Can you imagine how bitter you would be if some foreign power invaded, killing up to 1 million people, burning down 500 churches, and forcibly moving a population roughly the size of the whole of Wiltshire to a neighbouring country? How much would your anger be greater if during the subsequent 50 years or so the invader suppressed your religion, forbade freedom of movement or thought; even imprisoned you if you happened to have a photograph of your spiritual leader in your pocket? Well, that is pretty much what has happened to the people of Tibet since the Chinese invasion in 1950/1. It’s an issue with which I have been very much concerned for many years, not lessened by my visit to Tibet 2 years ago.

I was a guest of the Chinese Government that time, they being eager to advance their side of the argument. So when I received an invitation to go to Dharamsala in the far North of India last week to meet the Dalai Lama and the Tibetans in exile there, I felt it only right to accept their invitation. (Despite the fact that it clashed with the Conservative Party Conference!) So three Labour MPs, one LibDem and I travelled to the Himalayas and had a most fascinating (if extremely hard) week of meetings with the Tibetan Parliament in exile, escaped political prisoners, those looking after the refugees as well as a host of NGOs of one kind or another.

The tale of the Tibetan people is without question a most terrible one and the actions of the Chinese all those years ago quite without doubt an absolute disgrace. I will continue to work to help them in exile, and to campaign for greater freedom and less repression within Tibet, and of course to speak up against what are without doubt very grave human rights abuses still occurring within the country.

However, my overall view is that the Chinese and the Tibetans are actually not all that far apart in their views.  Both seem to broadly accept that Tibet is an integral part of the People’s Republic of China, but that it should have a greater or lesser degree of autonomy – perhaps along the lines of the Scottish devolution settlement in this country. A solution along those lines would be the first step towards freedom, and an end to repression.

But getting from here to there may well be more difficult. The two sides are filled with mistrust and misunderstanding of each other in equal measure.  There is 60 years of history to overcome, and of course extremists on both sides who will accept nothing other than bloodshed and trouble. So my initial thoughts after my two visits is that this is an international situation which is actually capable of solution, but that with the two sides glaring at each other across the Himalayas, it will take an enormous effort to reconcile them. I will certainly do anything I can to that end in years to come. Ours is a troubled enough world, and it should be incumbent on all of us in public life to try to find ways of bringing people together and lessening Global tensions.