David Lammy met the chairman of HSBC to quiz him over the bank freezing nearly £1 billion of pension savings owed to British nationals from Hong Kong, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

This newspaper has obtained an email sent in August from the deputy director of the Foreign Office's China department to a senior British diplomat in Hong Kong. The message said that the Foreign Secretary had 'raised [the blocked savings] with Mark Tucker' at a meeting between them.

The email shows that the row has escalated to the top level of government. HSBC is under growing pressure to face MPs and explain its refusal to pay out the savings owed to people who fled Hong Kong to escape a crackdown by the authorities in Beijing. 

The bank is declining to hand over the money on the orders of the Chinese government.

The email added that Catherine West, minister for the Indo-Pacific region, was 'keen to take up' the issue with the bank, which has its headquarters in the UK but makes most of its money in Asia.

HSBC's chief legal officer Bob Hoyt held a follow-up meeting with Foreign Office officials in September to discuss how the issue could be resolved.

Our revelations will ramp up pressure on the Government to find a solution so that victims can gain access to their savings. Phil Brickell, a Labour member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee urged ministers to act.

'Real, hard-working people in the UK are being unfairly denied access to their own money.'

The Foreign Office confirmed to The Mail on Sunday that the pensions issue had been raised with the Hong Kong government but did not elaborate on the details.

'We continue to raise this issue with the Hong Kong government and Chinese government. We have urged them to facilitate early drawdown of funds as is the case for other Hong Kong residents who move overseas permanently and have made clear such discrimination is unacceptable,' a spokesman said. 

HSBC is sitting on £978 million of savings owed to tens of thousands of Hong Kongers living in the UK after they escaped a crackdown on pro-democracy activists by China. Exiles say HSBC's decision to freeze their savings has left their finances in a precarious state.

The bank claims it cannot pay out the money due to a decision by Chinese officials in 2021 not to accept British National (Overseas) passports for identification. This stopped tens of thousands of savers from withdrawing their pensions early if they resettled abroad.

But campaigners and MPs want the bank and the Government to push for that decision to be reversed, arguing it has no basis in law. Tory grandee Lord Patten, who served as the last British governor of Hong Kong before the city was handed over to China in 1997, is also backing the campaign.

A HSBC spokesman said: 'Hong Kong legislation sets the conditions under which a member may withdraw his or her pension benefits. The conditions for early withdrawal are a matter of law and are not set by the trustee company.'