Last minute cancellation of Sri Lanka trip angers Tewkesbury MP Laurence Robertson

Thursday, 17 April 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Tewkesbury MP Laurence Robertson was left “embarrassed” and “furious” after having to call off a Parliamentary trip to Sri Lanka at the last minute. The Tewkesbury MP and his partner, Annie Adams, were due to jet off to the Indian Ocean island last Thursday. Robertson had been asked by legendary Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan to send a delegation of MPs to his homeland on a fact-finding mission during the Easter recess. The Conservative MP was one of five MPs due to visit with their partners on the week-long trip, which was to be paid for by Muralitharan’s charity, the Foundation of Goodness. But Robertson said two Labour MPs pulled out the night before, without telling him why, and he decided to cancel the whole event. He said: “I suppose I could have just gone myself, but it was about taking a cross-party group. “The charity has lost thousands of pounds on this. I’m absolutely furious about it. “The flights were booked and the high commissioner over there did a lot of work on it. “It’s embarrassing. Everyone’s lost out.” He explained that the plan had been to visit various parts of the island and talk to different factions in the country, which has been criticised from afar for alleged human rights abuses. Robertson said the matter had been highlighted by Prime Minister David Cameron during his visit to Sri Lanka in November and he believed that led to Muralitharan wanting more MPs to visit to see the situation for themselves. The MP, who lives in Twyning, said the information gathered could have been fed back to bodies in Britain, such as the Foreign Office. He said: “It was going to be a very balanced program. “It’s sensible that we have a few MPs who know about what’s going on.” One of Robertson’s constituents, who asked not to be named, claimed the trip seemed like being “a jolly” and he felt the MP should be focusing on matters at home. But Robertson said it would have been the sort of foreign fact-finding trip that MPs regularly go on and would certainly not have been a holiday. (www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk)

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