Oliver Dowden MP: speeches 2026

Speeches

• 9 Mar 2026 · Middle East: Economic Update · Hansard source

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  As the Chancellor has repeatedly said, at the root of the current economic crisis lies the closure of the strait of Hormuz. What conversations have the Government had with the Trump Administration, both about insurance and, more importantly, about deploying UK military assets to secure the reopening of the strait? Does she agree that a more robust approach might reassure our friends and allies in the Gulf who invest so much in the United Kingdom? Our presence there has been notable by its absence.

• 2 Mar 2026 · Middle East · Hansard source

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  Given that the Prime Minister has outlined that the Iranians attacked a United Kingdom sovereign base at Akrotiri, why does that not form the basis not just for hosting US forces on our bases, but for legal military action, taken directly at source against the Iranians for the launch of such missiles, as we did in relation to the Iranian proxies, the Houthis, in previous conflicts that he supported? Moreover, given the Iranians’ ability to exercise malign influence on the streets of this country, what reassurance can he give the House and the public at large about co-ordination across our intelligence and security capabilities to address the heightened threat on our streets?

• 25 Feb 2026 · Diego Garcia and British Indian Ocean Territory · Hansard source

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  I genuinely have respect for the Minister, as he knows, but I am very confused as to the Government’s position. He will know from his time in the Foreign Office that one of the principal issues to which he refers is the fact that the previous US Administration was not comfortable with the disputed status of this territory under international law, but it is now clear that the current President of the United States has no such concerns or qualms. Given those circumstances, why are we continuing to burn capital with the current Administration, rather than saying, “Let’s put this whole thing on hold and look for a solution that might work better for both the United States Government and the interests of the United Kingdom”?

• 23 Feb 2026 · Schools White Paper: Every Child Achieving and Thriving · Hansard source

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  For parents of children with special educational needs in Hertsmere and across the country, one of the greatest frustrations they feel is understanding what is going on in relation to their children. What reassurance can the Secretary of State give parents that councils will be required to keep them up to date about what is happening with their children and what provision they will have prior to the final outcome, whether it is an ECHP or a specialist school?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  The point here is not about impugning the integrity of the Cabinet Secretary; the point is about confidence in this House. The temperature in the House seems to be that most people feel that involving the ISC will give both this House and, more importantly, the public confidence in the process. It sounds as if the Minister is sympathetic to that point, so will he confirm that he is sympathetic to it, and that he will be making the case to Downing Street for that tweak?

• 4 Feb 2026 · Lord Mandelson · Hansard source

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  At the heart of what we are talking about is this. Do we accept the amendment from the Government about “national security or international relations”? My hon. Friend and I have both served in the Cabinet Office and I am sure that he shares my sympathy with the need to protect national security. However, there is a vast difference between protecting national security—for example, in direct intelligence reports from agents on the ground or intercept—and subjective judgments made about things that may be embarrassing for national security or international relations. That is why the Leader of the Opposition was precisely correct in saying that we need some independent mechanism. Why on earth can we not agree that the Intelligence and Security Committee should look at each of the exemptions? If it feels they pass the threshold, that is fine and we will accept that, because we need to protect national security—but it cannot be to spare the Labour party’s blushes.

• 3 Feb 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  Within hours of the Hamas massacres, protesters and marchers were organising against Israel. Yet here we are, weeks later, when the Iranian regime is murdering and torturing its citizens by the tens of thousands—still no marches, still no protests. What does the Minister think that says about the prejudices of such activists?

• 3 Feb 2026 · Universal Credit (Removal of Two Child Limit) Bill · Hansard source

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  The right hon. Gentleman has provoked me into responding. I served in the previous Conservative Government, and I was involved in all those decisions. There was a clear principle behind them: will people take responsibility for their own actions? There are thousands—millions—of people who choose not to have more children because they want to take responsibility for their lives, rather than the state doing so. With this change, the Government are saying to those people, “Not only will the state take responsibility, but you as the individual will have to pay for it through higher taxes.” That is the principle at stake here, and the Government are reversing a clear principled position taken by the last Government.

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

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  The Minister makes an important point. The key thing about the negotiations is that they were predicated on the United States’ concern about the continuing operation of the base in the context of concerns around international law. The position set out by the President of the United States last night is that he is not concerned about this—in fact, he is concerned about the deal the other way around. Moreover, I do not think that any of us would think that there is a concern around international law vis-à-vis the President of the United States. We are talking about two material changes. Surely in the face of these material changes, now is the time to pause and reconsider the implementation of the treaty. The circumstances have changed.

• 14 Jan 2026 · West Midlands Police · Hansard source

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  The Jewish community in this country, including many in my constituency, feel under siege right now. Sadly, this is not an isolated example; it is just another example of where elements of the British state appear to err on the side of the aggressor in the name of community cohesion. We have another example before us. Will the Home Secretary, in her capacity as a senior member of the Government with responsibility for tackling extremism, take the same robust approach to schools that are banning Jewish Members of Parliament from visiting them on exactly the same community cohesion grounds? It has to stop, and a more robust approach must be taken by the Government.

• 13 Jan 2026 · Iran · Hansard source

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  We can all see the brutality of the Iranian regime, but does the Foreign Secretary agree that it is not just who we are against but who we are for? If we look at the signatories to the Abraham accords—Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in particular—we see that they point to an alternative path for peace and stability in the region, so does she agree that we should be standing four-square behind them? While I am at it, does she agree with the excellent point from the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor)? Does she think that those hundreds of thousands of protesters who came out in support of the Palestinian cause might come out in support of Iranian dissidents? I will not be holding my breath.

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

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  It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), who has brought tremendous expertise to this debate. In my previous role overseeing national resilience and cross-Government co-ordination of national security threats, cyber-security was probably the one area that caused me the greatest number of sleepless nights. There has been a lot of talk in recent months and years about the increased need to defend the realm and the steps that need to be taken to address the defence of the realm. We all know from past experience that the first line of any attack on the defence of the realm is highly likely to be through cyber-attacks. Indeed, in a completely different context, we need only to look at the public comments made by the President of the United States a couple of days ago about the first steps that the United States took in its intervention in Venezuela: he talked about the United States’ capability to knock out the power supply there. If we look at our adversaries, particularly Russia, North Korea and Iran, we can see that they are actively inculcating and encouraging environments in which cyber-attacks can be planned and take place. Whether that is done explicitly by private sector individuals or with the connivance of the state, a deliberate grey zone is created, with the desire to increase knowledge of cyber-risks to the United Kingdom and our allies, and to carry out penetrative attacks to that effect. We are likely to see this grey zone warfare continue to increase as a result of the actions that we see in Ukraine and elsewhere. We just have to look at our own experience. Many hon. Members have made the point that the initial attack on JLR rapidly cascaded and affected many others in the supply chain. From the Government’s own research and testing—this is in the public domain—one sees that a cyber-attack can rapidly cascade into other areas. For example, when we test the impact of a cyber-attack on our electricity system, it rapidly cascades into our water system, which is dependent on electricity. Clearly, it also rapidly cascades into our transport system. Before long, a small cyber-attack becomes a very, very large cyber-attack. In common with all other advanced countries, the United Kingdom is highly exposed to cyber-attacks—a point that I made repeatedly from the Dispatch Box. I welcome this legislation and the steps that the Minister has outlined today, but I gently caution against what he said. I do not think it was his intention, but he said that this legislation will fix the cyber-security problem. It will not fix the cyber-security problem. No single piece of legislation is ever going to fix the cyber-security problem, nor is this a question of good guys and bad guys or of, “The last Government did nothing, and this Government are doing something.” Each Government must have a fresh look at the challenges of cyber-security, and take necessary and proportionate steps to address the risks.

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

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  Yes, I totally agree. Indeed, that is why the National Cyber Security Centre, working in conjunction with the last Government and now the current Government, has set out the whole-of-Government approach. It cannot just be about the actions of individual Government Ministers or individual actors in the private sector; the whole of Government need to act together. On the further steps we could and should have taken—this goes back to my intervention on the Minister—I do think that more pressure needs to be brought to bear on Ministers in terms of their accountability for cyber-security, and I fear that if we do not put this into primary legislation, it can slip further and further down Ministers’ in-trays. Although Ministers have a desire to address it, more pressing and immediate problems distract their attention. I have some constructive suggestions about how we can improve the proposed legislation. The first is about many of the powers being delegated to secondary legislation or ministerial direction. I do not have a problem with that, because it is essential that we have a framework piece of legislation and then the flexibility to allow secondary legislation to be brought forward to address challenges as they arise, but I urge Ministers to undertake a meaningful and mandatory consultation on any secondary legislation that comes forward, so that businesses and others can contribute to it. I also caution against Ministers devolving to regulators their duties in respect of cyber-security. Too often—again, this applies to Governments of both colours—regulators are empowered to address cyber-security problems or any other problems. They then charge off in one direction and fail to take into account questions such as proportionality—the impact of the regulations versus their economic burden—and Parliament and Ministers cease to have a significant role. I urge Ministers to keep a tight grip on regulators and on the instructions that they give them. I would also be a little cautious about some of the arguments made by hon. Members about the need constantly to expand the scope of this legislation to further areas of the private sector. It is very easy for us in this Chamber to talk about the need for further legislation, but when a small business is faced with a huge Act and required to interpret it, it looks a very daunting prospect. My preference would be to continue the sort of co-operation that we have seen through the whole-of-society approach advocated by the NCSC. On proportionality, I urge Ministers to embrace AI. There are opportunities to use AI to triage incoming attacks and avoid duplication, for example, and a lot of streamlining of the system can be done in that area. On the flipside of AI, we must take very seriously the risk of cyber-attacks posed by agentic artificial intelligence. It appears that we reached an inflection point in November 2025, when Anthropic reported disrupting what it described as the first large-scale cyber-espionage campaign executed largely via agentic AI. We are likely to see much more of this. I would welcome the Minister saying in his concluding remarks what the Government intend to do to ensure that we keep up with this threat, because we are only in the foothills of the risk posed by agentic AI. Further to the point about the role of the public sector, 40% of incidents handled by the National Cyber Security Centre when I was the Minister responsible were from the public sector, so I question the exclusion of the public sector. I appreciate that the Government have announced a plan. I have not had a chance to look at it, but I can imagine what it contains broadly. The key thing is what stick is applied to public officials and Ministers, outside the core responsible Government Departments, to make sure that they take their responsibilities seriously, so I think some legislative proposals may be needed in that area. Similarly on budgets, again the core responsible Departments—the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—will prioritise cyber-security. I fear that other Departments may not, so there is a strong argument for ringfencing cyber-security budgets for all Departments so that money cannot be transferred to more pressing short-term problems, as has often been the case, particularly, for example, in the NHS. It is very important that we do not overlook the basics. It is very easy to talk about legislation or to talk in high-level terms about threats, but probably the single biggest thing we could do to deal with cyber-risks in this country is to make sure that every time every single business and private individual gets one of those annoying pings on their phone saying that they need to upgrade their software to the latest operating system—it is the same with their PCs, iPads and so on—they do so. That is done by providers, because they know that there is a cyber-risk, and there is a patch to address it. If the patch is applied immediately, that can have a huge effect on the resilience of the whole of society, and the NCSC constantly puts out that message. We need to look at our resilience in society as a whole when we have a major cyber-attack. We have had major cyber-attacks, but they have tended to be in just one sector, albeit with cascading effects, as with JLR. We have not yet had a whole of society cyber-attack—either one that flows out of control from a criminal attack, or a deliberate attack from a hostile state cascading widely across all of society—affecting our electricity, water supplies and so on. I fear that it is only a matter of time before that happens, and we need to look at the resilience of individuals, including the ability to have analogue systems such as battery-powered torches, rather than electric torches, and so on. I started the work on that as a Minister, and I think more needs to be done in that space. We also need to look at the question of emergency communications. It was certainly my experience that public sector broadcasters—such as, I think, the BBC—are not required to take emergency communications from the Government in such situations. I think that is a loophole that could be exposed in such a situation. On resilience more broadly, we are in the foothills of the impact of AI. We are going to see vast impacts on employment and how people lead meaningful lives as AI advances more and more rapidly. For the resilience of our society, this House needs to have a much wider debate—not on this Bill, but more generally—about how we address the epoch-changing challenges we are facing. In conclusion, I think this is a welcome piece of legislation and an important step forward. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez) correctly highlighted the very important challenges, and they will need to be addressed as this Bill passes through the House. I think it is an important step forward, but it is only one step, and once this legislation is enacted, we will need to be prepared to return to this issue again and again.

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

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  I welcome the Minister’s comments about the obligation on the public sector. However, I caution him that, in my experience, cyber-security is one of those things that Ministers talk about, but then other priorities overtake it. The advantage of legislative requirements is that they force Ministers to think about it. I urge the Minister to look at that point again as the Bill passes through Parliament. There is a case for putting more stringent requirements on the public sector in order to force Ministers’ minds on the point.