Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 23 Jun 2026 · Defence Spending and Readiness · Hansard source

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  All these things are a great shame when we look back at the past, but no matter how much we fight the issues of the past, we always lose, because we cannot alter them. What we have to do is learn the lessons of the past. By the end, the previous Government had learned the lessons, were committed to spending more, and were spending more and doing more. The sad part is that the new Government have come in and there are differences, but I am not going to focus on that. We learn from our past and from our mistakes. If we do not do that, we are determined to repeat all those mistakes. This time, it may be too late for us to correct them. This should not be a debate at each other, but a coming together of this House to require that this Government finance defence at the necessary level. I am one of a number of hon. Members who are old enough to remember that, when we finally faced the threat of the Soviet Union, which increased the number of medium-range missiles threatening targets in Europe, we stepped up. Spending went to 5%. That was tough, but we did it. All of NATO did it. No one was lagging. Germany stepped up, even though there were massive crowds on the street saying no. We saw off that threat, because the Soviet Union realised that we were ready. The Government should appeal across the House for support for a higher level of spending. Three per cent in this Parliament should be de minimis. It is not enough: we should be at 3% before the end of this Parliament, with a commitment to rise at least to 4% or 5%. Other countries in Europe would in the past have looked to us for leadership in a crisis like this, but they are finding that they cannot do so, because we are behind them on spending and in the determination to defend NATO and our home countries. If we want to lead, we have to show the way through our financial commitments. I therefore urge the Government, this evening and beyond, to hear what the Ministers who sadly resigned from the Government have said to them, and to hear what the House in general terms wants. We are ready to commit that spending, we will work to find the savings and we will give support to those who are dedicated to defence. What we must never do is forget the lessons of the past and be unready for the greatest threat since that faced by those brave men and women who died for us to have freedom back in the 1930s and 1940s. It would be a shame if we forgot why they died.

• 18 Jun 2026 · Human Rights: Supply Chains · Hansard source

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  It is always a blessing to have you chairing a meeting, Mr Dowd. It is particularly a blessing today, as we would not have this debate were you not here, so thank you. I have been active on this subject for some time. I have been sanctioned by China because of the issues that we raised over modern-day slavery. I remind Members that it was the Centre for Social Justice, which I set up, that first published the paper “It Happens Here”. We were then able to get the Government to initiate the Modern Slavery Act—the first legislation of its kind in the world. We were all very proud of that Act, but sadly it really has no enforcement. Government and suppliers have no obligation to check. They are supposed to make a declaration, but we know that many of those declarations are in fact deliberately false—they know they will not be checked, and therefore they do not have to worry about it—so while the Act is great, it is rather toothless. I congratulate the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) on securing this debate and making such a good opening speech. I will not repeat all he said, although I agree with so much of it. In the limited time I have, I want to focus on certain issues. First, the reality is that slave labour is not only a massive punishment and a human rights abuse on a scale, like genocide, wider than anything else; it is also commercial. Countries such as China use slave labour as a way to undercut markets, compete unfairly and drive businesses out of business—particularly here in the UK, as we have experienced. One of the big issues is the net zero determination and what we wish to do to clean up the environment because the biggest providers of solar arrays, wind farms and the technology are, in fact, based in China. The big problem is that the Government have two conflicting requirements. Quite rightly, they want to get on with cleaning up the environment; but they also know that if they cannot buy from China without a clear set of supply chains that are without slave labour, that will cost more money. That impacts the pace and the way in which they can provide a cleaner atmosphere. We have to say that one thing is more important than the other, and that is the human rights of those people being abused in places such as China. At the end of the day, we cannot go to bed at night with any grace if we say that we put up more solar arrays and wind farms but those were supplied by factories where people may have died, been abused, or had their lives and families destroyed. We know that China, in the case of Xinjiang, is committing a well-established genocide on such a scale that children are now in forced education camps. Millions of adult males are in forced labour, many producing the polysilicon that goes into arrays made in and around Xinjiang. The women, unbelievably, are being forcibly sterilised. The birth rate in Xinjiang has gone off the edge of a cliff. China is going to eradicate an ethnic group; it is very much the policy of the Chinese Communist party to have Han Chinese in charge of China, and nobody else. It also makes money from the fact that people in slave labour, as I said earlier, are producing goods much more cheaply than anyone else can. Look at what we are not doing: we are not checking supply chains. On this issue, I have been in opposition to whatever Government have been in power—neither the last Government nor this one have made a big effort to check those company declarations. I have had responses from this and the previous Government saying that they were doing their best and trying hard. It is not good enough to do one’s best or try hard; the question is: what is the best? Look at what is happening in other places. I point to the USA’s Act, which basically outlawed all use of slave labour anywhere in supply chains and put the means in place to check that. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States creates a rebuttable presumption that goods produced wholly or partly in Xinjiang, and other places using slave labour, are made with forced labour unless importers can prove otherwise. That is how it is done—we tell importers, “You must now prove to us that you have avoided any slave labour in your products. Failure to do that has you banned and fined.” It is immediate. They do not simply sit there saying, “Well, other bits of Government are helping us”, because to be honest, the Government do not have the ability to check themselves. They do not have what it takes, but there are companies out there that do this regularly. I have met the representatives of one such company. Forensic companies such as Oritain, based in New Zealand, specialise in using forensic science to check where goods were made. From that, it knows the footprint and the likelihood of slave labour. It will immediately investigate a company’s declaration and can challenge it. If it challenges it, the US Government will ban and fine the company. That has led to a whole rerouting of supply chains across China for the US market. Sadly, it has also meant efforts have been redoubled to put slave labour products into markets such as the UK, because it is known that the UK is a soft option. When we look around the countryside of the east of England and elsewhere, we see a load of arrays. I would bet that the vast majority were made with slave labour because no checks were carried out. The reality is that we have to do more. The Modern Slavery Act 2015, which I greatly supported, has now become toothless. Section 54 needs to be upgraded. There needs to be a punishment. Government need the ability to prosecute immediately, and supply-chain checks must take place. I end with this. The reality is that the legislation is a mess. With colleagues on both sides of the House, I successfully tabled an amendment to the Great British Energy Act 2025, to ban the use of products made with slave labour. It was a classic rebellion, and we got it done. Yet when I checked, I saw that next to nothing had resulted from it. There is that offence in the legislation, but the Government have done nothing to call out any of the companies still selling those products. We put a similar obligation into the Health and Care Act 2022, but next to nothing has been done on that—no declarations and no speeches to Parliament about what the Government have done. We cannot go on addressing this issue in a piecemeal way: it has to be done across the board. That is why I support the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green in his call for the Modern Slavery Act to have teeth and for section 54 to be implemented. Any business that, having been checked properly, is found to have misdeclared itself and its supply chain should be punished—it should be banished from importing to the UK and face financial and even criminal penalties. That way, we will stop this practice.

• 16 Jun 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  It is always a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), who talks common sense most of the time she gets up, which may be one of the reasons why she is still on the Back Benches. If we listened more to those who know something about things, rather than talking as though we know things, and saying things that are invariably wrong, we in Parliament would obviously be better off. The greatest threat we face is that bad actors out there are using this level of technology to get across to countries such as the UK. This is not a party political point, because both Governments have failed to face up to it to the degree that they should have—that is why this Bill is welcome, but it is not everything, as the hon. Lady says—but we think that we can treat the bad actors as though they were normal actors in a commercial sense. However, China is using slave labour to undercut markets and regularly puts IOTs into cars. It gets away with it because we think that we need China more than it needs us. That is the big problem. The hon. Lady is right to raise it, and I congratulate her for again making an excellent speech. I will in due course beg to move my amendment on anti-refoulement, because although this is a good Bill, some bits are missing and others have been skated over. This is one area about which we will come, again and again, to regret that we had not done more. The issue is British citizens abroad ending up under the rule of Governments that do not believe in the concept of freedom before the law, in a fair trial as part of that process, or in habeas corpus, which is an English common law right that has gone around the world. The amendment seeks to prohibit data sharing with jurisdictions that cannot guarantee a fair trial. It maintains the current legal approach, which generally restricts the sharing of sensitive information outside the EU. Currently, information sharing of a type enabled by proposed new regulation 6, which is in clause 18, is prohibited outside the EU. The proposed new regulation is therefore weaker than what is going on in the European Union. Sadly, it paves the way for such sharing, rather than restricting it. The amendment therefore seeks to prohibit information sharing with places where the Secretary of State believes that a fair trial simply cannot be obtained. It would require the Secretary of State to consult civil society and human rights experts to identify jurisdictions—this would apply universally and not just to China, although China is a big player in this—where the right to a fair trial cannot be guaranteed, with all decisions subject to mandatory annual reports to Parliament. That is important: Parliament should be part of this and make decisions about whether it agrees with the Government. Beijing is a good example. It has frequently used seemingly legitimate criminal complaints to target dissidents. Proposed new regulation 6, if unamended, therefore raises transnational repression risks rather than solving them. The amendment is necessary to close that loophole in the Bill, which currently fails to anticipate politically motivated requests from such totalitarian states. I often say that we should stop speaking about countries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea as authoritarian states. They are not authoritarian states; they are totalitarian states. Why do I say that? Because everything in those countries is owned and run by the state. Authoritarian states are often dictatorships, but they are not the same thing as totalitarian states. They are brutal and nasty, but totalitarianism is a complete system. This is about totalitarian states. Proposed new regulation 6 is predicated upon helping other Governments obtain justice. The argument of my amendment 3 is that—quite apart from the transnational repression risks—justice as we understand it cannot be served in a country where essentially there is no rule of law, no right to a fair trial, and a judicial system that serves the party. As I often say, it is a matter of pride that perhaps the greatest gift this country has given to the world is the concept of freedom in the face of the law. That is the point I made earlier: habeas corpus came from English common law and dominates so much of the free world’s thinking. It was not until the 1970s that some countries in Europe actually practised habeas corpus, so it was not just the case that it was produced by Britain; it was also owned by many other countries. That is what is at risk here, and we should be the greatest defenders of that right to a fair trial anywhere in the world. Let us take a few of these countries as examples for why amendment 3 is needed. Let us look at China. Requests were made by authoritarian states—totalitarian states in this case—regarding Interpol notices, as has been the recent pattern, and this happens a lot. The People’s Republic of China and other countries have a troubling recent history of very significant transnational repression, hounding dissidents in the UK and cloaking their political persecution in superficially legitimate criminal charges. The PRC is not alone in requesting information on political opponents in the UK, and it does it a lot. We can confidently speculate that China will make requests of the UK almost immediately should the Bill be passed. Let me look at the single biggest case that confronts us in China at the moment: that of Jimmy Lai. He is a British citizen. I cannot tell you, Madam Deputy Speaker, how endlessly in debates, even under the previous Administration, we had to fight to get the Government to state that he is a British citizen, not a dual nationality citizen. He is a British citizen, is proud to be British, has been British all his life and has only ever owned a British passport—he has never been a Chinese citizen with a Chinese passport. The special rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, in her 2024 and 2025 reports, specifically flagged concerns that evidence obtained through torture is still widely admitted in Chinese courts. She also expressed concerns in late 2024 regarding the case of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, noting that evidence allegedly secured through torture in mainland China was and is being used in the trial. On 15 November 2024, the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention published its opinion that Jimmy Lai is “unlawfully and arbitrarily detained” and called for his immediate release. The proposed new regulation will not go far enough and therefore does not deal with this, and that is what my amendment 3 is all about. On the risk of extradition to China from safe third countries, currently the UK does not have a bilateral extradition treaty with the People’s Republic of China, and it has suspended its bilateral extradition treaty with Hong Kong—something that many of us were calling out for at the time in 2020. In 2025, proposed changes to the Extradition Act 2003 would allow co-operation between UK and Hong Kong authorities on a “case-by-case ad hoc basis”. The trouble with that is that it begins to open the door. The risk of sharing NIS data is not confined to the physical removal of individuals; it also poses a profound threat to national security and the safety of the diaspora within the UK—how often have we heard about that? These totalitarian states not only seek to extradite dissidents, they seek to silence them through transnational repression and to compromise the UK’s own digital resilience. Sharing NIS data with an adversarial jurisdiction is akin to providing a road map for a state-sponsored cyber-attack. For dissidents and human rights defenders living in the UK, NIS data can be used to demonise and de-anonymise their activity. This information is frequently used to identify and harass family members remaining in their home country, to conduct targeted phishing and surveillance against the individual’s private devices, and to coerce the individual into becoming an informant under the threat of criminal charges based on the shared technical data. Let me deal with another case: that of Ryan Cornelius in the United Arab Emirates. Ryan Cornelius is a British citizen who has been arbitrarily detained in Dubai for 18 years, despite well-documented evidence of an unfair trial and inhuman treatment. Ryan’s detention has been found to be arbitrary by the UN working group on arbitrary detention. His case arose from a high-profile financial dispute involving loans connected to a major Dubai development project. Although he and his associates had reportedly complied with restructuring agreements with Dubai Islamic Bank, he was arrested without warning, transferred by plain-clothed officers to a police facility, where he was held incommunicado, denied access to a lawyer and subjected to aggressive interrogation. During this time, he was coerced into signing documents in Arabic—a language he does not understand—under the false premise that this would give him his release.

• 20 May 2026 · Defence Readiness · Hansard source

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  It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). He will recall that I voted for him to hold his position, and I will come for payback later on. It is also very good to see my area neighbour, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), in the Chamber. I will listen with great interest to what he has to say, and I hope that the Labour party finds another use for him through its talent spotting, if I can put it like that. Before coming to the topic of defence in this debate on the Address, I want to touch on another issue that has arisen. My brilliant assistant, Alice Stuttaford, spotted yesterday something that tells me that we have a slight problem with the Government’s commitment to the legal position on the use of slave-made products by Great British Energy. In answer to a question from Politico about whether they were implementing what, thanks to many Labour Back Benchers and many Opposition Members, is the law—my amendment passed and became law—and applying it to the producers as well, a spokesman for the Government said: “We have strict procurement controls in place to ensure that any solar panels”— it is not just solar panels, but all elements to do with net zero— “are free from forced labour, as far as possible”. That is not the law. There is no caveat to the law. Everybody rebelled on the Labour Benches, and Opposition Members also voted for it, and we implemented an absolute, which is that it is not for Great British Energy to use any products that have been produced using any kind of forced labour. I know that this is not the speciality of the Ministers present, but I ask them to raise it, because I also saw that the Gracious Speech contained very peculiar commitments to using immigration as a way of tackling forced labour. That is not good enough. We need to reinforce the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and make it an offence for any company to import or use any items or goods that were made using forced or slave labour. That should be a unifying factor across this House, and I do not know why the Government have now watered down their intention. Madam Deputy Speaker will know this full well as she has been party to it: this cause goes to the root of one of the issues I will come on to, which is the threat that we face from places such as China. If we go on strengthening such places by buying their slave-made goods, then we do our own defence no good at all. What is needed is a wide-ranging commitment through the Modern Slavery Act to ban all products made by slave labour. This debate is on defence, and we are now facing the greatest threat to our freedom across the western world since the 1930s. I do not believe that the threat is less than it was during the cold war; in a way, it is a greater threat, because at least during the cold war we already knew and recognised what war was about, why we had to be prepared for it, and what we were defending. We have lost lots of that. Many people out there do not fully understand how the threat has changed and grown. The reality today is that one shipyard in China makes more naval ships than the whole of the United States in one year. China has over 130 times the capacity to build naval ships than Europe and America have at the moment. I say to people who do not think that this is a threat: do not necessarily listen to what those totalitarian states say; go and have a look at what they are doing. They are producing and preparing for war. I am not, I hope, scaremongering, as I believe this to be a reality. China is reinforcing and supporting Russia in its brutal invasion of Ukraine. Without China, Russia could not have continued this war. Russia was running out of ammunition, but China brokered an arrangement with North Korea, which now produces millions of rounds of ammunition for Russia, and even provides soldiers who, once used, abused and wounded on the battlefield, are then assassinated so that they are not a source of shame when they go back. This is about totalitarian states. The Government should not use the phrase authoritarian states. They are totalitarian states, and there is a difference. Authoritarian states are about dictators and others who have risen to power and at some stage have to be brought down. Totalitarian states are ones where every element of how people live their lives is controlled, run and spied on—with people arrested as a result—by the state organs, regardless of who is in charge. Communism is the key here; those states are communist. There are other extremist versions of such states. Iran is part of that alliance. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is an extremist organisation, and I do not understand why the Government have failed to proscribe it. It really is high time, as it is present in our country stirring up violence and hatred. We should deal with that and say it is a criminal act for the IRGC to be here. To that extent, how the Government respond to this challenge in defence terms is critical. I am one of those people who has argued since the end of the cold war that we made a mistake in reducing defence. Nobody listened to me then, and there is no reason why they should listen to me today, but I tell the Minister that I am going to keep on saying it. I hope Members on the Government Benches and others will ask that question. I know what the restrictions are, and that the Treasury dictates to Departments and says, “We can’t afford this. We won’t do it.” People at the Treasury are the last people in the world to ever recognise a threat to anybody, at any time, from anything. The Treasury continues as if all was sweetness and light because it does not want to make any changes. It is for Defence Ministers to make the point about the threat. Why in heaven’s name have we not published the defence readiness Bill? It is the Ministry of Defence’s greatest weapon in the fight with the Treasury. Every other Department—Health or whatever—know what I am talking about. It is always a fight, but it has to be, because we are facing what is likely to be our greatest threat since the 1930s. To face that threat, Ministers need to make it clear to the Treasury that we cannot skirt around this any longer; we have to spend that money and commit. The Government have talked about being committed to 3% in due course, but that will not be enough. When I was serving, we were committed to 5% of GDP to face down the Soviet Union. We will need the same again, because I believe we are about to face an even greater threat. Ministers will know that the Conservatives will give them our full support if they are prepared to fight for that. Let us get the defence investment plan published right away—that is really important. Those totalitarian states do not face the restrictions that we do. We have those restrictions for a good reason: we believe in democracy. But freedom is the most expensive thing that we will ever try to own, and it can be taken away with just a wish. The Government’s job is to stand firm and say that the No. 1 priority is to defend the realm from threats, internal and external. If we do not do that, we will have failed in our obligations, failed the British people, and failed our allies and friends, who look to us for leadership. We can only lead, however, if we have the equipment to show our allies that we have the endeavour. When we took the Falkland Islands, we had 53 frigates and destroyers available to us. We could not do that today. That is the measure of how far we have gone under both Labour and Conservative Governments. The Ministry of Defence must tell the Government, “Enough is enough. We are going to publish this Bill and the defence investment plan—and, by the way, where is the China audit? Let’s publish that too”.

• 13 Apr 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  The test of bad legislation is always whether it contains carte blanche Henry VIII powers—in this case in a thin and flimsy Bill—that grant the Government the right to do anything they like with the legislation, even after it has passed. That made it a dog of a Bill, but now the Government have paused it—or returned it, or U-turned, or whatever they are calling it. The Chagossians’ rights lie at the heart of this matter, so can I take the Minister back to the statement he made about the Chagossians? He talked about them wanting to come to some conclusion about their ability to return to the islands. The BIOT Supreme Court ruled that section 9 of the British Indian Ocean Territory (Constitution) Order 2004, which barred the right of abode to Chagossians, was illegal, so why have the Government mounted an appeal against that, to ensure that it is illegal for them to go to their islands? Does he think the Chagossians have no right to go to the islands, or that they do have a right? Which is it?

• 18 Mar 2026 · Freedom of Religion or Belief in China · Hansard source

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  I owe you an apology, Ms Jardine, for arriving late to the debate. I am grateful for your chairmanship, and grateful to be allowed in, having been delayed. I congratulate the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) for securing the debate, and for being stalwart in all these issues about freedoms and rights of worship. I bow before her greater authority in this matter. Much of what I wish to say has already been said. Therefore, in the short time available, I will try to cover the issues that are at stake. We have talked consistently about the problems in China. There are of course many other countries in the world where Christians and Muslims are persecuted, but it is in China that the collective persecution becomes an absolute, state-inspired problem. The nature of what has been discussed already is quite remarkable. Look, for example, at the programme of Sinicisation of religion by law, and by deliberately abusive behaviour. Crosses must be removed from churches and domes, and the minarets of mosques must be demolished to make them look more like Chinese buildings. Pastors and imams are told to focus on religious teachings that reflect socialist values in line with those of China. Newly annotated versions of core religious texts, including the Bible, the Quran and others, have been issued back to places of worship, and what is left of the churches are regularly ordered to replace images of Jesus with pictures of Xi Jinping. Blatantly, boldly and in full view, China does not want to have any kind of worship beyond the worship of the communist, and in particular of Xi Jinping. In March this year, China approved a new law that codifies ethnic assimilation, in contravention of China’s own constitution and of international law. It mandates that all children must be taught Putonghua before kindergarten and—interestingly—that they will therefore avoid all aspects of other religions as a matter of doctrine. That brings me to two elements that I want to focus on. First, as has been said well by hon. Members in this debate, the Uyghurs are suffering a genocide. There is no question about it. The Chinese authorities find them a deeply troublesome group. They are not Han Chinese, and that is what most Chinese policy is about. At the core of the dislike of the Uyghurs lies their Muslim belief. What astounds me so often is that we know about this. We have campaigned on it. I was sanctioned because of the campaign on the Uyghurs. It is interesting how easily people have been allowed to forget the issue and not raise it. I would love all the mosques in the United Kingdom to raise the plight of the Uyghurs, because it is the right thing to do. I would love Christian churches to constantly talk of the plight of the Uyghurs. The Uyghurs have, in many respects, become forgotten. The persecution of the Uyghurs is appalling. Many hon. Members have talked about the nature of the re-education camps. When did we last hear about the concept of re-education camps? In Nazi Germany. It is astonishing. The women are persecuted and raped, and are now no longer having babies. The population of the Uyghurs has now collapsed because they are being forcibly sterilised, and the men are going off to forced labour—it is so obvious; millions have gone. By the way, to those who like the free market, I should underline the point that forced labour completely undermines the free market. How can anyone compete with a country that uses forced labour on a grand scale to make products and drive out competitors? There is, in every respect, an absence of tolerance to Christianity, Islam and Buddhism—we too often forget about the persecution of Tibetan Buddhists, nearly a quarter of a million of whom are in forced labour camps, rather like the Uyghurs. What is happening to the Uyghurs is a terrible travesty, but I also want to speak about Christianity and Christian churches. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I have a huge amount of time for, raised the issue of the role of the Catholic Church. I have to say to him that, since I set up the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, we have tried to extract from the hierarchy in the Catholic Church—I say this, by the way, as a Catholic—the text of what it agreed with the Chinese Government, and we have never been able to. It has never been published. We have never been able to refer to it. All we are asking for is that it be laid out in the open, so that we can see, first of all, whether the Chinese stick to their arrangements and, secondly, whether there was any provision for other Christians in China.

• 23 Feb 2026 · Industry and Exports (Financial Assistance) Bill · Hansard source

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  Madam Chair, it is a great honour to speak to this packed Chamber on my amendments, and it was good of you to call me so soon—there are so many people ready to speak. I rise to speak in support of amendments 1 and 2 that appear in my name and those of my colleagues and friends, and it is my intention to press them when the time comes. Why is this necessary? In this particular area, I refer to the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) as my hon. Friend, because she has been stalwart in campaigning against slave labour and forced labour. I bow to her because of her stalwart support. As she said of the amendments, it is vital to safeguard UK export finance and ensure it is legally protected from any exposure to forced labour and human trafficking. We have been through this issue again and again, and I just hope the Minister, who has been a stalwart supporter of this drive, can give me a very clear sign when he responds to the debate that the Government want to adopt the amendments, which are critical to cleaning up what has essentially become a supply chain too often full of the products of slave labour. I am in favour of the Bill, not against it. In principle, I think it is right basically to raise the limit to £20 billion and the aggregate limit to £160 billion to account for inflation. However, it is also absolutely right to ensure that this increased financial firepower is not used inadvertently to fund modern slavery. Together, the amendments would ensure that, if the Secretary of State has reason to believe that modern slavery is present in a recipient’s supply chain, the permitted financial assistance for that export drops to zero—in other words, no finance. For those who may not have followed what has been going on, we had to amend the original Health and Care Bill to stop slavery being used in relation to the NHS. Last year, as the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston said, we had to amend the Great British Energy Bill. The Government decided to vote down that amendment, but the Bill was amended in the Lords. Many Labour Members suddenly realised that they were going to be asked to vote in favour of slave labour in the supply chains of Great British Energy, and they said no. The Government then decided not to oppose the amendment, which was absolutely the right thing to do in the end. However, I wish we had not had to go through all of that. Surely there is a moral purpose in all this, which is that if we have any suspicion that a product or a supply chain has elements of forced labour—we know China does it endlessly, and Russia and other countries use it—we should not allow that. When we compare ourselves with the United States, the reality is that its Governments, no matter who is in power, have a very simple rule: it is the responsibility of companies importing to check their supply chains, and the excuse that they did not know or could not find out is simply not good enough, so they are prosecuted if there is slave labour in the supply chain. The amendments are all about trying to shut down another possible loophole, in this case on finance. We believe that UK Export Finance is currently exposed to forced labour. For instance, in 2022-23, it supported businesses involving a subsidiary of AVIC—Aviation Industry Corporation of China—a company sanctioned by the US as a People’s Liberation Army entity. This is something that nobody, if they really ask themselves, on either side of the House wants, and I am sure that the Government do not want it, so the question is: how do we shut this down? I want to quote a couple of really quite senior people in the Government who have spoken about this in the past. The Prime Minister has said: “We’re not going to raise human rights standards if we ignore it in trade.” He said: “It shouldn’t be up to the consumer…to research every product and work out every ethical aspect of it.” I say yes, because of course it is impossible to do so as an individual. When I had a row with Amazon and other companies, I said, “Why don’t you make it easy to find out what the route in your supply chain is? People don’t know where something was made until they actually have the product land on their desk. Why can’t they see that on their computers and be able to identify that?” However, those companies do not want to do that, because they think people may not buy the products. In May 2025, when he was the Trade Secretary, the right hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds) said: “We are very clear on our position regarding the abhorrent practice of modern slavery. It is a terrible crime which we are determined to eradicate. I assure you that this Government takes this issue seriously and is continuing to assess and monitor the policy tools available to ensure we can best tackle forced labour in supply chains.” The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Ed Miliband), has also said that “our clean power mission should not come at the expense of human rights…This involves confronting human rights abuses, including modern slavery, in energy supply chains”. That is absolutely right, although I do not understand why it took so much for us to get those on his side of the fence to agree, finally, to take such abuses out of the supply chains for Great British Energy, given his stated views.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Standards in Public Life · Hansard source

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  I do not doubt the right hon. Gentleman’s desire to put things right. What I slightly doubt today is this: everything is about the Prime Minister’s judgment right now, and this looks a lot like smoke to me—this is right, but not right now. The point is that all this stuff about Mandelson was known in conversation and discussion. He was sacked twice for impropriety in Government office. He ended up on Deripaska’s yacht when the EU was discussing taxation on aluminium—improper again. All this stuff leads to the final question: why him? Then, of course, the vetting was not good enough, but it could have been, had they bothered to check everything. There is a big question to be asked here. Surely this is ultimately about the Prime Minister’s judgment in overruling anything that he found and deciding for his own purposes that this man should be appointed as our ambassador.

• 9 Feb 2026 · Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. Today, as the Minister said, Jimmy Lai, a British citizen, has been sentenced to a further 20 years in prison. Given his poor health and the fact that he sat for five years in solitary confinement, that is not a sentence; it is a death sentence for that brave man. The authorities have trashed everything that we would consider reasonable in law. For example, like others, I was named—nine times—in the prosecution case, and I have never even met Mr Lai, or spoken to him, sadly. I simply ask the Minister why the statement that the UK Government released today refers to Jimmy Lai as a “British National”. Lord Cameron finally changed that, and made it clear that Mr Lai was a British citizen. Will the Minister change the statement and refer to him as a British citizen, which is what he is? Why do the Government constantly refer to Hong Kong and the national security law? The reality is that the British Government have sanctioned absolutely nobody in the Chinese Government for trashing the Sino-British agreement and installing the Chinese national security law, which is the reason why Jimmy Lai was arrested. He has been convicted and sentenced for nothing more than standing up for freedom of speech and peaceful protest for democracy. The Government went on a visit to China recently. Before doing so, they granted full planning permission for the huge and ghastly Chinese embassy in London. Why did they not at least hold back on planning permission, so that they could say to the Chinese Government, “You must release Jimmy Lai now and cancel the prosecution altogether, or you will not get your embassy”? Instead, we have given them the embassy for nothing, and the Prime Minister was treated like dirt while he was out there. Sebastien and Claire Lai, Jimmy Lai’s children, have fought for him. I feel sorry for them, and my thoughts go to them. Surely, this is a sad day for anybody who believes in freedom, justice, and the legitimate rule of democratically made law. Will the Government now call for a humanitarian parole?

• 20 Jan 2026 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  It does not really matter to me who is in government because I am in opposition. I was opposed to this then, so if the hon. Member does not mind, I am not going to try to defend any of that. I can tell him that I was far more opposed to it than many of his hon. Friends on the Back Benches are now. I hope I have now expunged any dishonour on my part. On the two critical areas—UNCLOS and the ITU—we discovered that certain articles exempted us from any legal challenge in any way, and therefore they were not binding. I say that because today is a matter of intense sadness. As the Minister knows, I am a massive admirer of him for his steadiness and determination, often on unpopular matters. However, I have to say to him on Lords amendments 2 and 3, and the Liberal Democrats say the same, that this is a matter of sophistry. If we believe in free speech and free debate, and if we believe in voting on what we believe or what we oppose, I genuinely ask why we cannot do so on Lords amendments 2 and 3. Sitting in the Gallery are people who will be utterly depressed by the idea that this Chamber has shut itself out from debating the rights of the Chagossians and to vote on those rights today. I know it was clever to get that done, and I know the Speaker’s Office was under pressure to do that, but I simply say that this is not right. It is not right that this House cannot decide on those rights, particularly given that the UN committee mentioned by the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) has made it very clear that the Government should stay this legislation, because of its fears with regard to race relations. I simply say that this is a sad moment for this House, because this horribly flimsy piece of legislation completely casts away any rationale. Then this morning we heard from the President of the United States, who was previously prayed in aid in all this; it was said that we should somehow motor through this because he was in favour of it, and if the American Government are in favour of it, we should stand with them. A previous Foreign Secretary said that if America did not want it and did not agree with it, we would not do it, but here we are rushing through with it. Why are we rushing? Why do we not stay this Bill, wait to hear exactly what America thinks about it and make a decision about whether we carry on? Surely, that would make more sense and be more rational. Through all of this, I just do not get what the unpalatable haste is all about—to dismiss the Chagossians, to dismiss the logic and the reasons why we have to do this, and to head towards paying billions and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money for no reason at all. I think somebody else said that today. Meanwhile, China is looking at this and laughing, as are Russia, Iran and all the other nasty states. Honestly, this is a bad day. This is badly done. It is a bad day for us and for the concepts of dispute, debate and liberty. We should hang our heads in shame, because the House of Lords is better at debating things than we are, and it has much better rights.

• 4 Dec 2025 · War in Ukraine · Hansard source

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  The will is non-existent. I will conclude by simply saying that Ukraine should not be written off. The issue is not whether Ukraine has to make a deal now because it cannot win. Winning, for the Ukrainians, is getting back their land, their rights and their country. It is written into the constitution of Ukraine that the land that Russia occupies is theirs. People talk glibly about handing over territory as a way of resolving the conflict, but this would only lead, as has been said previously, to Russia moving again within a matter of months or years and seizing the rest of Ukraine. Putin does not care about territory; he cares about Ukraine. He believes Ukraine should be part of Russia, and he will never stop. If we show weakness by agreeing to some stupid 28-point plan, which would sell the Ukrainians down the river, Putin would come back. We would walk away and say, “Well, we did our best.” That is not good enough. I urge the Minister to make it absolutely clear that we do not agree with any of the 28-point plan, which would sell territory for peace. But it would not be peace; it would be a short-term abdication of responsibility that would lead to the death of many millions.

• 4 Dec 2025 · War in Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on his opening remarks, which were specific and precise; I will try not to repeat many of them, but to get into some of the other issues. My personal connection with Ukraine goes right back to a matter of months after the original invasion. I was involved with a Scottish charity called Siobhan’s Trust, which went out there to help those who were fleeing at the Polish border. When that had settled a little, the charity decided to cross the border and carry on feeding people who had been dispossessed behind the frontline. I see the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) in his place; I call him an hon. Friend in this, because he came out there with me to see the same remarkable charity. It is a wonderfully bonkers British charity. The team wear kilts, put the pipes in their mouths, and dance and entertain the Ukrainians only a few miles behind enemy lines, risking themselves at the same time. They show the remarkable bond that we in this country have forged with the Ukrainians in their hour of need. The charity is peculiarly British, and that is what we are about. We know what this is all about. We do not need this House to lead this debate. In truth, if we were to ask ordinary people on the high streets of this great country, they would immediately react, “We stand with Ukraine.” Why? Because they know what it is all about. History tells us what happens when countries fall: they do not rise again unless somebody else can rescue them. There is nobody to rescue countries like Ukraine if it is not us, after all our experiences of the second world war and our determination to ensure such a brutal war never takes place again. It is happening now. I have to remind the US that, even if it is not a guarantor, it certainly has an obligation to Ukraine under the Budapest memorandum. It cannot sweep that aside. The obligation came about mostly because Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. I wonder whether Putin would have invaded if it had kept its nuclear weapons. Ukraine was misled by the west. We said that we would stand by the Ukrainians, and away went their nuclear weapons Then, of course, Putin eventually decides to invade—at first piecemeal, invading part of the territory, and then fully later on. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex is quite right that the Russians have been both singularly appalling in the way that they have behaved and incredibly poor in terms of their military activity. That notwithstanding, they would never have done this if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons, which would have been its major line of defence. I have travelled many times to Ukraine to visit charities and others and have spoken to many Ministers in Kyiv about the difficulties and problems, including in Kharkiv, not long after Ukraine had driven the Russians back. Another Deputy Speaker, the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), was with me in Kharkiv, and we saw the devastation. How quickly the Ukrainians repair it is another marvel: I saw many buildings that had been shot at and blown apart—people had died—and by the next time I went to see them, which was a year later, they were back up and standing. That is a phenomenal testimony to the capability of the Ukrainians to recognise that, despite this terrible war, they have to keep on making efforts to live as natural and normal a life as they can. President Zelensky has rightly become the signal and the character of the defence. I know there has been a difficult relationship with the White House over his desire to wear fatigues—that strikes me as a rather petty point but, no matter how big they are, some people can be incredibly petty. His whole character, responsibility and defiance in staying in Kyiv, when Russia attacked and was determined to find and kill him, shows the courage of the Ukrainians embodied in one man. We need to support him in difficult times. We know that Ukraine is not perfect. Which country can put its hand on its heart and say it has never had corruption? Which countries have come out of the Soviet Union and not struggled with corruption? The only way people could exist in a Soviet country was through corruption, because that was how to get things done, because things were so bureaucratic and hopeless and people were not properly paid. The Ukranians are trying to get on top of that. They want to be a democracy, and they want to have freedom and human rights. Even if nothing else had happened, surely it should have been our responsibility to stand by Ukraine in its attempt to get that done. We only have to go back 150 years in this country, and we were riddled with corruption. We changed how we ran things, we changed the civil service code and we changed payments, and we got on top of it for the most part. When we talk about our lack of corruption, it came after a number of years of hardship many years ago in our history. Those who complain about corruption and point the finger should point the finger at themselves, because it is a misunderstanding of history and our obligation to a people who wish to be free. They will one day be utterly free, if we stand with them. Russia has engaged in appalling war crimes. If people go to the battlefield, they will see what the Russians have been doing. They deliberately target civilians, so that the military will come to try and help them, and then they get a bigger target. The whole nature of warfare has been turned on its head in Ukraine. A soldier who had had his leg blown off told me the other day, “There is no safe space behind the frontline, as there always was before. You have to go miles back before you can even begin to think of putting up some kind of hospital or first aid centre, because those drones fly all day and all night. What they do is hit one soldier and lay them out, dead or alive. Then, as the others run to him, they rain down on them with their explosives.” That is why more than 50,000 people in Ukraine today who have been serving on the frontline need prosthetics. Ukraine has the most advanced prosthetics laboratories that I have ever seen. They could teach us a thing or two. There is a whole problem with the tourniquet, because it cannot be released. Soldiers cannot get to the wounded soldier lying on the ground, because they know what will happen if they go to them, so the wounded soldier lies, often for an hour or more, with a tourniquet destroying their arm, even though it may be saving their life. They end up with terrible prosthetics requirements into their shoulder blades. Do they moan and complain about that? No, they do not. They sit down technically and work out how to solve it. We have a lot to learn from them, including on the battlefield and how they counter the drones. The Ukranians are way ahead of us, and I hope that the MOD realises that it is not us who can teach them a lesson, but they who can teach us. I spend time trying to bring companies over from Ukraine to give us that technology on drones and all these other areas where we should learn from them. The other point I want people to learn is that we seem to talk about Ukrainians as though they were capable of little themselves. They had no defence manufacturing capability worth talking about, but today they manufacture more than 50% of their own defence needs. They do it unbelievably efficiently and they do it under regular fire from Russia. I have visited companies in Ukraine where half of the place gets blown up and in about four days they are back manufacturing and fixing things. Those are things that we used to do when we were in the second world war being bombarded. The Ukranians show the same resilience, the same application and the same flexibility. We must stand with Ukraine. We stand with Ukranians because of what they want to be and because it is our responsibility to defend those who seek freedom and democracy as their cause. It is as simple as that. The UK has been the most united over this, and I applaud colleagues from all parts of the House, because we have all stood together. It is noticeable that when we talk to Ukrainians, they always raise that point. The UK is united, and that is the most important point. I will finish on sanctions. The problem for us is that we have failed to settle our sanctions responsibility to the degree that we should have. There are huge problems over the shadow fleet, as has been mentioned, and over individual sanctions, which we should have been using on a number of occasions. It is remarkable that with the one thing we had complete control over—the sale of Chelsea football club—£2.5 billion has sat there for three years, because we defined the ability to use it so poorly that there is now a dispute as to whether Abramovich’s own companies have a right to use the money, or whether we can seize it. We have to deal with this. If we cannot deal with that one issue, it shows how bad it will be for us in seeking reparations across the board.

• 18 Nov 2025 · China Espionage: Government Security Response · Hansard source

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  I have great respect for the Minister. However, listening to what he has said today about the China espionage case, which follows the collapsed spy case, the Christine Lee case and the other spying that took place here in the House, does he not look back and think that it is peculiar? We now have Hongkongers here in the UK with bounties on their heads who are being threatened daily by China and dragged into illegal police stations. He talked about all the other things: threats to our democracy, threats to our industry, cyber threats through the internet of things, threats to our universities, and threats to our MPs who are sanctioned and who have to face these challenges daily. Does that not make a mockery of the idea that China is not a continuing threat, and of the fact that it is not in the upper tier of FIRS, as my hon. Friend the shadow Minister called for? Surely it is time for that to happen. The No. 1 priority for a Government is the defence of the realm. Balancing priorities does not trump defence of the realm.

• 28 Oct 2025 · China Spying Case · Hansard source

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  It is a particular pleasure that you should be in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, because like me and the others, some of whom have been named, you are sanctioned by a brutal Chinese Government. I think it is excellent that you are here to invigilate this debate and to keep us on track—forgive me if I go over. [ Laughter. ] I am not going to take the blandishments of the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) who told us to look in the mirror. I stopped looking in the mirror a long, long time ago. In fact, when I was elected in 1992 I was told by a journalist at the Express that I could look in the mirror and see my career behind me. I feel like I have been walking backwards ever since. Can I just say, I think the whole principle that underlies all this is the Government’s behaviour over this decision? I will come to the decision in a second, but I want to address how the Government dealt with the decision—and how they have publicly dealt with it, which is really rather peculiar. It has been almost impossible throughout this to drag information out of the Government about why the DNSA took the decisions he took, where the Government were in this and when meetings took place. Denials slid towards acceptances that dates were in fact as they stood. As I understand it, it was even exclaimed by the Prime Minister that The Sunday Times was lying when it raised the idea of there being a meeting on 1 September containing all the various individuals, including the DNSA. It has been a sort of meticulous nonsense. Dodge, duck, dive, dip, and dodge—the five Ds of dodgeball, or in this case the five Ds of dodge the spying case. Getting to the truth of this has been painful, and if it is painful for the Government, they have only themselves to blame. Had they come out straightaway at the beginning and been clear about all this, instead of hiding behind the DNSA, they might have found it easier. I find ridiculous the position that the DNSA stated yesterday—that he was bound to reflect the position of the Government. The DNSA is not bound to reflect the position of the Government. He was asked by the DPP—and therefore bound to respond to the DPP—whether or not he said that China was an active security threat. What I do not understand is how the then DNSA, both at the time and again when giving evidence yesterday, was able to say that China posed a range of threats—just as the Minister said—on different areas all across the board, from sanctions right the way through to espionage. I do not understand the difference between posing a series of significant threats to our national security in different areas across the board and being a threat to our national security. It is impossible to even conceive that we could define this so narrowly that we are unable to come out with the very simple statement: “They pose a threat to our national security.” From my standpoint, I face a threat. I have been chased and regularly followed by wolf warriors, which are low-level intelligence operatives of China. They have impersonated me abroad and spread lies about what I have said, and those of us who have been sanctioned have been spied on. I know what a threat looks like. It looks like that. It is not a duck; it is a threat. There is no reason why any self-respecting Government could not have said that. The DNSA should have said that straight off—not go out and tell us that the police asked him to introduce what had been in the manifesto of the Labour party in the last election and then say that he knew nothing at all about it previously but had to put this in context. He was not asked to put it in context. The DSNA was asked to state clearly, from what he sees and the evidence he has taken, whether China poses an active security threat. At the nub of this is another particularly important point. The 1 September meeting is critical in all this, because we have been given assurances throughout this—by the Prime Minister, for example, at Prime Minister’s questions on 15 October. He said: “There was no further submission of evidence, one way or the other, after any discussion in September.” —[ Official Report , 15 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 368.] Yet we know that now not to be the case. Why was the Prime Minister making such a fundamental statement at Prime Minister’s questions trying to shut this down? Did nobody bother to tell him that this had gone to a meeting? By the way, we were told that at no stage was the National Security Adviser or any other appointed individual at any meetings with or in contact with the DNSA throughout the submission of evidence. That is utterly untrue. We know that the DNSA was at the meeting chaired by the National Security Adviser on 1 September. What did they discuss? Was it football scores or what was right in front of them there and then: the still-unfinished business of whether or not the DNSA was going to comply with the DPP’s requirement for a very clear statement? It is that bit of subterfuge, with dipping and dodging throughout, that is really quite peculiar. I have respect for the Minister. When he gets to his feet, can we not have this ridiculous game of “You did this” and “You said that”? I would simply like him to recognise that China poses a national security threat. Let us deal with that threat and take clear action, and not play games with terminological inexactitudes about what happened at what meeting. We now know that the DNSA met all those characters —we do not know who they are—so the minutes of the meeting should be released. If the Government will not release them to Parliament, they can do it in camera to the Intelligence and Security Committee. They should do it to clear the record; I recommend that they do. People like me, the Chairman of Ways and Means and others have suffered attacks from this brutal regime, which has massacred people in China and committed genocide. Surely now is the time to make our position clear.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Korean War: 75th Commemoration · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. He is right to ask that question. We should apply ourselves to everything that is needed to ensure the freedom of South Korea, its Government and its people. We did it once; we should be prepared to do it again. It is worth noting that Korea now sits next to one of the growing threats, on a scale of power and potency that we have not seen since the cold war; that is, of course, China. Its ambitions in the area are to dominate all these spheres from Taiwan to Korea. I have been campaigning on the subject, as have many other Members in this Chamber. Some of us are sanctioned; others not yet. We have been sanctioned because we believe that unless the west stands up now to the growth of the totalitarian states—Russia, North Korea, Iran and China—we will face the loss of the freedoms that we profoundly believe necessary for democracy to flourish and for people’s rights and liberties to be upheld. This is not just a debate about Korea, north or south; it is a debate about our ability, capability and determination to recognise threats and never give in to them, wherever they lie. If there is one thing that the British Government and the British people should be proud of, it is our unrivalled sense of freedom, democracy and the rule of law, which we have always stood up to uphold. My worry today is that we might look at China and Korea and say, “These are far and distant countries now, and therefore we have to look after only ourselves.” That would be a sad and shabby day for this country. I appreciate the comments by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), but our commitment to freedom is a global commitment. At this year’s UN General Assembly, the DPRK regime spoke of “human dignity and prosperity” and claimed that it was committed to international peace and security, yet the same regime continues to conduct intercontinental ballistic missile tests—it has launched eight short and medium-range ballistic missiles this year alone—while carrying out large-scale cyber-attacks, including the recent theft of $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency. It engages in transnational repression of human rights activists and illicit arms smuggling, and it continues to pour vast resources into weapons of mass destruction. Only a few weeks ago, we saw the leaders of the axis of authoritarian states gathered in Beijing, arm in arm with President Xi, claiming that they would be the new world order. If people did not freeze at that sight, understanding that it is a genuine challenge, then on the 75th anniversary of the Korean war we should remind ourselves of the sacrifice of the brave British, American and other United Nations troops who stood up in the face of tyranny and managed to secure freedom—if not all of it, at least enough to give hope to those who live outside it. We are not only commemorating the 75th anniversary; we will have to relive it and remind ourselves that there is nothing more expensive than freedom. It is not free.

• 22 Oct 2025 · Korean War: 75th Commemoration · Hansard source

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  I beg to move, That this House has considered the 75th commemoration of the Korean War. May I say what a pleasure it is to have you invigilating our proceedings, Mr Twigg? This debate is about North Korea, but it is also specifically about the 75th commemoration of the Korean war, in which we took part. I have just discovered that this morning North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East sea, just a week before President Trump’s visit to South Korea for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit. I think North Korea may well also have done so because it had heard about this debate. [Laughter.] I pride myself on that, rather than APEC, being almost certainly one of the greater reasons why it did so. It is a great privilege to open this debate on the 75th anniversary of the Korean war. The world today is yet again at a crossroads between democracy and the axis of totalitarianism and authoritarianism, as we have not been since the fall of the Berlin wall. Over 81,000 British servicemen fought in the Korean war, providing the second largest military contribution to the United Nations Command after the United States, which is something that people rarely talk about. Over 1,100 of them never came home, which is more than the total British losses in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Falklands combined. Among their most heroic stands was the battle of the Imjin river in 1951. There, 652 men of the 1st Battalion the Gloucestershire Regiment faced three Chinese divisions, numbering at least 42,000 men, in one of the most courageous defences in British military history. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) will no doubt share in detail, those brave Gloucestershire men held the UN line for three days against the overwhelming Chinese spring offensive. When the battle ended, of the 652 men who fought there for those three days, 67 walked away. The rest were killed or captured, and the name Gloster Hill was etched forever into history, although too often schools do not remind everybody of the sacrifice that they made for those who now live free. Today, only a few veterans of the Korean war remain with us here in the United Kingdom. One of them, Mr Scott, shared a story later recounted by his son in Stockport: “Of all the campaigns I fought in, Korea was the one that affected me the most. One night, I was called out on a reconnaissance mission I didn’t want to do. But when I returned to my platoon, they had all been wiped out.” His son, Mr Steven Scott, reflected: “My father was deeply affected by the Korean War. He had served in the Army during the Second World War and was called up from the reserves for the Korean War.” Their sacrifice, courage and service secured freedom for one half of the Korean peninsula, a freedom that the democratic world still cherishes today. The other half remains in darkness, suffering under the most brutal regime on earth; it is hard to imagine the brutality of that leadership. We must ensure that their sacrifice is honoured and remembered by generations to come. Many young people around the world today enjoy K-pop, K-dramas and the vibrant culture of modern South Korea, yet without the sacrifice of those who secured its freedom, none of that would be possible. In stark contrast, totalitarian Pyongyang denies its people access to the internet, mobile phones, YouTube or social media, and those who are caught watching anything from the south or from the outside world face imprisonment or even execution.

• 20 Oct 2025 · Alleged Spying Case: Home Office Involvement · Hansard source

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  As has been mentioned, the spokesman for the Prime Minister, when asked whether China was a threat, referred to the DNSA’s statement, which said that China conducts “large scale espionage operations” that “threaten the UK’s economic prosperity and resilience, and the integrity of our democratic institutions”. By anyone’s definition, that would mean that China is a threat. I am a sanctioned Member of this Parliament. That is what this is all about: I have been spied upon, and I have had a wolf warrior from China follow me around the world and impersonate me very threateningly. Does the Minister think that I ought to refer to China as a threat?

• 16 Sept 2025 · Ambassador to the United States · Hansard source

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  My right hon. Friend has mentioned the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. In case the House thinks it is a Conservative organisation, can I explain that it has Members of Parliament from all parties in this House, that 53 countries are involved and that it has co-chairs from both the left and the right? It is wholly above party politics, but is all about the threat from China.

• 15 Sept 2025 · Official Secrets Act · Hansard source

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  I make the following comments as somebody who has been sanctioned and hounded by the Chinese Government all the way through the past few years. I was briefed by the security services at the beginning that this was a slam-dunk prosecution—they were clear that they had met every single requirement within the Official Secrets Act. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) said earlier, the deputy national security adviser was very clear in his assessment of the information communicated by the two characters who were being prosecuted that at least 10 of the 34 charges that were laid were absolutely about passing secure information to the Chinese intelligence agency that would be “directly or indirectly, useful” to the Chinese state. That is very clear. It cannot, therefore, be for a lack of evidence that this has been dropped by the CPS. The key here was the whole idea of the Official Secrets Act defining that work as against an enemy—that is the key. So why in heaven’s name did the Government not take the opportunity, when it arose after the China audit, to raise China into the upper tier, as they did with Russia, North Korea and Iran? The Minister speaks of threats, but he does not say that China is a threat; he says it is a “challenge”, which is a ludicrous position to take. I honestly feel today that this Government have let you down, Mr Speaker—the Speaker of this Parliament—after you bravely stood for people like me to protect us against the overtures of the Chinese. They have let down Parliament. Nobody knows now whether they are safe, because these charges have been dropped. It is absolutely key, furthermore, that until we define China as what it is—a persistent threat that targets individuals, like me and others, and states—this will be a shame and a blot on our reputation as a strong state against terrorism.

• 9 Sept 2025 · Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill · Hansard source

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  That is exactly the point. There are serious concerns about the uncertainties surrounding future growth and societal wellbeing. If there are such concerns when it comes to UK predictions about the UK, imagine how difficult it is to predict what will happen in Mauritius, so this should be dismissed. It is interesting that after not answering the question for so long, suddenly the Government have popped up with a new device. They say that if we do not accept the figures, we are completely dismissing the Green Book, but the overall cost is not a Green Book issue, because this is about paying somebody money outside the UK, not about controlling cost. That is why the Green Book has never been used for this purpose before, and never will. I simply say to the Government that the money side of this has fallen apart again. I come to the third element. As I said earlier, we have had no real vote or debate on the treaty, as opposed to the Bill. The old CRaG system has been rushed through, without a vote. I have to tell the Minister, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that that is simply appalling, given that we are dealing with something as strategically important as this treaty. Clause 5 of the Bill, which is a very flimsy document, is entitled “Further provision: Orders in Council”. Anybody who reads that will have a sudden intake of breath. The whole point of this Bill is negated by clause 5. What is the point of debating the rest of the Bill, given that clause 5 says that at any stage, and under any circumstances, the Government can change it all by Orders in Council? Absolutely everything can be changed by Orders in Council, with no vote and no dispute. If the Government decide to go in a different direction, they do not have to consult Parliament any more. The sweeping powers in the Bill are ridiculous. When the Minister was in opposition, he used to spend his whole time moaning—quite rightly—about Governments who give themselves such powers. Even by the standards of previous Governments, this Bill is pretty astonishing. It is a massive sweep. This is not really democracy any more; it is monocracy. In other words, we have given up debate and dispute, and we have handed things over to one person—the Prime Minister. I say to the Government that the Bill is appalling, and they really need to rethink it. We simply cannot go through with something as appalling as this. I can remember the Maastricht debates, and various others in which we spent a long time debating clauses on the Floor of the House. That was the right thing to do, because such issues are important. International treaties are vital to our wellbeing, and the Bill simply does not work. The last thing I want to say is on China. I would say this, because I am sanctioned by China, as are some of my hon. Friends. I suspect that others will be sanctioned as well in due course. If they carry on working with me in the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, they are bound to be sanctioned, and I look forward to their joining us at that table. There is no way on earth that China does not benefit from this Bill. China has its eyes on the very important flow of commercial traffic that runs just below the Chagos islands, which it has always wanted to be able to block, control or interfere with. The Chinese already have a naval base in Sri Lanka, which they got by default on the back of the belt and road initiative, due to non-payment. For a long time, they have been looking at how, under their arrangements with Mauritius, they will eventually be able to intervene. They are two or three steps further forward as a result of this Bill. It does not secure us against that absolutely, because we gave up absolute security and control when we decided to hand over sovereignty to Mauritius.

• 2 Sept 2025 · The Battle of Britain · Hansard source

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  I cannot think of anyone I would rather have chairing this debate, so it is of course a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Cameron Thomas) on raising this matter. In the time that I have been in this place, I think this is the first debate we have had about the battle of Britain. I ask myself why we have not had one before—I am rather guilty in that regard myself. I rise simply to make some comments about the fact that my father was a fighter pilot throughout the second world war. He flew almost constantly in Spitfires and came in during the latter stages of the battle of Britain, so I grew up with stories about what happened. Almost the first story that my father told me was about when he was just finishing off his training—somewhere up near Liverpool, I think—and he and a couple of others were in a pub that night. This was just after Dunkirk, and a bunch of soldiers who had returned from Dunkirk saw these RAF figures sitting by the bar and immediately came and attacked them under the stupid belief—it was not their fault, because the information was not given to them—that the RAF had not turned up at Dunkirk, because they could not see the aircraft overhead. The truth is somewhat different, because the fighter pilots had gone inland to break up the bombers long before they got anywhere near the beaches. If they got near the beaches, it was too late. He said, “We bore”—how can I put it?—“the imprint of a disgruntled set of pongos, who I remembered all the way through the rest of my life.” But he went on to qualify as a fighter pilot. Most fighter pilots were not trained massively. There was a rush to get them done, so they had no real combat training. What they had was basic training on the aircraft to go solo, a few fighter runs and feints, and then they would be sent off to their squadrons, so the first time they would understand how to fly the aircraft properly was in combat. My father talked about what he used to say to his pilots when he later became a squadron leader and eventually a group captain. He said, “I used to tell my pilots that you have to abandon all that you have learned and understand only one thing: you don’t get into this aircraft; you strap it on—it becomes an extension of you. If you learn that, this aircraft will never let you down. It can always go as far as you want, and it will test you, but you will always come out of it.” That stayed with him all the time, and his pilots, I think, had very good records as well. It is worth reminding ourselves that of course it was the pre-war planning that enabled us to have enough time and warning to put the fighters up in the air to take out the bombers. Sir Robert Watson-Watt and others developed the chain of radars. The Germans never understood fully what that was about until too late. And of course there was Dowding’s two-pronged determination. No. 1 was that this home chain should exist, and the system to run it through the tables, with the WAAF—Women’s Auxiliary Air Force—pushing all the details about individual squadrons coming across. The second bit, which was really important, was his argument with Churchill about not sending Spitfires over to France. That was critical because had we done that, we would not have been ready and prepared for what was to come next. That was a very big dispute. I think Churchill never really forgave him for standing up to him on that, but he was right to have done so, because we were ready and prepared with the right squadrons and the right aircraft. The other side of it was that although, as the hon. Member for Tewkesbury said, the Germans were never going to succeed, there was a period when they were pretty close, and that was when they were bombing the airfields endlessly. That meant that many squadrons were coming back to find their airfields destroyed and were having to be diverted to amateur airfields and everywhere else, where there was no support, no supply, no ammunition waiting for them and often no fuel. It would then take them longer to be ready, and by the time they were ready, it was almost too late. Dowding was within, I think, two days of ordering his squadrons north of London, because they were pretty much exhausted, as they were not able just to come back and fly again. At that point, Germany switched the bombing to London. That was a critical moment. It gave him breathing space to reconstruct, rebuild, and be ready for them a second time when they came back to the airfields, and that is exactly what happened. His leadership in all this was critical, for which he was not properly rewarded directly afterwards but was later on. As the commanding officer, Dowding was as important to this as Nelson was to Trafalgar or as Wellington was to Waterloo, and we should honour him and others who worked with him. My father got five gallantry medals during the war—two Distinguished Service Orders and three Distinguished Flying Crosses, which are all combat awards—but like many other pilots who were there, he did not ask questions about this. He became a very good friend of the actor Christopher Lee, who was the godfather to my brother. I remember as a young boy, sitting in a back room with my brother while they had a drink together—that was normal in those days—when he came through and said to me and my brother, “Your father is a man without fear.” This troubled me for some time. When I eventually was in the Army myself, one evening over a drink, I said to my father, “Christopher Lee said you are a man without fear.” He said, “That’s not true. A man without fear is a dangerous man, because he cares not about anybody else. I was scared all through the war, but I controlled it because I could not let those around me down.” My father said that the toughest thing he ever had to do was to eventually deal with a pilot who had clearly lost it—who had broken. He had to send him down because he was a risk to the others around him. He said that these men would break down in tears in front of them because that was the end of their time—that was it; there were no further chances for them. He said, “That was the toughest thing you had to do; but, for the sake of the others, you made that decision, even though you hated doing it at the time.” Although they have become heroic figures, it is worth reminding ourselves that every day they were fighting for their lives and the lives of the people next door to them in the air. That is important. I want to finish by saying that the lesson they taught us, from the 1930s all the way through, is one that we are now faced with again. We are faced by the growth of totalitarianism: brutal states like China, Russia and others, who will stop at nothing and who care nothing for human rights, nothing for the rule of law and nothing for freedom. These countries are growing in potency. Russia is invading a nation that is trying to become a democracy and fight for freedom. What we have to understand is that we are now under as big a threat as they were in the 1930s. We must understand that the preparation in the late ’30s is where we have to be today—I say that nodding to the Minister, who has served himself and will understand that fully. There are three lessons that we draw from this. First, we can never appease dictators. Dictators of brutal totalitarian regimes must be confronted, never appeased. The second is: never trade land for peace. Fight for the souls and the hearts of those who honour freedom. Do not betray them with shabby deals, as we did in 1938, when we sold land of those we had no right to. The third bit, which I will finish on, is very simple: “Si vis pacem, para bellum”—“If you would have peace, prepare for war”—because if we are unready, you can bet that the others will not be. What is it that our fighter pilots taught us, those brave men who went on to fight through the rest of the war like my father and others? They said: “Never again find yourself in a situation where you have to put young men and women under fire because politicians failed to recognise what they had to do early on.”

• 14 Jul 2025 · Northern Ireland Veterans: Prosecution · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for your tolerance, Mr Mundell. I start by saying to the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr Foster), and one or two others on the Government Benches, that to accuse people like myself who served in Northern Ireland of supporting the legacy Act and then demeaning ourselves by apparently attacking others is utter nonsense. We are after one purpose and one purpose only: to find a way to protect veterans who have been pursued through the courts in a vexatious manner and had their lives destroyed in their latter years. That was the sole purpose of my support for the legacy Act. Even though I had my doubts about it, I supported it for that reason. There was nothing else on the table to provide support for those veterans, so I really take it ill, and the hon. Member for South Ribble demeans himself by attacking people on that personal basis. [Emma Lewell in the Chair ] This is an issue about inconsistency, and it covers all previous Governments. The problem is that we were originally involved in the law of armed conflict, which settled these issues, and we have had a collision with the Human Rights Act 1998, which has changed everything. The real point is that there is no moral equivalence between people who set out to kill, maim and destroy in a democracy, which happened in Northern Ireland, as the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) laid out, and the British servicemen who were ordered to go to Northern Ireland. They went out of their duty to protect the citizens of Northern Ireland against a violent and destructive insurrection. I have to tell anybody with the idea that there is some kind of equivalence here—that if we cannot proceed against IRA terrorists we have taken them out of the equation—to go back and find out about when we pursued IRA terrorists through the court. There is no evidence. There were no records kept. They know that very well. If anyone thinks they will get 400 witness statements from people who know they are protected by the lack of evidence, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) said, they must be living in a different world from the one that I am living in. The reality is that the only people who will be prosecuted, unless this Government do something to end that process, will be the veterans. Even if they are not prosecuted and eventually found guilty, the persecution and the chasing of people who served their country ruins their lives and makes them worry for the rest of their lives.