The families of Lisa Brown and Jagtar Singh Johal have been let down by the Foreign Office, says the area’s MP.
Martin Docherty-Hughes told ministers huge improvements need to be made to help UK citizens who are experiencing trauma abroad.
The SNP MP paid tribute to the relatives of Lisa Brown and Jagtar Singh Johal and cited them as examples of where the UK Foreign Office has “let down” local families.
Lisa Brown, from Alexandria, was 32 when she vanished from her home in Spain in 2015.
She was reported missing after failing to pick up her son Marco from school on November 4 and her loved ones have been battling for justice ever since.
Jagtar Singh Johal, from Dumbarton, has meanwhile been held in arbitrary detention in India for more than four years without formal charge.
Around 1,000 Sikhs from across the UK protested in Glasgow in a bid to urge Boris Johnson to have talks with Indian leader Narendra Modi about Jaggi’s release as the two met for COP26.
Their families have both been receiving support from the MP, who has challenged the UK Government to drastically improve the consular services of British citizens who have either been murdered, died in suspicious circumstances, imprisoned, or tortured overseas.
A report published by the APPG on Deaths Abroad, Consular Services and Assistance details evidence provided by 60 families across the UK - including those of Lisa Brown and Jagtar Singh Johal - calling for radical changes to the current service provided by the Foreign Office.
Speaking in the Commons, Martin Docherty-Hughes MP said: “I have to be very clear — there has been a lack of political leadership on this issue.
“I have lost count of the number of prime ministers, foreign secretaries and under-secretaries we have had, not only in Jagtar’s case but in every other case that the report mentions. That demonstrates the issue of political leadership.”
SNP MPs - including Hannah Bardell, MP for Livingston, who secured the debate in Parliament - have been leading calls for a right to consular assistance to be enshrined in law.
The local MP added: “I pay tribute to the families, to Lisa Brown’s family and to Jagtar Singh Johal’s family.
“What all the families in the report understand is the requirement to consider the enshrinement in law of the right to consular assistance.
“I hope the Minister for the UK Foreign Office will understand that it comes from a place of wanting to work together, so that no other family is left without access to appropriate support, that no other person is left in a hospital dead with their family having to have crowdfunders to bring them home, and that families are met if they are going to visit someone in prison, whether it be in the Republic of India, Iran, Australia or the United States.”
We contacted the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office on several occasions asking for a comment but we did not receive a response.
