Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle denies he was ‘leant on’ to let China’s vice president attend lying-in-state

The Speaker of the House of Commons has denied he has been “leant on” by the British Establishment to allow representatives of the Chinese government to attend the Queen’s lying-in-state.

Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith accused the Government of “appeasing” Beijing by allowing its leaders to visit Westminster Hall to pay their respects ahead of the late monarch’s funeral on Monday, despite several British MPs and peers facing travel bans by the Chinese state.

He claimed Sir Lindsay Hoyle had been “leant on” by officials in order to avoid a diplomatic incident.

On Friday, the House of Commons announced that in line with official protocol all representatives of countries invited to the state funeral would also be permitted to the lying-in-state.

This essentially confirmed that the Chinese vice-president Wang Qishan, who is attending the funeral on behalf of President Xi Jinping, would be allowed into Westminster Hall, which is on the parliamentary estate.

However, China’s ambassador to London, Zheng Zeguang, remains banned from parliament in retaliation for seven UK parliamentarians being sanctioned by Beijing.

Sir Lindsay told the BBC “no one has been leaning on me at all” and insisted that politics should not “overshadow” the moment of national grief.

“I can say, no one has been leaning on me at all, far from it,” Sir Lindsay told BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.

“My view remains the same, that we would not welcome a reception [for the Chinese] in parliament, that’s when I stopped the ambassador, and accredited Chinese from coming into the House of Commons.

“Let’s be clear, to hold a reception in the House of Commons, when MPs and peers have been sanctioned is not acceptable, my view remains the same and nothing has changed.

“But this is not about the politics at the moment, this is about the grief that we all share, rather than being overshadowed.

“The sanction against those accredited officials remains in place, and will remain so. There is a very easy answer: lift the sanction, we can also then look to see whether we should have a reception in parliament, but this is not going to happen at the moment.”

He added: “We should not allow anything to overshadow the most important event the world will ever see, and that’s the funeral of her majesty and the passing of her majesty has brought people together.”

Former Tory leader and ex-Cabinet minister Sir Iain earlier told the Sunday Telegraph he believed “enormous pressure” had been put on the Speaker and his Lords counterpart Lord McFall, the Lords Speaker, to avoid a diplomatic incident.

He said: “It’s clear and obvious that the Establishment leant on the Speakers to give way.

“The people that win at the end of the day are the Chinese Communist Party, which is a brutal, dictatorial and anti-human rights organisation and all we’ve done is given them another victory.

“It looks like appeasement is back, alive and well in the British Establishment.”

But a Foreign Office source denied that the Government had put pressure on the Speaker.