Matt Western MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 2 Mar 2026 · Representation of the People Bill · Hansard source

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  The Bill introduces timely reforms, such as extending the right to vote to young people, and it addresses the rising and ever more concerning issues of harassment and intimidation. With foreign interference expected to intensify the deterioration of the international security environment, and given the threats posed by wealthy donors, crypto and AI, I encourage the Government to go further. That is where I will focus my remarks. Last September, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy heard from Spotlight on Corruption that there has been foreign interference in 21 elections across Europe in recent years. Research from a 2022 US intelligence assessment estimated that Russia has spent $300 million on political influence in 24 countries. Beyond direct state influence, there is the issue of obscenely wealthy donors and corporations. Corporate donations have tripled over the last three elections in the UK, rising from £14 million in 2017 to £42 million in 2024. Beyond those challenges, the Bill introduces valuable provisions. The political finance reforms are good, and it creates a new “know your donor” requirement to ensure that political parties conduct the necessary due diligence. It requires parties to verify that companies that wish to donate can demonstrate sufficient revenue and a qualifying connection to the UK or Ireland, and it will enable the Electoral Commission to issue significantly increased penalties—up to £500,000. I would like the Bill to go further on business and corporate donations. I want there be a longer qualifying period and a profit measure to protect the system more against phantom businesses and shell companies. Elsewhere, our Committee is calling for a temporary moratorium on accepting crypto donations until the Electoral Commission produces statutory guidance and stronger systems. We want the Electoral Commission to have stronger powers, including the ability to compel financial institutions to provide information relating to funds connected to donations so that they can be investigated more fully. We want a single police lead for political finance and foreign interference, and a review into the sentencing of political finance offences. Personally, I think we need to look more at the role of think-tanks and how they are funded. I would like the Bill to go further, with a longer qualifying period and profit measures to protect the system. I want a donation cap on corporate and personal donations. I want consideration to be given to amending the schedule of penalties to make it more proportionate to the donor’s wealth. We must ensure that the fees and salaries that companies pay MPs in whatever field, but particularly in media, fall under political finance regulations. I absolutely welcome the Bill. We need much tighter regulation across our political finance, including to address the interference with which states and individuals wish to influence our democracy. I very much look forward to working with the Ministers in the coming weeks.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Local Authority Children’s Services · Hansard source

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  Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to speak in the debate. Clearly, there are quite a few Members so, on the basis of what I have seen, I ask Members to speak for four to five minutes—an informal application of a time limit—and we will see how we get on.

• 28 Jan 2026 · Local Authority Children’s Services · Hansard source

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  The four to five minutes was not kept to as tightly as I would have hoped, so we will have to go to a formal four minutes for speeches because of the number of Members who have indicated that they wish to speak.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for serving on the Committee and for the work he is doing in chairing the Defence Committee, and he is absolutely right. There are several elements to this. One is, as we have seen in the Baltic and around our shores, the nature of the threats. The attacks on cables are proving provocative, and we have to demonstrate a more muscular approach to how we view them. It is interesting to see that some of our peers in NATO have taken this a bit further, and we should look closely at that, but we are constrained by international law. I have mentioned the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885, which is not fit for purpose. There needs to be some thinking along the lines of what we can do within our territorial waters to address any threat that is presented, such as we saw last year with the Yantar and other ships. Work needs to be done on the legal side, but also on the hardware that we can deploy. As an island nation, this should be something on which we can develop a huge sovereign capability, which would also boost our exports.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his service on the Committee over so many years, which was hugely valued, and his point is absolutely fair. I have not seen the specific report that was published today, but it echoes the points that we have made in this report. We do not want to be alarmist, but we cannot accept any complacency about what the threats are, because there is a genuine risk. The truth is that there is the potential to reroute cables. There is a significant amount of traffic across the Atlantic—some of it comes into Ireland, some of it into mainland Europe, and some of it into the UK—so it is always possible for data communications to come through to us in different ways and, in an extreme crisis, for us to turn to satellites, although that capacity is significantly lower. I am sure there are some very valid points in that report, and I will look at it more closely.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I will keep my comments brief. I absolutely agree that the legal side of this urgently needs to be addressed, and I understand from the Government that they will look very closely at it in their defence resilience Bill.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to present the first report of this Parliament of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for this statement on the United Kingdom’s resilience and crisis preparedness in relation to subsea telecommunication cables. Subsea cables are critical to the UK’s economic prosperity and global influence. They provide crucial, irreplaceable connectivity between the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Like the trade routes of old, they are the arteries and veins of global commerce and communication. They carry a staggering 99% of the United Kingdom’s international data, and $1.5 trillion-worth in global cross-border trading. That is across 64 cables, including 45 international connections, but capacity is concentrated in newer equipment. For example, two newer cables carry 75% of transatlantic capacity. For centuries, the United Kingdom has felt secure as an island, but that geostrategic strength is now a vulnerability, as the subsea cables on which the world depends have become a new front in a hybrid war. Revisionist powers and their proxies are targeting liberal democracies’ critical underwater infrastructure. Their aim is to disrupt connectivity, inflict economic damage and cause panic. By attacking us in this way, below the threshold of war, our adversaries are demonstrating their ability to do more at a much bigger scale and a much faster rate, should hostilities escalate. Subsea cables can be cut by something as unsophisticated as a rogue anchor dragged along the seabed by a commercial vessel. As we have seen over recent months in the Baltic sea, such activity can easily be made to look accidental and readily denied, but Russia and China are also developing more targeted capabilities and operating at greater depths in our oceans, where the cables are harder to access and repair. Governance of subsea cables has been fragmented across at least eight Departments, seven agencies and numerous private sector actors. Contingency planning has been inadequate and largely ignored the possibility of a co-ordinated attack. We rely on legislation from 1885, with the threat of a paltry £100 fine to deter acts of cable damage. The United Kingdom’s approach to subsea cables is no longer good enough. Concerned by the apparent lack of action in this area, my Committee launched an inquiry to assess the resilience of the United Kingdom’s subsea telecommunications cable network and the effectiveness of the Government’s work to protect it. We spoke in public and in private to security experts, lawyers, cable owners and operators, cable repair firms, former and serving naval leaders, policymakers from NATO allies, telecoms firms and those working in sectors reliant on data carried by subsea cables. We were encouraged to find that, in the business-as-usual scenario, the UK subsea cable network enjoys a good level of resilience. Nevertheless, there are points of vulnerability in the network and gaps in the Government’s work, such as onshore infrastructure. Cables come ashore via landing stations, which remain vulnerable to sabotage. Many onward terrestrial links converge towards data centres. This all presents risks for low-level deniable attacks, which would be costly, provocative and hard to prevent. Another example is the lack of genuinely sovereign repair capabilities. The United Kingdom is currently reliant on cable maintenance and repair consortiums, but repairs can take many days or weeks, and there is no guarantee that these consortium ships will be available when we need them. Commissioning a cable repair ship does not happen overnight. There is little to no redundant repair capacity that could be purchased at short notice on the open market. The Government must look ahead and acquire a genuinely sovereign cable repair ship by 2030. Our report covered many other issues, and we were encouraged by the Government response. They had clearly engaged with the issues in depth, and there was a clear explanation of their rationale on each of our points. In particular, we are glad that the Government have committed to, first, establishing an oversight board, chaired by the Cabinet Office, to co-ordinate cross-Government work on protecting undersea infrastructure; secondly, updating impact assessments and strengthening contingency planning across critical public and private sectors; and thirdly, writing to landing station operators to emphasise the importance of robust security standards, and to ask them to produce emergency repair plans within 12 months. None the less, the Government response does not address the Committee’s concerns about developing a more robust military deterrent. The recent announcement of further details of the Atlantic Bastion programme is welcome, but the capabilities outlined must be deployed at sufficient scale and pace to effectively deter threats to subsea cables. Furthermore, our Navy may be world-renowned, but our hands are tied by international law when it comes to intercepting suspect civilian ships outside our territorial waters. The Government have said that they are launching a comprehensive review of legislation relating to subsea cable infrastructure, but they have not elaborated in detail. They have committed to exploring options for a sovereign cable repair ship, and we will keep a close eye on the progress made on this key recommendation. We will also keep a close eye on the commitments to upgrade security at cable landing stations, on which the Government have agreed to make progress. Of course, the damage that our adversaries can cause us is not without limitation. Cable-monitoring schemes are increasing, and NATO can track sub-surface activity closely in a crisis. Would-be saboteurs may be identified by the security services in advance of carrying out an attack, but the damage that our adversaries can cause is nevertheless extensive. Unless we adopt much better mitigations, a tipping-point scenario seems possible. From the evidence submitted to our inquiry, we estimate that severe disruption would include financial payment and supply chain failures, degraded communications, overstretched emergency responses and unexpected cascading issues, all at a time of crisis. We hope that this report has given the Government the wake-up call that they need to take this matter seriously. We will keep a keen eye on the Government’s progress in these areas, and we will conduct further scrutiny as required.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Various organisations that have been established have interests in this area. Of course, much of this is in the private sector. The Committee is concerned about how much of it is in the private domain and how much influence the Government can have. Collectively, there is a need for Governments to work much more closely on this issue, so we need to have closer ties with friendly nations that are facing similar challenges in order to build a greater deterrent. Atlantic Bastion is a good example of the work that can be done.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and it is absolutely true. We did not specifically look at the situation in Ireland. We will be doing further work on this in the coming months, because I think that is required and will be welcomed by Departments, but, yes, we need to meet the EU and Ireland to talk about those threats and how we can collaborate. He is absolutely right to identify Ireland as an important part of this.

• 8 Jan 2026 · Subsea Telecommunications Cables: Resilience and Crisis Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I do not know about the timings—I am not close enough to the Government for that—but the United States did something interesting, which was to have a scheme to lease two ships, costing them $10 million a year. There are ways around this, but having a sovereign capability is going to be important or, to go back to the question asked by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), we could combine with other nations to develop such a capacity.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing · Hansard source

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  Thank you. Your point of order is noted.

• 7 Jan 2026 · Advanced Brain Cancer: Tissue Freezing · Hansard source

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  I remind Members that if they wish to be called in the debate, they should bob.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  Given the right hon. Gentleman’s extensive experience, it is very interesting to hear what he says. If he had his time again—this is not to criticise the previous Government, but to ask about the here and now—would he think that this area needs an absolute focus from across Government and across society, because it is such a crucial part of our defence?

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  I start by welcoming the Bill, which is a serious step forward in protecting the United Kingdom from the great number of cyber-attacks that we face each day. As we have just heard from my right hon. Friend the Minister, this legislation is long overdue. A consultation started back in January 2022, and in April of that year, the then Government identified serious issues and limitations. I was slightly bemused that my hon. Friend the shadow Minister—I do consider her to be a friend—did not cover that in her speech. The previous Government then failed to act for over two years, and as my right hon. Friend the Minister illustrated in his speech, that has proven very costly. Over the past couple of years, we have seen that cyber-security is not just paramount in our everyday lives; it is crucial. It ensures that there is food on our supermarket shelves and that the lights stay on. It is critical to every corner of the UK, but now we have to move at pace, and not just through this legislation—I urge us to go further. If we are to protect ourselves from our adversaries, we need to develop a true whole-of-society approach to cyber-security and start a national conversation on security at home. This legislation is clearly an important first step. It is a first chapter, but many more must be written if we are going to seriously address our national security, by which I mean our social and economic security. Increasingly over the past decade, we have seen a blurring of war and peace, with the emergence of hybrid warfare and the widening of the grey zone. We are living in a cyber no man’s land where states or state-sponsored actors—proxies—can act with relative ease and impunity, leaving the world a more dangerous place. The cyber-realm is, and will remain, a key battleground, and it is one that we must seize. Every one of us in the United Kingdom needs to wake up to that fact, particularly with the development of AI and quantum computing and the extraordinary threats that will come from those developments. When it comes to being the target of cyber-attacks, the United Kingdom now ranks third among all nations. In 2024 alone, the NCSC handled an average of four major attacks every week—these are the really serious attacks—and the impact on the economy is staggering. In the same year, cyber-attacks cost the British economy £15 billion, or 0.5% of GDP. When we are trying to increase GDP by 1%, 2% or whatever it is, a hit of 0.5% is so significant. While 43% of businesses have reported having any kind of security breach or attack over the past 12 months, that figure rises to 67% and 74% for medium and large businesses respectively. Every attack inflicts more pain on UK plc, meaning lower economic growth and lower tax receipts to fund our public services. As we heard earlier, the effects ripple through our whole society. We have just been talking about the attack on Jaguar Land Rover this summer; that attack cost the company an estimated £500 million, affected over 5,000 businesses and put thousands of jobs at risk, with many of those employees based in my constituency of Warwick and Leamington. The impact was significant, whether it be on cafés, restaurants, pubs or shops, which were all affected by the downturn that immediately led from the shutdown of the factories. The attack on Collins Aerospace was alluded to earlier. It crippled Heathrow airport, and I think Stansted was affected, too, but less so. It scuppered thousands of hard-earned family holidays in autumn last year, and the ramifications for the travel sector were significant. It is not just businesses that have been affected. We have seen attacks on councils, as we have heard, and charities. Even the British Library was knocked out two years ago, which impacted so much of our research potential across our higher education institutions. It has significantly affected the UK. The Electoral Commission got knocked out by an attack by Chinese state-sponsored actors. There have been so many other attacks. Even our NHS is not safe. My right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned the attack on Synnovis. Last year, more than 11,000 NHS appointments were lost due to cyber-attacks. The attack in June 2024 on London hospitals by the Russian group Qilin saw 1,100 cancer treatments delayed, 2,000 out-patient appointments cancelled, more than 1,000 operations postponed and, tragically, the death of a patient. The message from across our international partners and the UK’s security services is clear.

• 6 Jan 2026 · Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for sharing his lived experience. I can relate that to when I have spoken to organisations through the Business and Trade Committee and through my role on the Joint Committee for National Security Strategy. I have heard from organisations that have been impacted about how paralysing the immediate aftermath of such an attack is and how it challenges an organisation. It is crucial that these red team, blue team scenarios get played out, but when it is actually happening and a company is facing an entire shutdown of its systems, it is very difficult to navigate. Many have talked about the culture change that is needed, and we need to urgently embrace that change. The experience in the NHS that my hon. Friend mentions is a good example. These attacks are the new normal and we must be better prepared. In September 2024, led by the FBI and the National Security Agency, the United Kingdom, Germany, Estonia, Canada and a plethora of other allies released their clearest articulation of the threat posed by Russia, and Putin in particular. They said that Russia is “responsible for computer network operations against global targets for the purposes of espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm since at least 2020.” The NCSC annual review in 2024 called the landscape “diffuse and dangerous”, while the 2025 review could not have been clearer in saying “It’s time to act” in the defining text on the front cover. Richard Horne, head of the NCSC, said: “Empty shelves and stalled production lines are a stark reminder that cyber attacks no longer just affect computers and data, but real business, real products, and real lives… The recent cyber attacks must act as a wake-up call.” Just last week, Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, said that cyber-attacks were one of the biggest threats to UK financial stability and stressed the critically important need for collaborative defence. The reality should be clear to everyone here. The frontline is everywhere. It is our phone, it is at our desk, it is our businesses, it is our infrastructure and it is even here at the heart of our democracy. Such a threat requires a whole-of-society response. We are not the first to have been targeted. Back in 2007—18 years ago—Russia launched a determined cyber-attack on Estonia. It was damaging and debilitating to Estonia’s society and economy. The cyber-attack was a call to action for Estonia and it responded at pace. It brought about cultural change, which was talked about earlier in the debate. Estonia overhauled its legal, political and strategic framework—even looking at its education system—and adopted a whole-of-society approach to cyber-security, developing a serious public-private partnership to counter the threats posed by Russia. No doubt the Minister will have looked at this case in more detail to understand what learnings could be applied here and to our cyber-security strategy more widely to ensure whole-of-society resilience. The reality is that cyber-attacks target the weakest link. It was welcome to hear my right hon. Friend the Minister talk about the initiatives with the FTSE 350 companies and some of the smaller businesses about how they should be engaging with these threats. It cannot be acceptable that the most popular password in the United Kingdom is “password”. It is ridiculous. Every one of us must act as guardian against our cyber-adversaries. The Bill lays out valuable and desperately needed provisions. Its extent and scope are hugely welcome, bringing in data centres, large load controllers and managed service providers under the network and information systems regulations protects more of the economy from cyber-attacks. I am particularly pleased to see the inclusion of managed service providers, given the vulnerabilities that organisations often face from external IT suppliers or their supply base. The amendments to the regulatory framework are a positive step. Improving the reporting of incidents will allow the Government to respond at pace and be agile to the evolving threats and shared vulnerabilities. That said, during the last Parliament, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, which I now chair, called for one cross-sector cyber regulator, and I echo those calls, as I believe that would enable far greater regulation and enforcement. Finally, the improved resilience and security enabled through additional powers granted to the Secretary of State are crucial in enabling the Government to act quickly in real times of crisis. Despite all the positive aspects of the Bill—I congratulate Ministers after the years of dithering by their predecessor Government—it does leave large parts of the economy outside its scope. As I have mentioned already, how can we incorporate a whole-of-society approach to cyber-security like that of Estonia? There will be many different levers for the Government to pull. This Bill is just one part, and I trust that others will follow swiftly. It is worth noting that the EU’s NIS2 directive is broadly parallel to the Bill before us. However, the EU goes further on cyber-resilience, having added sectors such as manufacturing, food distribution and waste water. Having witnessed such devastating attacks in these sectors in the past year, I urge us to act swiftly with further legislation to address those areas. In summary, I just restate that I absolutely welcome the Bill and the three key pillars of the legislation—the expanded scope, improving regulation and strengthening resilience—are hugely welcome, as is the importance of experience reporting and sharing by victims. The cyber-attacks we have suffered this past year must be our inflection point—our call to action. Like Estonia in 2007, we have an opportunity to reinvigorate our cyber-defences and ensure the whole of society is resilient. The shadow Minister mentioned digital ID, and I gently say that that opportunity was seized upon by Estonia at the time and it has since introduced digital ID. It is secure, as it is in Denmark. Estonia looked at the opportunity presented by that challenge and that attack that they faced, and those systems work. That has been demonstrated by both those countries. As the annual review from the National Cyber Security Centre rightly asserts, “the UK’s cyber security is… a shared responsibility where everyone needs to play a part.” We parliamentarians have a duty to raise the salience of the issue, and to bring about a national conversation to ensure that everyone plays their part. Finally, may I gently encourage the Minister to go further and faster, and to look at the broader cyber-landscape, as Estonia did and as the European Union is doing with its NIS2 legislation? May I encourage him to consider introducing legislation to cover food production and distribution, manufacturing and other critical sectors? As I have said, however, the Bill is an important first step, and I look forward to working constructively with him to ensure that the UK and its citizens are secure from, and resilient to, any future cyber-attacks.

• 5 Jan 2026 · Venezuela · Hansard source

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  There is clearly no question about the illegitimacy of Maduro’s presidency, but there are questions about President Trump driving a coach and horses through the global rules-based order. How should the UK now view the United States national security strategy in the light of this recent action?

• 5 Jan 2026 · Middle East and North Africa · Hansard source

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  I want to pick up on my hon. Friend’s point about the paucity of the aid getting in and to highlight the utter ridiculousness of how Israel is frustrating not just the quantity of aid but the basic elements of aid, such as tent poles, tents, razor blades and generators, by claiming that they are somehow dual use and therefore a potential threat. Can I urge him, on a humanitarian basis, to pick up with his opposite number just how wrong it is to deny humanitarian aid to the people of Palestine?