ms Hobhouse, the MP for Bath who is a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac) which has been critical of Beijing’s human rights record, has said she believes the action was taken to silence her.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has now written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy, urging the Government to take five steps in response to Ms Hobhouse’s deportation.

While Sir Ed praised the initial support offered by ministers after news of his MP’s deportation, he claimed in a letter seen by the PA news agency that the Government had since “been silent on attempts by Hong Kong officials to undermine Wera’s account of her detention”.

“For as long as this silence is allowed to continue, we can only conclude that the Chinese authorities have a secret blacklist of British parliamentarians,” he wrote in the letter, also signed by Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Calum Miller.

Sir Ed added: “It feels like you are now more interested in saving face with China than you are in standing up for the rights of British parliamentarians.

“There is also a wider principle at stake: if we timidly accept this kind of behaviour, it will only embolden China – together with other authoritarian states – in their efforts to intimidate us.”

In order to make clear that the treatment of Ms Hobhouse was “unacceptable” the Lib Dems demanded that Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, should “indefinitely postpone” a trip to China he plans to take later this year, which was first reported by the Guardian newspaper.

The party also said Chinese and Hong Kong legislators should be blocked from entering the UK “until we have clear answers as to why Wera was refused entry”.

Sir Ed also reiterated his calls for Hong Kong authorities to release any footage or transcript from Ms Hobhouse’s interrogation, and for the Chinese ambassador to be summoned to give an account of what happened.

The Foreign Office should also publish any “relevant minutes” from trade minister Douglas Alexander’s meetings with Chinese officials during his visit to the country this week, the Lib Dems said.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We continue to press the Hong Kong authorities to provide clear evidence to Ms Hobhouse to explain why she was refused entry to Hong Kong.

“As the Foreign Secretary has said, it would be unacceptable for an MP to be denied entry for simply expressing their views as a Parliamentarian.”