Iain Duncan Smith MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  Will my right hon. Friend give way?

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  Yes—without interest. I agree with my right hon. Friend. I also agree about something else, which is that people do not realise that the really big global multinationals, for example Amazon, do not really make their profits on what they sell. They hold your data and that is what they really sell, subsequently. That is where they make their money and their profit. You derive no income from that data, but they make a lot of money off the back of it. To try to break that process down and make things more local, we have to start with what we have all been complicit in, which is the idea of getting something for nothing. It is not for nothing—there is a cost.

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  You wouldn’t get a car for 500 quid though, John!

• 2 Jul 2025 · Corporate Businesses and Franchisees: Regulatory Environment · Hansard source

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  I need not detain my right hon. Friend for long, but I very much supported the unions’ position on this, as I thought this was wrong at the time. Without straying into the issues of the bids, we should consider organisations such as CK from China. It now has links with and control over UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Wales and West Utilities, and Eversholt Rail. The network it has now is intriguing, which is hugely around the power and communications networks. All of those are now falling into the hands of conglomerates that have nothing to do with the UK, but that are linked to Governments of a different country. This is the big problem we face: it is not that we do not like big businesses; it is just that so often now they operate from outside our legal empowerment.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  Don’t get excited—it’s not that great! Motorcyclists have to be tested even more than car drivers. There are balancing tests and they have to know everything like that. This is absolutely critical, because it is a slightly more dangerous mode of transport—more exciting, yes, but more dangerous. Someone cannot buy a motorcycle in a shop and take it away unless they are able to show their licence and that they are qualified to ride that bike, and that really requires instruction, but people can buy e-bikes—these electric vehicles—without any sort of licence. It seems bizarre that that should be allowed. Even though we want people not to use petrol, diesel and all the rest of it because of the environment, this goes beyond that.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is right, and I hope the Government will respond to that. However, she will forgive me if I focus on the essence of new clause 5, which is e-bikes. The definition of a legal e-bike is one that uses pedals and also uses electricity to assist the cyclist. All the other ones are illegal. This brings me to the problem that, if this measure is going to go through into law, as it will, will the Government press the police to start arresting and prosecuting not only the people who deliberately use e-bikes for nefarious purposes but more importantly, those who just cycle dangerously on footpaths? E-bikes are now more dangerous than bicycles in the sense that they are e-bicycles and therefore get up to higher speeds. Even though the speeds are supposed to be governed, they are still higher than most cyclists will get up to in the normal act of pedalling their way to work.

• 18 Jun 2025 · Crime and Policing Bill · Hansard source

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  It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me. I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.

• 14 May 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  The question, however, is this: at the end of it all, how will we know that the supply chains have been correctly declared? If they have not been, it will become a matter of avoidance. America checks, tests and sanctions companies that have lied about their supply chains, and that has forced wholesale change to its supply chain process. I ask the Government to learn from America and get companies such as Oritain to use forensic science to test the company supply chains about which they are suspicious.

• 14 May 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  Lords amendment 2B resulted from the work of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes cross-party membership from this House. I see some of its members in the Chamber now. Lord Alton and other members of the alliance, including me, who have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government have worked tirelessly on the amendment, and others have done likewise on other amendments. Let me say to the Minister that the problem we face at present is that we seem to be attacking this issue piecemeal. When the Conservatives, my own party, were in government, I had a big fight with them to secure a ban on slave-labour-made products in the national health service, and it sits there, in the health service, thanks to cross-party involvement. Now we have a provision in the Great British Energy Bill to block modern slavery, but the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which we helped to enact when I was in the Government, needs to be massively updated in this area because it has no teeth. Unless it is beefed up, what we will have is piecemeal work from officials. If we are to embrace this idea—I know that the Government were tentative about it, but frankly all Governments do this, and the reality is that it has gone through—our objective should be, “How do we make this the case for every single product that is introduced, so that all of Government, including local government, are not allowed to involve themselves in modern-day slavery?” A huge amount of this applies to China, but some of it applies to other countries. Let me also say to the Minister that this is the beginning, not the end. We must ensure that the lesson that is learned is that we must be paragons of virtue when it comes to modern-day slavery and that we will stand up for those who have no voice. If we go about buying products made through modern slavery, which undercuts the free market dramatically because no salaries are paid, we not only destroy the concept of the free market but cause people to be imprisoned by making our casual purchases. There are solar arrays all over the country today that contain a modern slavery element—namely, the polysilicon. What are the Government going to do about that? What are they going to do about something that is already in existence in the UK? It is a big question. The Government have only just opened this door, and I think that if they want to stand by moral purpose, which is exactly what a Labour Government would claim to do, they must take this forward. They must say, “Do you know what? We are going to table amendments in all those areas that get rid of this and amend the Modern Slavery Act.” If they do that, they will be right, because this really is the issue of our time. The issue of the cost of products should not outweigh that of the cost of lives. We have turned a blind eye for far too long, and we must now face up to our responsibilities. America has given us a lead, turning the balance of proof on its head by ensuring that companies make the correct declarations, because they are assumed to have slave labour elements in their products—and those products are not just arrays. Companies have to prove to the Government that their supply chains are clear, and those supply chains are tested using a New Zealand company called Oritain. I suggested its services to the last Government, who were not keen to take them up at that stage, but I offer them to this Government now, because they have to do those tests and force companies to tell the truth, rather than casually saying, “This is what we are told.” If the Government do that, they will begin to stand up for this one. The Opposition, I am sure, stand ready to assist them in all this, as do all the other parties. This is a real moment, when we, as a Parliament, can say, “That is it. No more backsliding; no more pretence. We will fight modern slavery wherever it exists, because it is a tool of oppression and a tool to break the free market.”

• 14 May 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just want to remind the House that the Deputy Speaker in the Chair today is also sanctioned by the Chinese Government for her bravery.

• 13 May 2025 · UK-EU Summit · Hansard source

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  It is good to follow the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and to be reminded of how old he was when I first came here; I hope he stays here as long as well, or maybe I do not hope for that as it might mean we Conservative Members will be on the Opposition Benches forever. Today’s debate is on an important topic and there have been some very good contributions already, but I want to get to the bottom of what the Government really want out of this negotiation, because they have been a little bit tepid in coming forward on the key issues. I welcome the Government’s negotiations in India—finishing off a trade arrangement deal or whatever it is with the Indian Government. I welcome too that they have been able to begin to negotiate with the United States, although they have not secured a full trade deal. By the way, they would not have got a trade deal if the Democrats had got back into office because they rejected it for four years. In fact, President Biden said that there would be no trade deal with the UK. Let us not just observe that because the Democrats are not Trump, somehow they were going to give us a trade deal. I have my problems with the current President, but President Biden absolutely did not want trade with us; it was as simple as that. That was a mistake on his part. He had a real opportunity, because the trade deal was pretty much all done—and then it was binned. There is also the question of the reason we are able to do these trade deals with the rest of the world, to which we export more than the European Union. We should do more of those trade deals. The Conservative Government did 73 after Brexit, although some of them were mopping up the ones that we had before. I stand ready to congratulate the Labour Government if they use the freedom Brexit gives them to get more trade arrangements, because that is what we are here for. I might want to press them further and say they could get a lot more out of the US, but that is another debate all together. I do not disagree with the idea that the deal we did with the European Union is capable of being improved. Of course it is, because the EU put up many barriers in the course of that negotiation; it weaponised Northern Ireland distinctly, and that was a grave error on its part. It risked some of the process of peace in Northern Ireland by making it a critical negotiating tool that could be used as leverage later in the rest of the negotiations, and as a result we have been left with a problem in Northern Ireland. I encourage the Government to have a very good look at that. I did not vote for the Windsor agreement because I thought it did not solve the problem by a long chalk, and it has left Northern Ireland in the same position as before, with a couple of small modifications. This debate is really about getting into the issue. I say to the Minister that the European Union did not play straight about phytosanitary from day one in the negotiations, and it still does not play straight. The fact is that our standards in animal welfare and product health are, and always have been, above those of the European Union. The European Union knows that. The reality is that somehow it decided that there had to be all these phytosanitary checks and changes, and it is desperately keen to get dynamic alignment now, because that means that there will be a rules-based order coming from the EU. That is what it has always wanted to do. The truth is that the European Union does not have that arrangement with other countries around the world. For example, it is quite happy to have New Zealand vets check their products before departure. Those products go in through Rotterdam without any checks, other than checks that they came from the area specified. The EU knows which vets it authorises, so it does that. It could have done that here in the UK. I sat down with Monsieur Barnier and a group of people to have a long discussion when the negotiations broke down as a result of what was going on here in Parliament, and I very much remember that we talked about trusting each other’s regulations and working with that trust to get an arrangement that made it as easy as possible to get goods across the border. He accepted that then, saying that, provided we could trust each other’s veterinary authorities, we would not need to have the phytosanitary rules as proposed at the moment. It was only later, when my party in government came back and did a terrible shimmy with him, that he thought he had it all, so he took it. The reality is that the EU knew all along, from the word go, that it was easier to put in place these arrangements than it made out. I have always found the phytosanitary objection peculiar, because it could be sorted out very quickly. Our standards are higher than the EU’s, and our vets are quite capable of checking different producers to see whether they fit European standards. That is all it is: are they up to European standards, and are European standards up to ours when the EU exports to us? It is very simple. That can be done in every trade deal, and the EU already does it with other countries that are not, and have never been, part of that Union. There is an idea that to get this issue sorted, we would have to go into dynamic alignment and accept the EU’s rules over our products, but it would make it more difficult to make future trade arrangements if we were rule-takers from the European Union and could not negotiate these areas ourselves. That brings me back to my previous point. Before I return to that issue, I want to raise another point. The trouble is that the argument I heard made—that a phytosanitary agreement involving dynamic alignment would address the price of food—is patently absurd. If SPS checks concerned the price of food, we could unilaterally relax them. They do not have to be where they are: that is our decision to take. It would not change or lower the price of food. If anything, it would be more likely to block us from doing a number of things, such as gene editing in food and work that we want to do that the European Union does not want to do. All these things put at risk where we may be in future trade arrangements and the direction in which we may want to develop farming here.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I will try to be brief and stay focused on the Bill. Let me start by saying that we should all focus on the requirement to save the jobs of those 3,500 people who have this threat hanging over them. In fact, I understand from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers) that 2,500 people have already received a redundancy notice, and they will be very worried at the moment. Our thoughts should be with them today. Coming in on a Saturday is right if it saves their jobs. I am certainly prepared to vote for that. The Bill does give vast powers to the right hon. Gentleman the Business Secretary and the Government. As others have said, I trust him personally—this is not an attack on him—but we in this House should never trust Government more than we have to. I have said this on both sides of the Chamber, by the way. I therefore urge him to have another look at the sunset clause, which I raised earlier. It is not saying, “We don’t trust you”; it is saying that sometimes Governments are taken down sidetracks, and before we know what has happened, the powers are beginning to be used for the wrong purpose. I urge him to introduce the sunset clause, or even to do so in the other place, to give the House real powers to come back. For everyone’s sake—even those on the Government Benches—I think that would be worth doing, because it would allow us to have a strong debate on how the powers are being used and would perhaps even enable us to influence what is taking place. The reason for this debate is clearly the massively changed needs of this country, particularly after the event that we never thought would happen: Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. As a result, weapons and arms are needed on an unprecedented scale, there is a plan to build up the armed forces, and they need the very high-quality virgin steel that is produced in this plant. Without it, we would have to import it. Frankly, China does not produce that quality of steel. The other reason is the tariff war now taking place, which has introduced 25% tariffs on the car industry, which is one of the biggest purchasers of steel. All those things make the Bill very much necessary. We have another problem, which I hope the Government will deal with in the context of the Bill when they talk to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. Things have changed. The Prime Minister himself has said that the world has changed. We have been operating in what we considered to be a global free market. I have argued for some time that this is not a free market. Far too many countries such as China have abused the rules of the free market, subsidised their industries ridiculously and used slave labour to produce their products. When that happens, the free market is dead. We must recognise that we will have to deal with those whom we trust and who do not break the rules. That means a whole rethink of the Government’s China policy and of whether we need to rush to China for investment. We need to ensure that we deal with our industry at home and that we produce things again. One problem is the energy costs our industry faces, which are really quite stark. Our industry is not just in competition with China; even the costs in Europe are far less now. I will give a short list. The costs in the UK are now the highest in the world, at $400 per megawatt-hour. Germany, which has the highest costs in the rest of Europe, is at $250 per megawatt-hour, while France and the others all have lower costs for producing energy. That energy is critical for the steel industry, and that is one of the big issues that the Secretary of State has to deal with. China, with its subsidies and broken free market rules, is at $60 per megawatt-hour. We should not attempt to compete with it; we must say that it is not competitive at all. [ Interruption. ] Exactly right, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) says. Others are complaining about China right now. Countries in the far east, such as Vietnam and South Korea, are accusing it of dumping. What we have in China is something that will really hit us hard and make the Secretary of State’s job even worse: very simply, China is now suffering from the over-production of steel. Its housing industry has gone static, and that was one of the biggest users of the steel it produced. Where will that steel go? By the way, it is no surprise that a Chinese company, Jingye, is involved. In pushing to shut down the blast furnaces in the UK, it knows that we will have to buy slab steel from China. That is not a coincidence; it is all part of the plan. That company is linked directly to the Chinese Communist party, and it is high time that we called that out. In his negotiations, the Secretary of State needs to remind Jingye that the reality is that it is not a private company. The previous Conservative Government should never have awarded it the contract, and I warned them about that. It is time for us to make sure that we deal with China at face value and do not accept the pretence that this company is private or in any way detached from its Government. That is a critical point. There is much to be dealt with, and I urge the Government to listen to the House and to check all of this. Cheap Chinese steel is a desperate problem for us, and we need to work with other countries in dealing with it. We also need to get our costs down. On net zero, I hope that the Secretary of State will tell the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero that we cannot go on like this.

• 12 Apr 2025 · Steel Industry (Special Measures) Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful for that, because it allows me to say something that I had not been planning to say: we sit on an island of gas, so why, for goodness’ sake, are we not drilling for it? We need it, and we will need it strategically. There is a need for strategic industry, and I agree with the Secretary of State on that. However, the issue does not stop there; it stops elsewhere, in the production of energy. I simply leave that point for him, and he can argue it with his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. I want to say one final thing. In the course of this Chinese company’s operations, I have talked to a number of people involved in the business, and its record on health and safety and on the abuse of the workers in the blast furnace area has been shocking. We should look into that much more carefully. The company has brought in cheap Chinese workers and pays them nothing like what it pays the British workers. Many of those workers have ended up burned and in great difficulty. I simply say that this is not a company we should be doing business with right now.

• 1 Apr 2025 · Foreign Influence Registration Scheme · Hansard source

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  Although I welcome the Government’s invoking and activation of the FIRS scheme, like a curate’s egg, it is good, but there are missing bits. The elephant in the room—and it is a very big elephant—is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and other Conservative Members have said, which is the missing bit about China. The fact is that China is behind all this. We know that China is involved in supporting Russia in the war that is named in this report. It is also behind Iran and the work it has done in destabilising Gaza and so on, and it is behind North Korea. Therefore, the question for us is: if it is shown that China is a danger and a threat to us internationally, is that the case internally? We know that the United Front Work Department reports directly to President Xi. It is made up of thousands of organisations that set out to disrupt life here in the UK, and it enters into organisations that have influence. We know that it has put a bounty of 1.2 million Hong Kong dollars on the heads of people here who have fled tyranny in China. We know that the illegal police stations still exist that have been dragging in Hong Kong dissidents. We know they have made attacks on dissidents in Manchester, physically and brutally attacking them. We know that China has spies involved inside the House of Commons and outside it as well. We know that slave labour exists in the net zero arrays and the wind farms we are putting up, and we say nothing about that. In fact, we voted to continue with slave labour last time around. The truth is that we have a real problem because China is at the epicentre of everything to disrupt democracy and freedom. Why is China not in the statement today?

• 26 Mar 2025 · UK-China Relations · Hansard source

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  I need to deal with this point through my hon. Friend. The reality is that the Government already accept something on which I worked with them when they were in opposition, which is to get to exactly the same position as in the Health and Care Act 2022. The NHS is not allowed to buy anything made by slave labour—it encompasses everything. The amendment to the Great British Energy Bill would have done the same. To those who say, “It’s too narrow because it’s only one sector of the economy,” I say that we have already done it with health and care, and Labour voted for that at the time. I was rather proud of that.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to be called at this point, Madam Deputy Speaker. Others will want to speak, so I will be as brief as I possibly can. As I said earlier, the Minister is incorrect in believing that the Procurement Act gives any protection at all against modern slavery in the supply chain. That is a fact of life that we have known for ages. I was one of those who brought the Modern Slavery Act into being 10 years ago, but at that time we did not understand how bad the situation was in China. Over 90% of polysilicon is made in China, and we know for a fact that 97% of all the solar arrays being sold here contain polysilicon from Xinjiang, which will have been made by slave labour. There is no dispute at all about that. The question facing the Government is not— [ Interruption. ] I would be grateful if the Minister could listen. The question facing the Government is not whether they think that modern slavery is good—I do not for one moment accuse them of thinking that. What has gone missing, and what Lord Alton’s amendment focuses on, is recognition that there is no requirement on the Government to deal with slavery in the supply chain, and no way for them to do that. As has been said, America has turned the burden of proof upside down and said, “We assume you have slave labour in your product. You must prove to us that you do not.” That is the only way to deal with this. The Americans then sanction offending companies, but under our legislation, the Government do not have such measures available to them. The Procurement Act does not even do a whisper of that, because it needs a prosecution to have been mounted under the Modern Slavery Act, and that cannot happen because a company that is an agent for a Chinese-made solar array will not be prosecuted. Under the present laws, only the Chinese company that makes the solar array can be prosecuted. That means that no prosecution will take place; no company in China will be prosecuted by the Chinese Government, because the Chinese Government are the ones who set up this ghastly process. Why? Because it makes their arrays cheaper than anybody else’s in the world. That is how they have pretty much wiped out all other array production in the world. Let us ask ourselves: where will we get our arrays from? The answer is that we cannot get them anywhere else, but if we had to, we would have to pay a lot of money. I understand that there is probably a debate going on in Government about whether we go down that road, which would make arrays awfully expensive. In conclusion, the Government know the facts. I support amendment (b) to Lords amendment 2; I support the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), who brought it forward for the right reasons; and I support the way in which the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) brought forward her amendment (a) to Lords amendment 2. The Government must act. If we do not act, make forced labour illegal and punish the companies involved in it, directly or as agents, then we will be guilty of increasing slavery in China—that is what tonight’s debate is about. I am sorry that the Government will get rid of this Lords amendment. They could have done a deal to enhance it or whatever, but now they will have to commit to coming forward with legislation to increase and improve the Act that they already have, which will take another debate. I say to the Government: for goodness’ sake. By the way, I had this issue with my own party when we were in government, and I voted against it; I voted with the Labour party to put this provision in the Health and Care Act 2022. We did that together. I hope nobody thinks that I am being party political, because I am not. I am sanctioned by the Chinese Government because we raised this issue originally. I say to them that I and many in this House will not stop until the Government face up to one thing and one thing only: not one life through modern slavery is worth a lower cost on a solar array. That should be the epitaph of the ridiculous position that the Government are in.

• 25 Mar 2025 · Great British Energy Bill · Hansard source

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  That is not altogether correct. The Minister will know full well that the Procurement Act can only be enacted once a supplier has had a conviction under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. To do that, proceedings have to be able to be taken against the company that is involved in the slavery. A British company involved in agency is not involved in the slavery. It would have to get the Chinese Government to prosecute the Chinese company to make sure that they got a prosecution here. That is never going to happen.

• 20 Mar 2025 · Business of the House · Hansard source

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  My condolences to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman). Interestingly, his comments and his eulogy to his father at this particular time bring into stark relief the absence in too many families of positive male role models for many young boys growing up. We all ought to be concerned about that. We have a real problem at the moment, because we have not really debated the use of slave labour in products in the UK. There is a really interesting point here, because in America right now companies that have failed to interrogate their own supply chains are being sanctioned—not knowing is not good enough. Many of them are actually in use in the UK, including three in particular. A parent company, Donghai Jaisolar Technology, is being used at the Ministry of Defence; Hongyuan Green Energy, which has been sanctioned by the USA, is in use over here, and so is Jiangsu Micoe Solar Energy. Other companies, such as Jinko Solar and Canadian Solar, are ever present, and they are all essentially guilty of the use of slave labour. Can we have a proper debate about how we can stop that, as the Americans have been doing for some time? Surely we now need to sanction companies that use slave labour to get cheap advantage.

• 27 Feb 2025 · War in Ukraine: Third Anniversary · Hansard source

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  I cannot put a piece of paper between the two of us. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He now has the capability to push the Government over this issue through his Select Committee. Whatever he chooses to do, I assure him that Opposition Members will support him in that pursuit. We need to get these decisions made now, because that will put pressure on Russia. If we make the decision to seize this money, Russia will then be under pressure to reach a reasonable agreement, because the Russians do not want to lose all this money in the meantime. There is a whole line of pressure that we should be bringing to bear on the Russians. We have allowed certain things to take place, and I do not blame just this Government, because it also happened under the last Government. The Foreign Office is always slightly reluctant to pursue sanctions with quite the aggressive nature that I would want. We recognise that. Everything has always got to be, “Well, Minister, you know, we must take into consideration a huge number of factors here, such as, ‘Why, when and who?’ These need papers, Minister.” I would say to them, “Forget the papers, let’s get to the facts.” The fact is that we have been allowing a shadow fleet carrying liquefied natural gas to come from Russia—even in the past few months—and deliver to the UK and other countries. How can it do that? The answer is simple, and I have raised this with the Government previously. The Americans have stepped in and said that any country that takes this gas will be sanctioned, and that stopped it overnight, but we could have stopped it, because we have the major marine insurers in this country. It was British companies that were insuring this shadow fleet to take Russian gas elsewhere. In what world do people sit there, watching that, and string out questions about what they should do? All we had to do was to say that we would sanction any marine insurer that insured one of those vessels. That would have been the end of it, because the marine insurer market is here in the UK. It would have killed that practice stone dead. America has now moved on this, and we can see some of these ships anchored off such places as India and even China, because they dare not take the gas, because of the sanctions. I urge the Government to drive their civil servants to be quicker, faster and more determined to follow the money and to stop it. As I say, that is not a criticism alone of the present Government; it is also a criticism of the Government of my party that was in power before.

• 27 Feb 2025 · War in Ukraine: Third Anniversary · Hansard source

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  Of course it is. Article 5 has been the reason that western Europe has been able to grow and settle, and America has also been able to pursue its own ends because of the mutual defence pact that exists between us. I remember that Sir Tony Blair, who was the Prime Minister at that stage, did not waste any time; he came out immediately to support America, so much so that he was able to get into the debate that took place in the Congress and was welcomed as a friend, which was quite right. The reality is that the UK was the first to push for article 5 to be invoked, and George Robertson was the head of NATO at the time and moved it for the first time. That was very much the right thing to do, and that is what underpins this. Before I continue, I want to come back to some of the after-effects. I went to see those who are looking after, and are responsible for, prisoners of war in Kyiv. What is fascinating is that the abuses that are taking place in Russia trash the Geneva convention on support for prisoners of war. Russia spends its time moving Ukrainian prisoners of war around and does not allow the Red Cross full access at any stage. That is against the convention, and the Red Cross has complained—although I do not think it has said it loudly enough—that some Ukrainian prisoners of war are being used as human shields. Some are being used to clear mines in certain areas, which is also against the rules. We also know that in a number of cases, after serious interrogation of those prisoners of war, which is also illegal, their families in Ukraine are being bullied and threatened. They are told that unless they start spying or carrying out damaging acts in Ukraine, their loved one—their husband, son or daughter—in the prisoner of war camp, if such a thing exists, will be tortured and dealt with. This is going on quite regularly now and has been discovered by the Ukrainians. It is illegal under the Geneva convention, and I urge the Government to speak seriously to the Red Cross about making a much more public statement about how prisoners of war are being treated, because it really is quite shocking. There is a lack of accountability on this and the Red Cross needs to do much more. We must not underestimate the fact that there has been a change of regime in the United States, and that President Trump has made it very clear that he wants the war to end and that we have to drive to that. I think all of us in this House would support that position; we want to see an end to war. In fact, the Ukrainians want to see an end to war. Nobody wants to carry on fighting if there is a possibility of a good peace deal that, as I have said, contains justice and freedom for the Ukrainians. However, President Trump sees this as a sideshow; he says that he is more focused on China, Taiwan and other issues, and I think he wants to make savings on the United States’ spending in some of these areas, which is reasonable. However, the problem is that, for all our support for Ukraine, the reason why this war has gone on for three years is that we, the allies, quite honestly have dragged our feet on supplying the weapons and equipment that Ukraine needed from day one. In fact, there was a period in 2023 when Russia was on the rack and having real problems. It was short of munitions, it had lost territory to the Ukrainians—certainly in the east, around Kharkiv—and that was the moment at which Ukraine might well have been able to deal properly with Russia and push it back. Strangely enough, at that stage two things seem to have happened. First, I do not believe that the attack on Israel by Hamas was just a stand-alone item; I think that Iran, China and others had realised that Russia needed a distraction. The Americans, of course, immediately moved to support Israel—which is what they will do—and supplied arms to the Israelis. I was in the Congress around that time, looking to see whether America could get the money through. Some of the Republicans did not agree with the Bill and were blocking it. We did manage to persuade a few and they did push it forward, but my point is that they said, “The war in Israel is our war; Ukraine is your war, not ours; and we are keenly concerned about Taiwan.” The point I made to those Republicans, which I make again now, is that, in reality, we cannot separate Taiwan from Ukraine, or in a way from Israel. My personal view is that China’s hand is in all of this, and that distraction—that moving of equipment—has meant that Russia has been able to regain its strength and reach a rapprochement with North Korea. Interestingly enough, the scale of weapons that North Korea is now supplying is breathtaking—I think that well over 5 million artillery shells have been supplied since it signed the agreement with Russia. It now has thousands of troops in Russia who are defending the Russian position, and it is planning to supply even more weapons and missiles. This is a chain of totalitarian states that is working to support each other, and we are losing on this, because we ourselves do not focus on that linkage between Iran, Russia, China and North Korea. I give one small warning. It is something the Americans need to face, and I hope that the Government will raise it with them. It is simply this: Russia in reply is giving significant technology to the North Koreans, particularly for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The security services here know about that, but it is a serious and significant shift. If the North Koreans have that technology, they will be able to take their nuclear weapons out to sea, which will bring all the American continent directly under target from those missiles. That will change the whole nature of the Pacific in terms of how we see geostrategic defence. It is a major change, and Russia has been giving the North Koreans that technology. It would be useful for the Government to say that this matter is not separable. Ukraine is the reason for that move. The road to Taiwan runs right through Ukraine, and we cannot and must not separate them. I make the simple point that when we speak about the money, it is a huge amount. I know that the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) will want to speak on this, but the reality is that we have had debates before on the huge amounts of money we have sitting here. Those are assets belonging to Russians—not just the oligarchs, but also the state. Some $300 billion of Russian assets are frozen within the G7 and the EU. Some $25 billion of Central Bank of Russia reserves are frozen in the UK alone. That is managed by Euroclear, and there is Euroclear money in Canada and other countries. The Government said the other day that they are prepared to use the money earned from that capital for Ukraine. I argue that if they are to use the money earned from the capital, they also have a right to use the capital. We should not just freeze the capital sitting in the banks, but seize it and use it for reparations, damage repair and the work that is necessary. I think we would see a major change immediately.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Energy Infrastructure: Chinese Companies · Hansard source

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  Whatever the question about energy is, China is not the answer. First, we know the Ministry of Defence and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero have raised objections about the Treasury’s push to bring Mingyang Smart Energy into the circuit to bid for this. Secondly, China is determined to involve slave labour in its products. We are investing under this Government in solar arrays, which use a huge amount of slave labour in producing polysilicon. Do the Government not recognise that their tilt towards China to get it to invest runs the real risk of utter dependency on China and serious threats to our security, which have been highlighted endlessly by the security services, and will they now stop?

• 10 Feb 2025 · Military Support for Ukraine · Hansard source

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  I came back from Ukraine a week and a half ago. I was very close to the front and talked to many of the military commanders there, and they made it very clear to me that they were desperately short of artillery pieces, 155 mm, and, most importantly, munitions—they could hardly respond to the Russians. As I understand it, they are also short of C-RAM—counter-rocket, artillery and mortar—defence missiles, which are desperately needed to protect Ukraine’s energy sites and its civilians’ flats and houses. That hardware has been promised by many European nations, and of course by the USA—and I must say that when you are that close to the front, Mr Speaker, you realise how desperate it is there. In the light of this delay, will the Government commit the UK to at least provide the sort of weaponry that it can provide to alleviate that problem as far as humanly possible, but mostly to push our allies to do what they promised to do? From what I heard, without that hardware, Ukraine runs the risk of losing this war.

• 3 Dec 2024 · UK Supply Chains: Uyghur Forced Labour · Hansard source

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  I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his place, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion)—she is my hon. Friend in this case—on raising a really important issue. I also welcome another person on the Government Front Bench, who will remain nameless—I am sure that Hansard will pick them out. The problem with all this is that it does not seem to matter who is in government; the Foreign Office and other Departments try to block everything to do with slavery. I was one of the people who drove through the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which we know is long past its sell-by date with regard to modern slavery. I tried to co-operate with the Government when they were in opposition, and we need to change the law, because we have real problems with net zero. Right now, we have polysilicon arrays coming in from Xinjiang in massive quantities, and nothing is being done about it. This is not just about Xinjiang; there are a quarter of a million people from Tibet in forced labour. The only way to address the issue is to do what we did with the Health and Care Act 2022, which we amended to ensure that the Department of Health and Social Care had a duty to eradicate slavery. In America, supply chains are checked using forensic science provided by Oritain, but we do not do any of that. Will we move towards checking all supply chains, and put legislation in place to make it a criminal offence to have anything to do with slave labour?