The British son of the jailed Hong Kong media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai has criticised the UK government for failing to place conditions on his father’s release during the prime minister’s visit to China last week.

Speaking at a parliamentary hearing on Tuesday, Sebastien Lai said his father’s incarceration was not only a humanitarian and national security issue, but an issue “where our values are being locked up” along with him.

Sebastien Lai says time is running out for his father, who is in poor health. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

The remarks come after the first trip to China by a UK leader in eight years, during which Keir Starmer is said to have raised the case of the former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices.

In December 2025, Lai, a British citizen, was convicted of national security offences in December after a near two-year trial that international rights groups criticised as politically motivated and an attack on press freedom.

Weeks before the prime minister’s visit, it is understood Lai met with the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, and discussed the importance of his father’s case as well as the 78-year-old’s deteriorating health in solitary confinement.

“If it is so important then surely there should be some conditionalities put on my father’s release. The trip was a big thing to have been given away, the embassy as well,” said Lai, speaking at an all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs hearing on his father’s case.

The UK government wants closer ties with the world’s second biggest economy and approved the new highly contested Chinese embassy in London last month. While there were some tangible gains from the trip – a visa waiver, the dropping of sanctions on British MPs and peers, and investment in China by British firms – criticism came from parliamentarians questioning why the prime minister travelled to Beijing with the embassy “in our back pocket” without first securing Lai’s release.

“Time is running out for my father,” said Lai. “Surely a man who defended freedom deserves a bit of it himself.”

It is understood Lai has been told that his father’s case was raised by Starmer during his visit, although he has not yet met the prime minister or foreign secretary since. There is no indication of when his father’s sentencing will take place, Sebastien said, adding it would be catastrophic for both government’s should his father pass away in prison.

“It was a tragedy that the only thing that came out of this trip was Johnnie Walker not Jimmy Lai,” said the former governor of Hong Kong Chris Patten referring to the reduction on whisky taxes agreed between the two nations during Starmer’s visit.

Hong Kong businessman Jimmy Lai in 2020. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP

“We were told that the PM raised Jimmy Lai’s case,” said Lord Patten. “What we don’t know is that the Chinese said in response … what was the extent of their discussion?”

While a shift in urgency on the government’s behalf was noted by the head of Lai’s international legal team, Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC– who has met Starmer and Cooper – she said the strategy remains to be seen.

“We make no secret of the fact we think there’s been a strategic misstep in not putting conditionality,” said Gallagher. “It feels to us the UK hasn’t necessarily played the cards it has as well as it could have.”