HC Deb 23 December 1982 vol 34 cc1091-6

12 noon

Mr. Robert Rhodes James (Cambridge)

In the course of his duties every hon. Member who takes a personal concern for his constituents as individuals can give testimony to his experience of human unkindness and even cruelty. Thankfully, there are other and happier experiences, but the case that I raise today is one of the saddest and most difficult that I have undertaken in my six years as hon. Member for Cambridge.

It concerns the virtual abduction last December of three small children who are United Kingdom citizens—two girls, Alya and Aisha, and a boy, Yasim, then aged 6, 4 and 2 respectively—by their father, Colonel Mohammed Al Ali, a senior officer in the Dubai armed forces. They were taken from their mother, Lynne, from Cambridge to Dubai.

Mrs. Al Ali is a United Kingdom citizen who married Colonel Al Ali in Qatar in 1971, followed subsequently by a civil ceremony in Britain. I shall give only a brief outline of this complicated case and I shall not go into the legal details.

The family subsequently lived in Dubai and Cambridge, where Mrs. Al Ali's parents live. In the summer of 1981, the marriage experienced such severe difficulties that Mrs. Al Ali brought the children to Cambridge, having agreed that they would continue to be brought up in the Muslim faith. It was intended that the separation would end in divorce, and Mrs. Al Ali hoped that, given the circumstances, that would be as amicable as possible.

Last December, in line with her desire to make the separation and divorce amicable, Mrs. Al Ali agreed to the three children visiting Dubai to see their father, on the understanding that they would be returned to her in Cambridge on 2 January this year. However, on 3 January Colonel Al Ali obtained a unilateral divorce under Islamic law in Dubai, and on 23 February the Shar'iah court in Dubai gave custody of the children to his mother.

That was the problem brought to me by Mrs. Al Ali. I subsequently had consultations with Foreign Office Ministers, who advised me as far as possible to pursue the legal route both in this country and Dubai. I consulted my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner), and the solicitors Few and Kester of Cambridge, who advised me to consult Mr. Anthony Hollis QC, who is now a judge.

As a result of Mr. Hollis's endeavours, on 14 June the Family Division of the High Court of Justice ordered that the children be returned to their mother in Cambridge, the father to be given full access. However, the Shar'iah court in Dubai ruled that Colonel Al Ali could not transfer custody of the children and said: It is the paternal grandmother's responsibility to safeguard the children. She is prohibited from delivering them to any person or to have them travel outside the State … The father is prohibited from transporting the children to Britain or taking them out of United Arab Emirates without the agreement of this court. Certain aspects of that ruling are controversial. There is a straightforward and serious inaccuracy, in that the court claimed that the children are citizens of the United Arab Emirates. They are not. They are citizens of the United Kingdom and have United Kingdom passports.

Colonel Al Ali is in defiance of the court in Dubai as the children are living with him and not with his mother. In its ruling the Shar'iah court said: this does not prohibit the mother from having the right to see her children and to visit them in Dubai according to agreed arrangements with their custodian. The difficulty is obvious. The air fare to Dubai is expensive and there is no possibility of Mrs. Al Ali obtaining employment in Dubai to be close to her children. On one occasion when she made use of the access order to see her children, Colonel Al Ali was present throughout the meeting. Therefore, the access order is singularly hollow.

Throughout this side episode, Foreign Office Ministers have been helpful with their advice and assistance. I, Mrs. Al Ali and her legal advisers are sincerely grateful to them. Unhappily, this is by no means a unique case, as the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), who hopes to intervene, knows only too well.

In 1978 I dealt with the case of an American Service man who abducted his son from Cambridge and took him to the Philippines where he was outside the jurisdiction of both the British and American courts. Through the kindness of the then American ambassador, Mr. Kingman Brewster, the then British ambassador, Mr. Peter Jay, and Mr. Harold Brown, the then United States Secretary for Defence, I was able to apply moral pressure on that senior officer in the United States Air Force to return the son to the mother. That was successful. It was one of the happier episodes in my experience as a Member of Parliament: The situation that we now face does not simply relate to the tragedy that has befallen my constituents. The following is reported in Hansard:

"Mr. Temple-Morris

asked the Lord Privy Seal what help his Department can provide in recovering children removed abroad by a parent.

Mr. Luce

The only help we can offer is to try to obtain a welfare report on the child from the local authorities in the area concerned. Any question of the custody of such a child is a matter which can only be decided by the courts of the country where the child is present. The return of the child to a parent in this country can be pursued only through legal channels."—[Official Report, 27 March 1980; Vol. 981, c. 680–1.]

Is that really enough? We are talking about the abduction of minors, citizens of this country, to another country where they are outside the jurisdiction of the British courts. Yet, short of obtaining redress through the courts of the country concerned, there is very little that can be done.

I do not want in any way to be critical of the Foreign Office and I appreciate fully the difficulties involved, but it would seem to be an extraordinary and deplorable position in international law, and in terms of the arrangements between friendly countries, that episodes of this sort can occur and cause such genuine grief and distress to a parent and to the children involved.

I would not expect the Government to announce today any major change in their policy. However, I ask the Minister to consider very carefully with his colleagues whether it might be conceivable in future that, through international law, diplomatic pressure or discussions with other countries, this glaring loophole in international law and relations might be closed. I do not claim or believe that the solution will be easy or swift, but we should not tolerate a situation in which it is so easy to abduct small children, against the laws of this country and the ruling of the High Court, and to remove them to another country, so that we are then powerless in the matter. That is the dominant theme that I wish to place before the House.

I hope very much that the sad case of my constituent will end happily, but after the experience of the past 12 months the omens are not particularly good. Above all, I hope that in this House we shall be able to address ourselves seriously to the problem as a whole so that the experience of Mrs. Al Ali will not be shared by others in the future.

12.12 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer (Keighley)

I express my gratitude to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) for initiating this debate on a very important subject, and I express my sympathy for Mrs. Al Ali in the circumstances in which she finds herself.

On 24 November there was a meeting in the House of the members of the children abroad self-help group, including Mrs. Al Ali. The 11 other parents present all outlined cases of a similar gravity. They spoke of the heart-rending circumstances in which the children of whom they had been granted custody had been abducted and taken overseas. The parents had then faced tremendous difficulties in the courts. In some cases they had had to finance action in the courts, legal aid being extremely variable in its application.

Although, clearly, the Minister has been extremely helpful in the case of Mrs. Al Ali, the parents at the meeting of the group—at which hon. Members from both sides of the House were present—expressed the view that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was not assisting in all the cases to the best of its abilities. I shall give one example by way of illustration. The group was initiated by my constituent, Mrs. Jean Burt. Her child was taken to Kuwait. She has fought for her child, of whom she has custody, through the British and Kuwaiti courts, but she has been refused permission, for example, to meet her son on embassy premises. She feels—and I share her view—that that is a very unhelpful attitude.

Together with the hon. Member for Cambridge and other hon. Members, I hope to bring a delegation to see the Minister, who has helpfully agreed in principle to meet it and to discuss the matter. It came through clearly that there were instances when the Foreign Office was either unhelpful or slow to authenticate the position in this country when authentication was needed abroad.

The cases raise wider considerations, such as the need to tighten up the procedure for passport applications. I appreciate that that does not come within the jurisdiction of the Foreign Office, but it is suggested that, when children are made wards of court or when custody is granted to one parent, both parents should have to sign an application for the child's passport.

We cannot deal with such issues now, but I am grateful for the opportunity to point out that many anxious parents hope that the Minister will give a positive and helpful reply so that the tragedies that cause such considerable suffering do not last any longer than is necessary.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Douglas Hurd)

I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) has raised the case of Mrs. Al Ali and that he broadened the discussion. He and the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) accurately pointed out that there is a considerable number of such cases.

My hon. Friend outlined sympathetically, but forcefully, the circumstances of the Ali case, but I hope that he will forgive me if I start with a general statement of matters that are almost certainly obvious to my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Keighley, but which the Foreign Office's postbag shows are not obvious to a number of people who have been in difficulties as a result of their involvement with other countries.

The general statement arises from the fact that the story that my hon. Friend told goes to the heart of one of the most difficult problems that the Foreign Office faces when we deal with the misfortunes of the many British people who live, travel, work or marry abroad. The great majority of that large number of people pursue their lives abroad without difficulty or trouble. The cases that come to us are those of people who have faced difficulties as a result of another country's customs and laws, which inevitably differ from our own.

In the cases referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge and the hon. Member for Keighley we are dealing with countries which, although friendly, have laws and customs that are different from our own and derive from a different civilisation. They do not always provide the same protection or rights that we expect from our laws and which British citizens who have not given thorough thought to the matter before a difficulty arises might expect to apply to them. That is in the nature of the world of nation States in which we live. It means that there is no automatic redress under our laws and standards for British people who find themselves in difficulty abroad.

We cannot assume, though it is sometimes expected of us, any automatic or imperial authority to force foreign Governments to apply British rules or standards, or even our court judgments, to British subjects under their jurisdiction.

This means that there is no automatic way in which Her Majesty's Government can necessarily right a wrong or redress a problem simply because a British subject is involved. Sometimes we have a legal standing. I shall come in a moment to the possibilities under international law of dealing with this problem. If there is a clear legal standing, this may well provide us with a firm basis to intervene. If we have no legal standing, that does not mean that there is nothing that we can do to help. If we have no legal standing, we have to consider what actions are practicable and what is helpful within the framework of another country's laws and customs and of our relations with it.

I accept entirely that we have a general responsibility in this kind of case to do what we can to help. The extent to which we can help usefully will vary. In some countries, with some problems, we can do more, and in some countries less. What is useful and practical will certainly vary. Sometimes, where we have a legal basis for intervention, it may be a matter of formal representation. Sometimes, it may be a matter of putting in a quiet word where this could be helpful. Sometimes, it may be a matter of public protest or drawing attention publicly to what is going on, as my hon. Friend, in reasonable terms, has done today.

The specific help that is possible and helpful in each circumstance is a matter of judgment on which hon. Members are entitled to their views. We have to make up our own minds, in the light of the advice that we receive from our representatives abroad, how each case can best be handled. I accept that within the framework of the limits caused by the world of sovereign States in which we live we have a responsibility to do what we can to help.

My hon. Friend has been in touch with us about the case he has raised since the time when the difficulty began. I should like to express my strong sympathy with his constituent in the distress that she has understandably suffered. My hon. Friend dealt with the legal case and in particular with the court rulings in Dubai. He has given the House useful information on the details. I am asking our consul-general in Dubai to let me have a full report on the present position of the local court proceedings. It is clear from what my hon. Friend has stated and from our communications within recent hours with the consul-general that the situation is complicated. It is not straightforward in terms of the Dubai court and its different rulings. I should like to have a full report from the consul-general about the legal position together with information on any other aspects of the matter that he considers relevant.

Once I have this information, I shall be able to judge what actions it would be useful or proper, or might be useful or proper, for us to take with the Dubai authorities if I judge that such action would be helpful. I should like at that stage to get in touch with my hon. Friend before we send further instructions to our post. Any action we feel able to take has to be judged carefully in the light of up-to-date knowledge and assessment of the facts. We do not wish to make the situation worse, as can sometimes happen through ill-timed or abrupt intervention.

I should like my hon. Friend to assure his constituent that I am looking into the case closely with a sympathetic desire to help.

The hon. Member for Keighley has, in a reasonable manner, broadened the issue. I look forward to having a talk with him and any colleagues whom he would like to bring along, together with members of the group that he mentioned. I accept that this is a very real problem. There may be things that we can do in the light of the experiences that he mentioned. Sometimes quite minor actions are helpful in these cases. I should like to look carefully at the hon. Gentleman's suggestions within the framework that I have described.

I want to deal with the future of the problem. We work within the limitations of national laws which in all cases differ from ours. In theory, the only way in which one can solve the problem satisfactorily is to have international agreements to which Governments will give priority over national law, so that if there is a conflict there is a way of resolving it and the court order of one country can in some way be applied in another.

Two forthcoming international conventions could be helpful. One relates to child custody and the other to child abduction. As in all such cases, much will depend on whether most countries sign and ratify the conventions. When we talk about entering into international agreements on the subject, we must understand that the problems are not all one-sided. We might have questions or Adjournment debates arising because British parents have brought children to this country although there were judgments or court orders in another country giving possession or custody to another parent. When judging possibilities of international agreement, we must recognise that it is a two-way business and that not all the cases are of the kind described by my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman.

One of the conventions is the European convention on recognition and enforcement of decisions concerning custody of children and on restoration of custody of children 1980. We have already signed the convention and we are considering ratification in conjunction with the question whether we should sign and ratify the second convention that I shall mention shortly.

The European convention provides for the return of children improperly removed to another country. The other convention with possible world-wide potential is The Hague convention on the civil aspects of international child abduction 1980. The purpose of that convention is to combat the practice of international child abduction by providing procedures that will ensure that the right of custody and of access under the law of one contracting State are respected effectively in another contracting State.

The Government joined actively in working out the draft Hague convention. The Lord Chancellor's Department will issue shortly a consultative document on it. My right hon. and noble Friend the Lord Chancellor plainly felt that it was right, in such a complex matter—I have illustrated one of the problems—to draw upon the widest possible range of opinion before deciding whether this country should sign and eventually ratify The Hague convention.

I understand that the consultative document is almost ready and is likely to appear in the new year. So far only France has signed and ratified The Hague convention. I understand that a number of other countries—Belgium, Canada, Greece, Switzerland, the United States of America and Portugal—have signed but not yet ratified the convention.

It is a long process. Even if it is decided that the United Kingdom should sign after discussion on the consultative document, enabling legislation would be required, and the House will have an opportunity to go through the whole matter carefully before the convention could come into effect in the United Kingdom.

For the forseeable future we shall have to wrestle with individual cases on the basis that I have described. I am very anxious that the practices of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and our overseas posts should be as helpful as possible in particular cases. At the end of the day we have to judge what form of intervention and help is most likely to improve the position and least likely to aggravate it by appearing to intervene in the affairs of other countries. Subject to that, we shall do our best to help.