The former select committee chair is looking to change the way Britain deals with foreign hostage situations

Alicia Kearns, as a former Foreign Office official and an outspoken voice on foreign affairs, is an MP who understands how the department ticks.

She is also someone who does not give up easily, and with some freedom to operate since she is neither on Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative frontbench nor the Labour dominated foreign affairs select committee, a body she chaired until this summer.