Paul Cunningham And The Foreign And Commonwealth Office

EDM number 78 in 1996-97, proposed by Keith Vaz on 28/10/1996.

That this House condemns the handling by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the case of Paul Cunningham, who was pronounced 'dead' by the Foreign Office on 10th October 1996 without adequate and proper checks being carried out on the inaccurate information given by the Malaysian police; notes that contrary to the Foreign Office view, Mr Cunningham was not dead but had previously notified the British High Commission of his missing passport which had subsequently been altered and used by a heroin smuggler; considers it lamentable that Mr Cunningham and his family were subjected, through this lack of care by the Foreign Office, to enormous distress and anxiety; further considers the response by the Foreign Office once the truth was discovered to be totally unacceptable; and calls on the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs to initiate an immediate inquiry into this matter with a view to ensuring that this state of affairs never occurs again.

This motion has been signed by a total of 22 MPs.