Foreign Office appoints first special envoy for Britons detained overseas

Alistair Burt will bring diplomatic clout to complex cases involving human rights violations and arbitrary detention

The Foreign Office has appointed a special envoy for British citizens detained overseas, a new role to deal with “complex consular cases” such as that of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British-Iranian dual national who was imprisoned in Tehran for six years.

Alistair Burt, the former Conservative Middle East minister, has taken on the role, fulfilling a pledge by David Lammy when he was shadow foreign secretary.