Oral evidence: UK Envoy for Complex Consular Detentions, HC 744

Oral evidence, 26 October 2026.

Witness

The Rt Hon Alistair Burt.

Chair

Welcome to today’s Foreign Affairs Committee sitting. We are hearing from the right hon. Alistair Burt, the Government’s first ever envoy for complex consular detentions. It is a role that this Committee and our predecessor Committee called for and, it would probably be fair to say, campaigned for, so we are pleased to see you today. For those watching the session, I should make it clear that the witness will not be able to discuss individual cases in any depth. Instead, we will ask more general questions about the newly created role, its remit and how it relates to existing Government structures for supporting those who are detained overseas, and I will start with that. We are pleased to see you in the Committee. We called for the role to be created on several occasions, as did our predecessor Committee, which Dan was part of as well. Will you set out what you see your new role to be? Given its terms of reference, we want to know how independent you are, how much you have to be directed by the Foreign Secretary, how much discretion you have, and so on.

Alistair Burt

First, it is very nice to see you and to say a warm thank you to the Committee, because you and your predecessor did indeed press for the role. That is a great example of parliamentary democracy and Government working together. You thought it was necessary; it was incorporated in the last manifesto of the present Government, and here we are. Without the inquiries that took place in recent years to look at what had happened in certain cases, and to talk to those who had been detained and particularly their families, we probably would not be here, so thank you very much. Where we would be, though, is with extremely hard-working consular staff all over the world, who deal with thousands of cases—roughly, 25,000 to 30,000—a year. Between 9,000 and 10,000 UK nationals or dual nationals are detained at any one time, with perhaps 5,000 new each year. The FCDO and the consular team handle a considerable caseload. That is relevant, because I work through them. This role is not similar to, or an exact parallel of, that in the United States, where the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs has direct executive authority from the President of the United States. This role, if you look at the remit, which is set out publicly, is very much based within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and it grows out of its consular activity. In actual fact, we have few hostage cases per se—by that I mean, those who might be captured by non-state actors or those who are held by a state for state bargaining purposes. We have one clear evidence of that, but there are not many. The majority of cases that I am dealing with have grown out of consular situations, which have morphed over time into what might be termed arbitrary, wrongful or unfair detention. We can talk about those. For genuine hostage cases involving non-state groups, we have a practised procedure, with special negotiators and investigators. Criminal kidnaps are handled by the National Crime Agency. The state covers those. My role, however, as set out in the remit, is particularly to work with the consular team, with three clear aims. The first is to liaise more closely and effectively with the families of those who are detained. That was one of the areas identified by the Committee as being where families felt at times that they were not up to speed with what the Government might be doing, and they wanted direct access rather more than was the case. This role is designed to help in giving those families a sense of partnership. Our work is not done against families; it is done with them, to the extent that we can do that, and we will talk about that a little more. Secondly, the role was designed to allow for challenge of the system. That is where the relationship with the Foreign Secretary and other Ministers comes in. I am appointed by the Foreign Secretary, but I am not employed by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, so I have an independent role in the—

Chair

So who employs you?

Alistair Burt

No one. I am a volunteer, Chair.

Chair

You do not get paid?

Alistair Burt

I do not get paid, no.

Chair

We saw that you got paid.

Alistair Burt

No. I don’t get paid, but this is my choice and I will briefly explain why. First, it gives me—

Chair

“Remuneration and allowances will be commensurate with grade and FCDO policy,” says term 5 of the terms of reference.

Alistair Burt

Well, they are not, because I have chosen not to be paid—it is my choice—and the reason for that is, first, that it gives me independence from the Foreign Office. There will be times when I will support the Foreign Office’s work on a particular case and may have to explain to the family that, actually, I think what the Foreign Office is doing is correct and I don’t think there is any more to be done. I do not want anyone to think, “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” So I am independent. Secondly, I was very conscious that the Foreign Office was going through quite a heavy reconstruction and has lost a number of people. I did not think that having somebody else stroll in and ask for a few grand for doing the job was quite appropriate, and—

Chair

I understand the circumstances in relation to you. At the moment, as I understand it, you will be doing this job for 18 months. Although the work that you are doing is really important, part of the challenge is also to stress-test the model to see whether this works and what changes need to be made. I would have thought that, in order for it to be sustainable, it ought to be paid.

Alistair Burt

I may not be advocating my circumstances to my successor but, for my own reasons, I wanted to do it this way.

Chair

I understand.

Alistair Burt

And I am perfectly comfortable doing it this way. It has never been an issue or bone of contention between me and the Department or anything. I have no doubt that in future it will be a paid role, and that is a matter for those who step into it in that situation. Let me come back to my point. The envoy is designed to have a challenging role in relation to policy. This is done through the position of the role; it has nothing to do with remuneration or anything else. It means that I have the ability to bring the consular teams together to discuss a case, to ask them to consider everything that they may have done, including things that they might have wanted to do but have not been able to do, and to question why. I have said to them all, “I’m not your line manager. If you have had any ideas that you thought were off the wall and did not want to bring forward, I am your cover. Come up with them to me, and we will try anything that you think might make a difference.” That is particularly relevant because, as I say, the majority of cases that I have are not new. They have been going on for a long time. That is why they are complex, that is why they are difficult, and that is why they will not be easy to resolve. So I have the ability to challenge policy. What I have said to the consular teams is that I think my role is to give options to the Foreign Secretary and to the consular Minister, which we can do only if we consider and put forward things that may not have been thought of before. In other words, in looking at a case and at, say, the bilateral relationship, it is not my job to define that the bilateral relationship is more important than a particular course of action in relation to the detainee. That is for the Foreign Secretary to decide; he has to take the decision on risk taking. What we have to do is put up to the Foreign Secretary ideas that may be different from what has been considered before. That is the degree of challenge, and that is the ability that I have. It’s particularly helped because they have chosen someone who has worked in the consular area before—as part of my ministerial duties—obviously knows the figures involved and spent five years as a Minister in the Foreign Office. So I have the background that is necessary to be able to understand the cases and provide a challenge. That is my second particular role: to challenge policy. The third aim is to work more internationally than we have done. As you will probably be aware, there is the Canadian initiative on arbitrary detention, which has now been signed by 82 different states, including the UK. There is a core group of officials of Five Eyes states who work together; I have been to Ottawa to talk to them, and I have been to Washington to talk to the people involved in their system there. My chief of staff, Martin, is with me; we travelled to Qatar last week for the Doha security forum to meet others from different countries who are involved in similar things, because of the rise in the number of arbitrary, wrongful and unfair detentions over time. That third role is there to do the international work. That is what I have been doing so far. I have been looking at individual cases and meeting families. I have had a rule that I would meet families where they wanted. We are all used to asking constituents to come here, sometimes over a long period of time, and they will say, “Mr Burt, this is the 19th time I have been at the House of Commons, and nothing has happened.” I wanted to be able to say to families, “I will come to you. Let me come and see where you are, see where you live and talk to you.” I have done that in a couple of cases, and I have kept in touch with people. Finally, looking over the next few months, I never forget that at the end of all this there is usually only one measure of success for families: they want someone back. That is the one thing that is outside the gift and control of the United Kingdom. We are not detaining people; other people are, and that is sometimes hard for people to follow in the circumstances. I have to, and I do, appreciate that, for them, it is the only thing that matters, and of course they want to see success. Secondly, I want to advance the international process, because, ultimately, it is not about looking for colleagues to rally around and support you getting someone out; it is about preventing this—it is about persuading the states that do it that this is not the way that will bring them any success. Thirdly, it is about continuing to work with the consular teams here to help develop consular practice, which they have been doing since the MacGregor review and the cases in the past to see what changes the teams can make to advance—

Chair

What is the MacGregor review?

Alistair Burt

The MacGregor review grew out of when Judith MacGregor, a former diplomat, was tasked “to look into the policy and handling of complex Consular cases” by the Foreign Secretary, and she did so—I think it was around about 2019. In a way, that formed part of the discussion that this Committee took forward afterwards. It followed the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe case and Matthew Hedges, and was designed to look at things internally, and from that the wider inquiry of the Select Committee grew. My point is that the process of continuous consular development in how they were looking at cases has been going on for some time. I am fitting into that process of them looking hard at what they do, to see, even after all the hard work they do, if there is anything they can do better. That is where we are at the moment.

Chair

This is also against a backdrop of it being so much easier for Brits to travel all over the world, Brits going independently and not necessarily with that much support or advice, and Brits not going with work, but just going on holiday everywhere. You can bump into a British citizen anywhere and they can get into all kinds of trouble. That is part of the issue, isn’t it? Consular services have needed to expand.

Alistair Burt

That is right. The vast majority of cases picked up by the consular teams do not involve the sort of state-to-state issues that some colleagues will be aware of from the cases that have been discussed. They are the normal things that happen when you go on holiday and something goes a bit wrong. Sometimes citizens have not been terribly wise when they have been abroad, and sometimes they have been duped into things—you can run through the gamut. As you say, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people go abroad from here every year, but about 28,000 of them get into some form of trouble. Of course, some of that is tragic; people lose their lives abroad, and as we saw recently over the weekend, families get in accidents. In all those cases, consular teams are involved and are active, so it is not crimes or anything like that—it is any place where people need support, and the consular teams will provide it as best they can.

Edward Morello

Mr Burt, I am interested to understand whether you are independent of the FCDO, and you do not report to the Foreign Secretary or the PM.

Alistair Burt

I think I probably do report to the Foreign Secretary, in that I have open access to the consular Minister and the Foreign Secretary at any time. We will be meeting a family tomorrow, and I will be in on that meeting. I can see the Foreign Secretary and consular Minister Doughty at any time. For certainty, I should see Stephen Doughty at least once a month, and the Foreign Secretary every two months, to run over the cases that tend to come up in Parliament where the Foreign Secretary is asked to be involved and raise to them at ministerial level. In terms of reporting, it is a looser relationship, but I am accountable to him.

Edward Morello

I understand that, and I take your point about it not being literal reporting, but regarding the source of your power and responsibility, you do not have the same sort of powers as the US special envoy. You are not a representative of the Foreign Office, so where does your authority come from when you are in the room with a counterparty—another nation—or do you not envisage being the person in the room?

Alistair Burt

The ultimate decision makers are the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. They are the people who can decide what policy is in any particular case. I have no elected authority, parliamentary accountability or anything like that. I cannot change Government policy on a case, because I have no locus to do so. The role is designed to allow me to go into more depth in cases than the Foreign Secretary and the consular Minister can possibly go. We all know that they have a range of other things to do: the Foreign Secretary covers the world and the consular Minister covers the middle east. They cannot spend as much time; I can. When I make recommendations, I hope that they will be followed, if my powers of persuasion are sufficient and the case requires it. The authority then is with the Foreign Secretary, who will decide what the policy is. That is the relationship, but my authority derives from Government. They are Government decisions.

Edward Morello

Isn’t there an inherent risk within that, though, that your recommendations are not listened to? You talked in depth about improving the relationship with the families of those detained. What if there are no results after your appointment? You make all these recommendations, policy does not change, no one who is detained is released, and your authority with the families is undermined, let alone your authority with counterparties.

Alistair Burt

I understand entirely but, first, counterparts understand very well. In conversation with our colleagues abroad, a number of things become very clear, and they will all say this—you could interview them quite cheerfully. No. 1: there is no magic bullet. No. 2: every case is unique. No. 3: by and large, they all end in a bargain when the conditions have been long-standing and difficult. No. 4: be very careful of how you handle a state that has your citizen, because there are consequences to your actions. No. 5: all families everywhere want the same thing, but no matter how they demand, it is not within the gift of a national state campaigning for a detained individual to find an immediate or magic formula for release. We all face the same thing, so I have no issue in dealing with counterparts about how difficult these cases are. On your point about getting things done, as I said earlier, I think we all recognise and work with the sense that, in many of the cases I am dealing with alongside the consular teams, of course the only thing that people want is people back. Ultimately, of course, that is what I want. In three months, I am not able to deliver that but, over time, you are right that that must happen. The Foreign Secretary and consular Minister will be able to do different things, if it is ultimately in the interests of the detainee. This is a difficult issue that you will have come across. The families may ask for things and want things done that I and the FCDO consider might be potentially harmful to the citizen being detained or to others. We have got to be free and able to say that to a family, just as much as I am able to take a case for the family to a Minister and say, “I don’t think if we do what the family say it will cause any harm to the citizen and I think maybe we ought to do this.” That is the process, but if I was in a public situation where I was in the newspapers saying one thing and the Government were not doing it, I cannot see that being comfortable for anybody. The people it would give comfort to are those who detain our citizens. An element of this will be behind the scenes. I can explain the processes to you as I would explain them to the public, but there is no automatic process where the envoy demands something and something will happen.

Edward Morello

I get that, but the Foreign Affairs Committee might want a process of scrutinising the successfulness of this role being created. You are describing a reasonably opaque system where there is only one outcome: people are released or they are not. We want to understand the extent to which you have moved the dial on that versus been unable to shift Government policy. Objectively, if I were the Government or the Foreign Secretary sitting here, I would say, “Well we appointed somebody and it is now their fault when somebody is not released”, but in reality, they are not heeding the recommendation that you are making.

Chair

Just following up on that with a related question, your terms of reference say, “With the agreement of the Foreign Secretary, the Envoy has authority to engage foreign governments at senior levels, consistent with ministerial direction…The Envoy has no independent authority to enter into or conclude agreements; all outcomes requiring formal commitment must be referred for ministerial approval.” I am confused as to whether you can engage foreign Governments and whether, if there was a need for a soft cop/hard cop approach, you would play a role in that at all, or whether your role almost UK-facing as opposed to dealing with the foreign Governments that are causing all this trouble in the first place?

Alistair Burt

You will find the relationship that I have—and the envoy will have—with Ministers will allow for the best use of the envoy’s resources at all times. I have no indication at present that there will be difficulty in me joining or setting up a negotiation if I believe it is in the interests of people being held and I can persuade the Minister to do so. I have clear evidence that that is already the case. Of course, terms of reference have to be set down, but there is a process here that involves all the people who are engaged with an individual detained. Ultimately, although getting somebody back is the most important thing, there are other things in the meantime: welfare, access and all the others things that may have come adrift when someone has been detained for some reason and something has changed—when it has lurched from a proper legal approach where the United Kingdom’s position would be to recognise the legal process in another state and only seek access and welfare issues. It is in those difficult cases where something has changed that I am currently involved. The relationship involves all of us and it’s about how we move that on. You are absolutely right that it is a co-operative process, but have I got the powers that I need to make all the suggestions that I want? Yes, I have. Do I want to use those powers to move cases along when we think that will be the best thing? As I said, in some cases the Foreign Secretary will not have been as sighted on them as I have, so there will be ready agreement to take the next step. I also have a bit more latitude than posts abroad. One issue that comes up in any discussion, whether here or in other places, is the relationship between the detainee’s interests and the bilateral relationship. In conversation with others around the world, they all recognise that within their foreign services there is an innate conservatism in posts because of their bilateral relationships. I have a little more latitude and freedom to challenge those and put those points to the Foreign Secretary. It is hard to set it all out on paper and follow it rigidly. It will all depend on relationships between the envoy and the team, but remember it is built on existing relationships totally devoted to doing the best for the detained citizen.

Alex Ballinger

I am interested that you said your big priority was getting a result for the families, but a very important part of your job is prevention. It feels to me that they might be in tension because a lot of the deals end up with bargains that might incentivise the states that we work with to do this again in future, so I wonder about your thought process and how you would deal with those trade-offs in your new role.

Alistair Burt

The advice I have from talking to colleagues around the world is that it is all case by case. The United Kingdom does not pay ransoms, and we will not pay ransoms. There are certain guidelines that UK foreign policy has already made clear. There is no suggestion that the envoy will be given any latitude to be in breach of these. In some cases it becomes clear over time, particularly in a state-to-state hostage case, that a state might be after something. Let’s look back at Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s case. Again, as the Committee knows from evidence that I gave it over a period of time, I identified that a repayment of the IMS debt would be likely to be beneficial in the circumstances. It was not a ransom. It was a debt that the United Kingdom owed, which had been internationally arbitrated upon against the United Kingdom, and I thought that it would be of assistance. There was no connection with Nazanin whatsoever, but it became clear in my conversations that it was something that Iran was looking for. There will be other circumstances when it becomes clear that something else is being sought. The judgment is, as you rightly say: in finding the bargain, is it something that puts other UK citizens at risk? This is a complex issue. Roger Carstens, the doyen of the American system and the original SPEHA—special presidential envoy—is quite straightforward that, in most cases, trying to do a deal on one individual does not set up a conveyor belt. In some places, if UK citizens are travelling in areas that are dangerous, where travel advice has been, “Don’t go”, but UK citizens are still there, there is always a risk that they will be picked up and used for the wrong purposes. The dilemma is: if you have a situation to get somebody out, do you not act upon that because of a potential risk? If there is a clear risk to others, there is no question—like a ransom payment, we cannot do that. But if there might be other opportunities for bargains, are you not doing your best for the citizen? As I said earlier, that is not what we want to do. We want to act with other states and say, “This is not the practice anyone should follow”. We have to consider how we can act collectively with sanctions and other things to prevent states from feeling this is anything that they can possibly consider. That is a harder task, but it is essential to do this.

Alex Ballinger

Can you talk through what resources you have access to? How big is your team? You have a chief of staff—nice to see him here. Do you have a sufficient travel budget and suchlike?

Alistair Burt

The short answer is yes. My team is the whole of the consular team. I have access to all of them. The SPEHA in the States have about 30 to 35 people, who take over a case. In the Foreign Office it would mean duplicating the consular team and putting them particularly around an envoy. But the majority of the cases that they deal with are genuine hostage cases, which we are not dealing with. That is why my team is the consular team, because those are the people I work with. I have no issue and no difficulty in getting access to the consular team and getting information from them both at post and at the Foreign Office. There is no issue there. I have access to the Minister, to the Foreign Secretary and ultimately to the Prime Minister in cases where he will be actively involved. There is no question of my lack of access. Resource is fine. We are in the process of building up the office, in practical terms, to make sure that Martin has sufficient admin support to help him, and that will grow in time as the caseload probably expands. There is no issue on budget yet, but I may have to have some conversation. It depends how often I am asked to go places, and that will depend on how some of the conversations and negotiations go. If I am called into active negotiations, naturally there is a cost. I have been given no sense whatsoever that there would be a restriction on any of that sort of work.

Alex Ballinger

That is very helpful. Your team is Martin, and then you have access to other people in the consular group on particular cases as and when.

Alistair Burt

Yes. I see the head of consular services almost daily. Martin will be added to in terms of administrative and quality support, because it is important that people in the team other than me think through next steps, on both international co-operation and individual cases. It cannot all be left to the two of us. I need some expertise beyond the consular teams to add to the thought processes there, so that is building up.

Chair

How many people do you expect to employ on that basis?

Alistair Burt

I do not know. If I can tell you in February, that would be easier. Certainly at the moment we are looking for two others to join us. As I say, I have access to anybody I want. There is no question of me asking for something to be done and somebody saying, “Oh, we can’t do this.” It does not happen.

Dan Carden

Alistair, as MPs we often have cases that come to us from constituents. How should MPs raise cases? Will it be in the normal way, or can they contact you directly?

Alistair Burt

I have made it clear to the consular teams that I will see any MP who asks to see me, given my background with all of you. You would not want me to turn you down and say, “I’m not going to take the case.” I will speak to any MP, because that MP has got to go back to his or her constituent to say, “I’ve seen the envoy. The envoy assures me that, at present, the consular team is handling this and that is the best thing that can be done, but he is aware of the case.” In other circumstances, I will be introduced to something new and say, “We’ll have a look at that.” I will see all MPs. MPs can contact me through the FCDO, and I am available by email. There is also a number for MPs, which you are probably aware of. I cannot give it publicly, but it is a number all MPs can call for consular assistance, and they should have no hesitation in using it to get through to the consular team. If any MP has a constituent who says, “I’d like you to talk to Alistair Burt about this”, I will certainly speak to them.

Chair

Is that like a Home Office MP hotline, which is not something that is publicly available?

Alistair Burt

It is exactly that sort of thing.

Alex Ballinger

On security clearances, Alistair, it says in your terms of reference that the envoy should have “the necessary security clearances”. You will be aware that the Committee has had long debates on this with other appointments. Could you, for the avoidance of doubt, say that you went through the security clearances before your appointment was announced?

Alistair Burt

That is absolutely right, because at the time it was being considered, all this was in the background. I have been DV’d, and I have also been STRAP-cleared, so I have had both clearances. It was very funny going through the STRAP clearances, because they said, “But you were a Minister. Did you not have this?” and I said, “No, we didn’t.” I have been through a deeper screening procedure than ever before. The Committee can be assured that it has been done, and it was done before the appointment. There was no question of that.

Dan Carden

Congratulations, Alistair, on your appointment. Many years ago, I used to be shadow Minister when you were Minister.

Alistair Burt

I remember.

Dan Carden

I was delighted that you took up a role that you are clearly so passionate about. You have covered a lot of ground on how you see the role performing and how it is different from the role of the special envoy in the United States. Have you been looking at other similar roles around the world and thinking about whether they are successful or not? Could you give us a few thoughts?

Alistair Burt

Yes. The Five Eyes core team gravitated around the Canadians—I mentioned that the Canadians published their initiative on arbitrary detention in 2021. They set out a definition of arbitrary detention—I will not read it, because you can find it, but essentially, it is a process whereby a detaining state seeks state advantage in holding a hostage from the national state of the detainee. It is quite specific in that sense but does not cover most of the cases I am dealing with. The Canadians took a lead, and there is a core Five Eyes group that Martin and I met in Ottawa recently: the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and ourselves. I have met the heads of all of those; the Canadians have a particular individual designated; the Australians do; the Americans have SPEHA; and New Zealand was represented by another senior figure. I have met them all, and when I was in Doha last week, I met one or two involved in national security in Gulf states as well. There is a network of people who are dealing with this, and their remit is quite wide. Non-state hostage taking has not gone away, and there are particular groups at risk, such as journalists and humanitarian workers. I met with IRGC, and they have a special representative who deals with their people who are taking. Those groups are particularly at risk at the moment, and the numbers have been increasing in relation to that. There are people who have been inveigled into crimes; we worry about those who are encouraged to take drugs into places, and I think that there is some international work to be done. Particularly vulnerable groups are encouraged to take drugs by international gangs and are persuaded by them that, “You’re too young,” or “You’re too old,” and “You won’t suffer any consequences.” There is a range of criminal and potential hostage cases, but the rise in state hostage taking has been noticed. I think that the Americans suffer more than most in relation to that, but it has increased international interest in this and how things can be tackled collectively. I am building that up, and we are very keen on hosting the core group in the United Kingdom in 2027, because it will give this greater prominence—we would obviously want high-level representation at such a meeting—and add to the visibility of the United Kingdom being extremely concerned about such a practice.

Chair

You talk about all these different countries, but there does not seem to be one agreed definition—there is a UN definition and an American definition and they are slightly different. It would be good if there could be a little more agreement about the concept of arbitrary detention. When you talk about it, you use a range of adjectives, and I think it would be good if we all knew exactly what we were talking about. In the United States, there is also a process of designating people. Once someone has got over the bar, they are given the assistance of that Department, but it seems to be a bit foggier in the British context.

Alistair Burt

It is. You say it is foggier; I might say it is more flexible. Privately, the Americans were not encouraging us to go down the Levinson route and say, “Set it all out,” because the moment you set it out, you invite people who are not included in that to say, “What about us?” and you have people who say, “But surely I am included in this,” and new legal cases arise. Getting wrapped up in definitions is not necessarily what you want to be doing when you are concentrating on the individual. Although they have that process, it is not foolproof.

Dan Carden

Alistair, you said earlier that up to 30,000 people may be detained abroad each year, and that if any MP wanted to meet you about a case of detention that may be complex, you would be up for that.

Alistair Burt

Yes.

Dan Carden

Will there be a way for us to know which cases you are actively working on, or are you covering them all—or able to keep an eye on them all?

Alistair Burt

In all fairness, that is one of the things I am working through. At the moment, the cases that I am dealing with, a number of which are known to Members of Parliament publicly as well as via their constituents, are fairly obvious. They are long-standing cases where something has gone wrong in the legal process; one or two of them are high profile. At the moment, it is collective judgment. A case where someone is detained in, let us say, a drugs case or something like that, will be of enormous interest to the family and to the MP, but it will not necessarily be complex. If there is access to the individual, if a legal process is being followed, if there is representation that is being picked up, because it is the individual’s—

Dan Carden

I think the Chair was also trying to get to the question, “What is complex?” Are you planning to define “complex” at some point?

Alistair Burt

I don’t know, Dan—I am being straightforwardly honest with you. It has not been difficult to identify the cases that I am dealing with and say, “These are not straightforward.”

Dan Carden

Is a case “complex” when the bilateral relationship comes into it?

Alistair Burt

That might be an element in it, but there are friendly states where there are practices that cause concern. That is why it is difficult to set out a list that says, “These are the tests that must be met in order for it to be complex.” Remember, whether it is designated complex and I am dealing with it or not, the case is still being dealt with and worked on by the consular team. We are beginning to see the significance of the envoy’s role as an escalatory step. For example, we get a case where someone has been detained and we are not sure what is going on, but we are contacted by the family and everything else. First, we seek access. If access is not given, this is not good; we should be given access. Then it goes up the scale of the consular team: it goes to the deputy head of mission, then the ambassador may make an inquiry. The next stage, of course, is that it becomes ministerial—it becomes a bilateral issue. At the point beyond the ambassador, the envoy can be brought in to say, “Look, this is going in the wrong direction. These are the things that are happening. I think we might try to de-escalate this. What’s going on?” The envoy role has an escalatory position in the consular process. It is genuinely very difficult to define what is complex and what is not. But like many things in politics, you know it when you see it—you know that something different needs to be done and that you are not getting the sort of responses that you believe you need on behalf of the citizen you are dealing with.

Dan Carden

Perhaps I could get you to think back to when you were a Foreign Office Minister. Our predecessor Committee thought this role was a very good idea and campaigned for it; it was delighted to see it. You were a Minister in the Foreign Office and in the Department for International Development for many years. Looking back, what was your experience of these complex cases, and where did you think the improvement needed to be?

Alistair Burt

I had experience of hostage cases and difficult consular cases. I was not involved in hostage negotiations, but I was involved in decisions that had to be made in relation to Linda Norgrove in Afghanistan. That was a very difficult situation. The more obvious ones that we know about—Matthew Hedges and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe—were also difficult and there has been a lot of inquiry into both, so I don’t think it is unreasonable to say something about them publicly. With Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, it was about whether there should have been greater attention paid to the debt in the first place, and what difference it would ultimately make if she was given diplomatic protection or something like that. The case was exhaustively trawled over. Matthew Hedges was held in the UAE in extremely difficult circumstances. The issue there was whether the consular process responded quickly enough to what was going on. I think the inquiry suggested that we had not moved as quickly as we could. With Nazanin, eventually the debt was paid—

Chair

The other case that was going on at the same time was a constituent of mine called Andy Tsege. He was on his way to Eritrea and was kidnapped in Yemen and taken to Ethiopia and held there. The lesson we learned from that was that it seemed to be almost impossible for the British authorities to talk to anyone in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian Government at the time. It became increasingly clear that there were many layers of Ethiopian Government, so you could talk at one level, but that had no effect in terms of the lower levels. It took a change of Government for him to be released. That was an important lesson.

Alistair Burt

I was not involved in that because that was Africa and not within my ministerial remit. I did not know about that one that much. But your explanation provides a good opportunity to expand on something I said earlier: all the cases are unique, they all involve some sort of bargain, and you have to find out who is holding somebody and why. States are different; they are not all Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In some states, the various factions that form a legitimate Government may have different aims. Sometimes it is clear from talking to colleagues abroad that they know that somebody will have been detained by one faction rather than another. There may be internal discussions going on and it is your citizen caught up in the middle of this. You are quite right that it then becomes a question of who you speak to in order to try and get something done. As I said earlier, one of the difficulties is that ultimately, in some circumstances, states will release people when they want to and when it is in their interest to do so. There is very little that you can weigh in the balance that can press people to do that unless you know who is holding them, what the bargain might be and whether it is a bargain that a Government can contemplate. In answer to Dan’s question, all of those things are what makes something more complex than someone being held in Spain for a drugs offence or a bar-room brawl, which will concern a family but where there are processes and they are all being dealt with. Something will be different about a case that has moved it into an area where—as you said, Chair—you have to find who to speak to. One of the things that the previous Committee was concerned about was whether we used enough intermediaries. I am interested in that because of the conversations I have had with people where I have been asking, “Who might we talk to about this and who has the ear of so-and-so in such-and-such a circumstance?” I think that I have licence to do that. It may be slightly outside consular territory, but I think you have designed and advocated for a role where that can be used. It is in all those areas that we will be able to try and find some structure. I do not know whether I will ever be able to answer definitively: “Have you decided what is a complex case and what is not?” However, one of the things that I am looking for over the next few months is to be able to answer one of the main questions: “What is the significance of the envoy’s role and what does it mean when a case goes there?” At the moment, it is just too early to say—beyond the broad feel that I have given you on the cases that I am already dealing with.

Sir John Whittingdale

Could I press you a little on that? I understand that you do not want to specify a tick-box approach, if you like, for something to qualify as a case that you would take up, but can you set out the broad criteria whereby a case would become appropriate for you to take up?

Alistair Burt

I will do so without specifying the cases that I am dealing with but just using them as a background. Let’s suppose someone has been detained by a state on charges of some seriousness. Consular access may or may not have been allowed, and legal processes begin and begin and begin—and nothing ever happens. Nothing is brought to trial, and the process goes from months into years. At some point that begins to look like what it is, and it is in that process that there would be concern. Can you pick that up earlier? That is really important. One of things that the previous Committee was interested in—and we are interested in—is: how soon can you sense that something has gone wrong and elevate it? That is a potential area of concern. You may have some cases where someone has served a sentence but is then still detained for some reason because something else is suggested. Well, what? Can we see it? If not, why not? That is the sort of case that would begin to look like it is not an appropriate detention that is being dealt with normally through the legal system. Those are a couple of examples. You have cases there where something has provided a reason. The United Kingdom does not have to make a decision as to whether it is a valid reason or not in most cases—Iran may be an exception. In most cases, if someone is charged, there should be a due process of law to assess whether those charges are fair or not. We are not required to make a decision about whether someone is innocent, because families may have one view and the state may have another; we do not have investigatory powers. But if a case begins with a charge and then nothing happens for months or potentially years, something has obviously gone wrong. It is not unreasonable for a state to intervene at that stage and say, “This begins to look like what we think it is.”

Sir John Whittingdale

In quite a number of the most notorious cases that are raised publicly, there has been a legal process and a sentence passed. There are then very serious doubts about the fairness of the legal process or the proportionality of the sentence. We have, for instance, Doughty Street, which is very active in representing individuals of that kind in legal cases. Do you get involved? Do you work with Doughty Street, or do you stand aside if there is a legal process under way?

Alistair Burt

This gives me a very good opportunity to say that we do indeed work with and know of Doughty Street’s work, as we do with a number of other NGOs, such as Hostage International and Prisoners Abroad. They provide both immense support and service to our citizens and helpful work to the Foreign Office. The Vienna convention covers legal processes abroad, which you will all be aware of as well, and that makes it difficult for the United Kingdom to intervene in a legal process that has been characterised as unfair, unless it is blindingly obvious. We have no investigatory powers ourselves, and that is a difficulty. We are not able to go into cases that people claim are manifestly unfair unless it is something as obvious as one of the cases we are dealing with at the moment, which has already been described in the House of Commons as “innocent tourists” who have been caught up in something where there is no legal process to give any credibility to the charges faced. Handling other countries’ legal processes is difficult, because they will raise the convention as soon as you challenge a court process and say, “Listen, the British Government cannot do this.” It is another added complication I am afraid, John.

Sir John Whittingdale

Are you able to say how many cases you are currently considering?

Alistair Burt

About a dozen at the moment, but there are a couple of multiples in that where the death penalty may be involved. I have an interest in death penalty cases, and they would come to me as well.

Sir John Whittingdale

So you will be involved in cases not just where somebody has been wrongly detained or is in arbitrary detention but where we feel that, although they may have committed an offence, the sentence passed is completely unjustified or wrong, in the case of the death penalty.

Alistair Burt

The UK is non-judgmental in relation to supporting our citizens. No matter what our citizens or dual national citizens have been charged with, they are entitled not to be tortured, or not to disappear and become incommunicado, so we need to have access to them. They are entitled to be properly treated if they have been sentenced in relation to a crime or anything else. We make no judgment on what they may have done, or anything like that. They are all entitled to those things, and I feel very strongly about that. I am a former lawyer, as many of us knocking around the place are, and I apply those principles. There are things that, if you let go of them—once you are in a position of saying, “Someone can turn the key. We can forget all about them; look what they’ve done”—it is a slippery slope. We hold to those things, and yes, we are involved in those cases.

Sir John Whittingdale

And does that include people who have been sentenced to death?

Alistair Burt

The United Kingdom’s position on the death penalty is absolute: we oppose the death penalty in all circumstances, and we will campaign against the death penalty in relation to citizens who may face it.

Sir John Whittingdale

I think you said earlier that you do not get involved in hostage cases. Is that correct?

Alistair Burt

That’s right; we have people who do that.

Sir John Whittingdale

For instance, with those British nationals who were taken hostage by Hamas in Gaza, if you had been in post, you would not have been involved.

Alistair Burt

That might be different. As a rule of thumb, such as with the non-state hostage situations that we saw with ISIS and others in times gone past, this role would not be designed for that. We have specialist negotiators who deal with that. Of course, Gaza was different, including in its scale and everything else. I have met the two Adams from Mishcon de Reya who were so enormously helpful in those cases. They suggested that I should meet some of the UK relatives of those hostages, and I have said that I would absolutely be keen to do so. Had that been going on, there would probably have been a role for the envoy, maybe in working with the families who were engaged here to ensure, on their behalf, that everything was being done. I said a little time ago that almost all these cases are unique, but we have never had anything quite like that. If there had been a role for me, I would certainly have accepted engagement with it.

Sir John Whittingdale

You also said that, during your travels, you have been to Doha. One of the things that is striking is the role that Qatar is playing in a number of disputes—it sees itself very much as a mediator. Would you work with the Qataris, for instance, if you felt that they were able to assist?

Alistair Burt

The first thing I said to my interlocuter in Doha was, “Thank you,” for the work that they have already been engaged on, both publicly and behind the scenes. I have no difficulty in working with anyone. You get problems when people say, “Oh, you mustn’t talk to so-and-so.” Some of us were around during the Irish situation and all that, and we saw how many years went by without talking to elements of Sinn Féin or the IRA and proscribed organisations. Eventually, of course, the Government did so—privately at first, and then more publicly. There have to be avenues and channels. They are not always public, and they would not always be things that I would speak about in front of yourselves, but I think you should be aware that I have got no bar. Anyone who can help a detained UK citizen—one of our mono-nationals or dual nationals—I will talk to if there is an opportunity that they will help. Talking to people does not imply a judgment about them, and it does not imply an endorsement of who they are or what they stand for. As a Foreign Office Minister in the middle east, I dealt with a variety of different regimes at different times, where their aims and ideals would not be the same as those of the United Kingdom, but nobody suggested that in talking to them I was somehow doing something I shouldn’t or devaluing the UK’s position. In these circumstances, absolutely: if anybody can help us, you bet I will talk to them. The Qataris are good at this, and there are others. Again, I wish I could say that there is a way through in every single case. I am not sure, but certainly there are people who are keen to talk in almost any circumstance, and people who may know better than our existing consular processes may uncover who might be holding somebody and why. As I said earlier, in the most difficult cases, that is what you want to get to: who is doing this, what are they after, and what is their relationship with their existing regime? In terms of finding off-ramps, always remember that the detaining party has a say in this. They have a role to play, and doing something because the British ask them to may not be the best card to play. You are looking for things where people can do what you think is right, but they feel in control of the situation because they are, and you have helped them reach that point. Sometimes, you need friends who know people slightly better than you do in order to do that.

Sir John Whittingdale

Indeed. Would you ever get involved with a non-British national’s detention, or is it very clearly restricted?

Alistair Burt

It is nationals and dual nationals. In other cases we have no locus, simply because in those circumstances a detaining state would say, “This is nothing to do with you,” and just close the door.

Sir John Whittingdale

To give you an example, the recent release of prisoners from Russia included Evan Gershkovich, who is an American citizen, but also Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is a British dual citizen, I believe. That was negotiated between the US and Russia, but is that something that you would also have been involved in because there was a British national involved?

Alistair Burt

If there is a British national involved and it is part of a wider negotiation, then yes. This has already come up. Again, it is whether, in a wider negotiation, it is helpful to include one of our citizens in that. The Americans have been good; as we know, in one or two cases they have raised UK-national interests as well as their own. I do not think there is any bar in that. But with a non-UK national per se, the United Kingdom has no locus to be involved, and we would not be able to: a detaining state would say, “Sorry, this is for us and not for you.”

Sir John Whittingdale

Finally, you will be aware that there is an all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention here—

Alistair Burt

I am aware, yes.

Sir John Whittingdale

And they are specifically raising six cases. I know you do not want to go into the names, but they are very well-known names. All of those, you would have talked to the group about and been active?

Alistair Burt

I have not been asked by Alicia so far to go in front of that group, but we are in contact and I would expect to do so. Again, I would have to be careful of who was in the room, simply because I do not have consent to talk about people’s cases beyond their individual MP or anything like that. But would I be able to discuss the cases with the chair of the APPG? Absolutely I would, on a parliamentary basis.

Sir John Whittingdale

Perhaps we might therefore have a word afterwards.

Alistair Burt

Yes, fine.

Chair

Unless anybody has any other questions, I have a final one.

Dan Carden

Maybe I can make one observation. I think everybody here is delighted to see the creation of the role and your appointment to it. We talked a little about how the FCDO and sometimes posts in country will put the bilateral relationship first and perhaps be conservative in their approaches to Governments over cases. It strikes me that your not having a staff or an office to take up more of the work that needs to be done between families and Governments and the country could make your role a bit more difficult.

Alistair Burt

It is a good question. In answer to the resource question, we just don’t know. I have not been turning away cases or anything like that. As I say, every case is handled by a competent consular team who are already doing absolutely everything they can in every circumstance. It would be wrong to give the impression that the engagement of the envoy materially changes that and somehow adds an indefinable element that will automatically make everything better or produce solutions that have not been produced before. I said right at the beginning when we were talking about my wish to be independent that I did not want anyone to say, when I supported a British Government position, “Oh, you’re saying that because you’re paid by the Foreign Office.” There will be occasions when I think the consular team are doing things absolutely correctly, and a family may be very annoyed and think that I am putting a bilateral relationship first or something like that, but I am making my judgment in what I consider to be the best interests of the detainee. I do not know how many cases might ultimately come through. As I say, where a case is being perfectly properly handled and none of us can see that the addition of the envoy makes a difference, I am not going to be involved. Where we do, I will take them on. As I say, in those escalatory situations, with the remit that you read out earlier, if post feels, “Bringing the envoy in will help us, because it is a step before we go to the Minister, and in this particular country they might be hesitant of this becoming a bilateral ministerial irritant; maybe the envoy could come in here and maybe we could see a settlement,” I would be wanting to do those. If those become huge in number, then yes, it might require a bigger staff, but at the moment my staff is everybody who works in consular. My access to consular Minister Stephen Doughty, to the Foreign Secretary and, ultimately, to the Prime Minister is not in any doubt when I see the seriousness of a case and want to get a message through. Should that become more difficult, and we simply get overwhelmed, I would expect to be able to make the right representation to those who control the resources in the FCDO and be able to respond to that. As I say, if you would be kind enough to see me on a further occasion in a few months’ time—in February or March next year or something like that, if that is within your schedule—I will be able to say where we have got to.

Chair

The question that Dan raises is one that is probably worrying all of us. We send people through the Foreign Office to another country to make friends with that country and do everything they can to increase British influence, and then there will be times when there is a disagreement because someone has been held, so you are being pulled in both directions. You have made all these attempts to make friends with a particular country and now every conversation you have with officials is about an individual who is in jail. The addition of a special envoy with responsibility can be of great assistance to those who have consular responsibilities.

Alistair Burt

Yes. It does not suit either side for ministerial conversations to be clouded by something like that.

Chair

There is that as well; it is not just staff, but Ministers. That is where you come in. The point that Dan raises is one that concerns all of us. The other thing, speaking for myself but I suspect for others too, especially given the tone of some of Edward’s questions, is that at the moment—you kind of accept this in the way that you have been answering questions—because the role is still being developed and it is so subtle, it is quite difficult for us as a Committee to hold you to account for whether you are being effective. The terms of reference are obscure and the work that you are doing is not necessarily clear, in a way that would make it easier for us to measure whether something is going well or not. It is particularly important given that you are the first person to do this job and we are looking at what can work and what cannot. As a Committee, we want to make a helpful input, but if we cannot measure what is working and what is not, it is going to be hard for us.

Alistair Burt

I understand that. I would have no difficulty in dealing with a written piece from you on what you would determine is effective and successful. If you wanted to set out at this stage what you think would be a success, I would be very happy to receive that. We are all trying to do the same thing here. You know me well enough; I am not adversarial in that sense. I am only adversarial on behalf of detained UK citizens—mono and dual nationals. How can we best serve them? You believe this role plays a crucial part, as I do. At the moment it is difficult to measure effectiveness because it is so new, but if you think the role needs to be tightened in some way and have some ideas, please let’s continue this process. You were part of the process of setting it up. That process is still continuing. You have a Government who are very interested in this and a Foreign Secretary who is not afraid to take decisions or speak about values, and you have a cross-party understanding, because the people caught up in this are all your constituents. We all want to do our best. We have a great opportunity at this stage—let’s work on this. In the meantime, trust me: I know what it is I am about, I know who I am trying to help and I know how I am trying to do it, and I have every support in the Foreign Office for doing so.

Chair

Unless there is anything else, that concludes our session on complex consular detentions. Thank you very much, Alistair Burt, for your evidence today. Can I just say, once a lawyer, always a lawyer? There is no escaping it. You say you used to be a lawyer—you always will be.

Alistair Burt

I know. It is like being a parliamentarian.

Chair

Yes, it is probably the same thing, isn’t it? If there is anything you would like to add or feel that we have not covered today, please write to the Committee and we will consider it.

Alistair Burt

The transcript will be checked for any transgressions I have made as far as the Foreign Office is concerned. They will put all sorts of red lines through it, but I hope it will be seen as okay. Thank you all very much indeed. Thanks for your continuing interest.