Commons Chamber

Tuesday 18th November 2025

(began 2 hours, 10 minutes ago)

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None Portrait Oral questions: Energy Security and Net Zero
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Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Question one.
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None Portrait Q1. What steps Great British Energy is taking to help public services use more renewable energy. (906390)
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Minister. Good morning, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the success of the
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None Portrait Q5. What recent discussions he has had with Cabinet colleagues on support for businesses facing increased energy costs. (906394)
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Speaker. Question five. Mr. Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With your with your permission, Mr.
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None Portrait Q12. What steps he is taking to provide funding for renewable energy sources. (906403)
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Question 12.

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Mr. Speaker. Great British Energy and Great British Energy nuclear will invest over £8.3 billion this Parliament in home
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None Portrait Q14. What steps his Department is taking to ensure approved suppliers providing home improvements under the ECO4 scheme continue to meet Trustmark standards. (906405)
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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None Portrait Topical questions: Energy Security and Net Zero
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Rachel Taylor on topicals. Question number one, please, Mr. Speaker. Minister. Thank you. Mr. Speaker. My right hon.
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None Portrait Ministerial statement: China Espionage and Government Security Response
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bench changeover. We now come to the statement Security Minister Dan Jarvis.
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Dan Jarvis Portrait Dan Jarvis MP, The Minister of State, Home Department (Barnsley North, Labour)
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With your. make a statement on Chinese espionage targeting UK democratic institutions and government action to counter the breadth of threats posed by China and by wider state actors. But before I begin, let me first pay tribute to the crew member of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tide surge, who is missing off the coast of the Republic of Ireland. I know the whole House will join me in sending our very best wishes to the ship's company and to their families back at home.

This tragic incident is a reminder of the sacrifice members of our armed forces make in the service of our country. Mr. speaker, earlier today, MI5 issued an espionage alert to members of this House. Members of the Other Place and parliamentary staff to warn them about ongoing targeting of our democratic institutions by Chinese actors. Before I set out the threat and what we're doing to meet it, let me thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your support in issuing the alert and your tireless efforts to safeguard the security of this place and the people who serve within it.

I encourage all parliamentary colleagues to read the alert and to get in touch with the parliamentary security department if they have any immediate concerns. Now, Mr. Speaker, our intelligence agencies have warned that China is attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about Parliament and the UK government. MI5 have stated that this activity is being carried out by a group of Chinese intelligence officers, often masked through the use of cover companies or external head-hunters.

It is not just parliamentarians who should be concerned by this. Parliamentary staff, economists, think tank employees, geopolitical consultants and government officials have all been targeted for their networks and access to politicians. I urge all parliamentarians and their staff to be wary that China has a low threshold for what information is considered to be of value, and will gather individual pieces of information to build a wider picture. Let me speak plainly. This activity involves a covert and calculated attempt by a foreign power to interfere with our sovereign affairs in favour of its own interests, and this government will not tolerate it.

It builds on a pattern of activity that we've seen from China, with cyber operations by China, state affiliated actors targeting parliamentary emails in 2021 and attempted foreign interference activity by Christine Lee in 2022 and other more recent cases. We will take all necessary measures to protect our national interests, our citizens and our democratic way of life, including working with our allies and partners. Mr. speaker, the world has changed a great deal since I first stepped forward to serve our country almost 30 years ago.

And while some things have changed, some things remain the same. And in the various roles I've held since then, I've always believed in the importance of being clear eyed about the nature of the threats that we face, and the need to ensure that the tools we use to respond to those threats are kept up to date. This government's first duty is to protect our national security, and we will not hesitate to hold all state actors to account. On the 6th of November, my right hon.

Friend the Foreign Secretary spoke with her Chinese counterpart, Director Wang Yi. She was clear with the Foreign Minister that any activity, any activity that threatens UK national security, particularly in relation to the UK's parliament and democracy, will not be tolerated. And today I am setting out a comprehensive package of measures we are taking to disrupt and deter the threats by the threats posed by China, as well as by wider state actors, supported by Ministers from across government and coordinated by myself.

We are launching a counter political interference and espionage action plan. Mr. speaker, I will set out in detail to the House what that plan will entail. First, we will strengthen the legislative tools available to government to disrupt the threat. We will introduce the elections Bill, which will include proposed measures to safeguard against covert political funding. This will include tougher risk assessment rules for donor recipients and enhanced enforcement powers for the Electoral Commission. And I can confirm we are also working on new powers to counter foreign interference, including a prescription type tool to disrupt proxy organisations, undermining our security, and an extension to maximum penalties for election interference offences.

Second, we are launching a series of protective security campaigns coordinated through the Defending Democracy Task Force, working with the parliamentary security authorities. These will help all those who work in politics to recognise, resist and report suspicious state threat activity. Building on the guidance that was launched by the National Protective Security Authority in October, this will include tailored security briefings for the devolved governments and for political parties via the parliamentary Parties panel by the end of this year, as well as new security guidance in January for all candidates taking part in devolved and local elections in May.

Third, we are building a campaign that uses all levers at the disposal of this government to degrade the ecosystem of proxy cover. Companies, organisations and individuals that are being used by foreign states to facilitate interference and espionage targeting our democratic institutions, the National Protective Security Authority building on there. Think before you link campaign will be strengthening their engagement with professional networking sites to make them a more hostile operating environment for foreign agents. Now, Mr. Speaker, as the Security Minister, I am privileged to see the diligence of the security services, law enforcement and civil servants who work tirelessly to keep the UK safe day and night.

Noting China's low threshold for information gathering. This government is providing the resources needed to protect our national interest, so I can announce that the government has committed to investing 170 million to renew the sovereign encrypted technology our officials use to do their vital work. This programme of work will help to ensure sensitive diplomatic, economic, trade, security, law enforcement and policy development arrangements are safeguarded from espionage by any state threat actor. I can also announce that this government has completed the removal of surveillance equipment manufactured by companies subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China.

From all sensitive sites we maintain in the UK and around the world. Moreover, we will invest 130 million next year through the Integrated Security Fund to build the UK's resilience against threats posed by states such as China. Among other projects, this investment will build counter-terrorism Policing's ability to enforce the National Security Act and fund the National Cyber Security Centre and National Protective Security Authority's work supporting our most critical businesses to protect their intellectual property. Indeed, the National Protective Security Authority's work is an important reminder that China doesn't just pose threats to our democratic institutions, but also to other sectors.

Let me talk briefly about two other sectors in particular. First, education. Education is one of the UK's most important global assets, and that is in part due to the UK's steadfast commitment to academic freedom and excellence. There is value for the UK in engagement with China on education. However, operating in today's uncertain international context presents many challenges for our great universities. It is because of their excellence that states like China are attempting to influence their independent research and interfere with activity on campus.

Ministers have already raised our concerns about this activity with their counterparts in Beijing, and the office for students has recently issued new guidance to help universities protect the freedoms their staff and students enjoy. But as part of our ongoing commitment to work collectively to address these risks, I can announce that Ministers will host a closed event with vice Chancellors to discuss the risks posed by foreign interference and signpost our plans to further increase the sector's resilience. Second, advanced manufacturing.

The Department for Business and Trade is working to strengthen and scale our new Economic Security Advisory Service to help businesses navigate economic security issues like espionage and intellectual property theft. The service is already engaging businesses in the advanced manufacturing sector, and as it matures, to support other sectors of the economy, it will provide a new digital offer and assist businesses with complex economic security cases. Navigating HMG support. Mr. speaker, in October, I told the House that this government remains steadfast in our commitment to disrupting and holding state actors accountable for widescale cyber espionage operations, and we stand ready to go further to disrupt, degrade and protect against the dangerous and unrestrained offensive cyber ecosystem that China has allowed to take hold.

Earlier this year, the NTSC with international allies called out free technology companies based in China. China, with a global malicious cyber campaign targeting critical networks. And just last week, we introduced the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill that will help to make critical sectors of the economy and the public sector a harder target from cyber attacks, including malicious cyber activity emanating from China's territory. The government will continue to take further action against China based actors involved in malicious cyber activity against the UK and our allies.

This will form part of a broader campaign that the UK is delivering to disrupt and degrade the dangerous cyber ecosystem that China has allowed to take hold within its territory. Now, Mr. Speaker, let me assure hon. Members that we will not shy away from using all the tools at our disposal, including sanctions, as necessary. Mr. speaker, our country has a long and proud history as a seafaring nation, trading around the world with those countries that share our way of life and with those that do not.

China is the world's second largest economy and together with Hong Kong, is the UK's third largest trading partner. It's in our long term strategic interest to continue to engage with China. We must cooperate on areas where our interests align. Climate, global health, trade, scientific research, illegal migration and serious organised crime to name just a few areas. But we will always, always challenge any country, including China, that attempts to interfere, influence or undermine the integrity of our democratic institutions.

And we will take all, all necessary measures to protect UK national security. That is why we have taken the action today, and I am clear that further steps can and absolutely will be taken. Disrupting and deterring China's espionage activity wherever it takes place. Updating our security powers to keep pace with the threat. Helping those who work in politics to recognise, resist and report the threat, and working with partners across the economy to strengthen their security against the threat.

Mr. speaker, our strategy is not just to cooperate. We will engage China where necessary, but we will always act to defend our interests and challenge where our values are threatened. I commend this statement to the House.

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Just just to say the Minister did take 14. It's a very important subject. So I have no problem. So
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Alicia Kearns Portrait Alicia Kearns MP (Rutland and Stamford, Conservative)
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My heart also goes out to the missing crew member, their ship's company, and their loved ones at home. Let us all hope for good news. Thank you to the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for his time last week. But the revelations today are no surprise. They are the latest in an ever growing list of actions by the Chinese Communist Party, interfering in our sovereign affairs and trying to undermine our democracy and our country.

The pernicious nature of this threat should not be underestimated, and I welcome the Minister's plans for a new prescription tool to counter foreign interference. Also, that the government has completed work. We started to strip surveillance equipment manufactured in China from sensitive sites on education. However, plans to discuss foreign interference with vice Chancellors is quite inadequate. I have had those discussions and face nothing but naivety and intransigence, but they are also useless unless the government is willing to use its teeth to defend those institutions under attack.

Earlier this month, Norway and Denmark alerted us to the existence of dual use kill switches in Chinese made electric buses, allowing China to switch off buses and bring chaos to transport systems. So, could the Minister give an update on the investigation into our bus networks, but also the chips that have been placed in Ministry of Defence vehicles that require our members of the armed forces to be silent whilst travelling around our country in defence of our nation. On academic freedom, Sheffield Hallam University was blackmailed by Chinese security services into cancelling research into state sanctioned Uyghur slave labour.

So will update on the police investigation into this and the coercive campaign. Can the Minister share and will he also admit that it was a mistake for his party to cancel our university free speech provisions and use them to convince the government to reintroduce them? Now that the threat is on the front pages of our newspapers, because it is only by drawing a red line and taking action to establish some form of deterrence, that we will see threats abate. Yet, in the face of such hostility, the government appears delegates difficult conversations to officials on the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Bury.

The government saw fit, only to call in a senior official to have a conversation with the Chinese charge d'affaires. Last week, Hong Kong and Chloe Chung said that the government is not keeping her safe. The government's response to a bounty being put on her head to kidnap notes being delivered to her neighbours, asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy was the same rhetorical tap on the knuckles. This is insufficient. If the government seriously wants to deter further attacks on our country. Now we on this side of the House recognise the threat the Chinese Communist Party and we want to work with the government.

So we have a few suggestions. The Minister today stated that the Chinese government is using proxy organisations to interfere in and commit espionage against our democracy. That is literally why we introduced the Foreign Influence Registration scheme. So instead of the communications plan and private closed door meetings announced today, we urge the government to put China in the enhanced tier of the scheme. In opposition, Labour supported us in passing the National Security Act. Yet in government, they refuse to use it as it was designed.

Now that is perverse. Why vote for a defensive tool? To leave it on the shelf when we are under threat? The decision on the new Chinese embassy is also expected shortly. And whilst we would see that embassy refused, if the government will not, will it at least require the Chinese government to pay for sensitive underground cables to be rerouted away from the embassy? We also hear of multiple government visits planned to China before Christmas in the New Year. Will these now be cancelled? Because what message does it send when, despite an attack on this House, our Parliament Ministers are happily jetting off to stride down red carpets with the government responsible.

And finally, we need a comprehensive audit of our vulnerabilities across our society and our economy. The recent export controls and critical minerals demonstrate China's willingness to weaponize its economic heft. We need to know where our vulnerabilities lie and increase our resilience accordingly. But that also means publishing the shelved China audit, because how can an entire civil service base its posture on a document that most will never be allowed to read? It needs to be published and sensitive areas can be redacted.

Any offence taken by the Chinese authorities at its contents are down to their actions, not us. Now we face an acute threat to our democracy and the face of that threat. We have yet to see repercussions. The Chinese Communist Party to defend our nation, the government must have a firm policy of deterrence. Now, justice was denied last month, but the government has the tools and ability to act. So when will the government take action to make clear to the Chinese Communist Party that they will not get away with attacks on our democracy? The government can cancel the jetco trade talks.

It can impose sanctions, it can cancel propaganda visits to China, and it can put the Chinese Communist Party in enhanced cheer when they do any of these. We will be here and ready to help. But until that time, the Chinese Communist Party will think our country, unwilling to deter future acts of hostility and unwilling to defend our democracy or our country. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
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Dan Jarvis Portrait Dan Jarvis MP, The Minister of State, Home Department (Barnsley North, Labour)
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Mr. Lady here and in her place, and I'm very grateful for her comments today and for the contact that we've had recently. And I hope she knows that this is a conversation I want to continue to have with her and colleagues on her side, and we take very seriously the points that she's made today and on countless other occasions. And let me try and provide her with some reassurance. But if I'm not able to do that, I'm very happy to to meet with her again in the very near future, because as she will understand, there are sensitivities around some of these matters, and that means it's more difficult to get into the detail of some of them.

But let me see what I can say to try and provide some assurances. So the package that we have announced today, I think by any metric, is a comprehensive package, but I've been clear about the government's willingness to go further when and where that is required. The measures that we have announced today will help us, will help us to tackle economic, academic, cyber and espionage threats that we face from China and from other state actors. The impact of the measures that we've announced today will be immediate, but as I say, we will not hesitate to go further where that is necessary.

Because when we say that national security is the first priority of this government, that is something that we take incredibly seriously. Now, she's right that the threats that we face from China do require action and not words. And I would just gently reiterate some of the announcements that we've confirmed today. So the work that we're taking forward will be coordinated from my by myself, from the Cabinet Office as part of a new counter political interference and espionage plan.

That will be the fulcrum point for coordinating this activity right across government and across law enforcement. She will have heard the words that I've spoken about the new guidance and briefings that will be issued to members of this House and to the devolved assemblies, and to candidates standing for elections in May of next year. We're putting our money where our mouth is as well. I've announced £170 million specifically towards renewing our sovereign encrypted technical capability, and another 130 million on projects such as building counter-terrorism policing capacity, working with the NCIC and the Npsa to protect intellectual property.

I've also referenced and she referenced it as well, the removal of surveillance equipment manufactured by companies subject to the national intelligence law. I absolutely acknowledge that that was work that began under the previous government, and I am pleased. And I've issued a written ministerial statement with further detail to confirm that we've completed that process today. I also think that is an important legislative angle to all of this, which is why we introduced the new Cyber Security and Resilience bill just last week, and why I give an assurance that we will introduce the elections Bill, the the earliest available opportunity.

Now, all of these measures are important in their own right, but they are more important when they are brought together. But in the end, I think the hon. Lady will agree with this. What really matters is our mindset, and our mindset is born out of an absolute desire to work collaboratively across this place to protect our country and all of the people who live here. Now, will that involve making some tough choices? Yes, the truth of the matter is it will involve making some tough choices.

The previous government made some tough choices. This government will have to make tough choices. But like all of our G7 counterparts, we will engage with those choices in a clear eyed way. I don't think any serious member of this House thinks that we shouldn't be engaging with China. The debate is around the nature of the engagement. Now, the hon. Lady made some important points, and if I'm not able to address them adequately, I will come back to her. She specifically raised the importance of education and academic freedoms, and I completely agree with her.

And she specifically referenced Sheffield Hallam University. I know that she will understand that because active inquiries are ongoing into this matter, it wouldn't be appropriate to comment on the specifics of what allegedly happened at Sheffield Hallam. But the points that she makes are well made and give her an absolute assurance that we take them incredibly seriously. She also raised, and it didn't come as a huge surprise to me that she did. The issue of furs. Now she will remember that furs is a product of the National Security Act.

Now, there are some members in this House who said that we wouldn't introduce furs at all. Then when we confirmed that we were going to introduce it, they said that we wouldn't be able to do it by the 1st of July. I gave a categorical assurance that we would introduce it by the 1st of July. And we did. We are looking closely at whether it is necessary to make further additions onto the enhanced tier. But I can say to her that no decision has yet been made specifically with regard to China.

She also asked me about the embassy, and this is a matter that there has been much discussion in this place, and we are moving towards a point of decision. She will understand that that is not a decision for me. It is a decision that will be made by the Secretary of State for housing, Communities and Local Government, and he will do that in a quasi judicial capacity. And as a consequence of that, I am very limited in what I can say.

But I can say, as I have said previously, that national security has been the core priority throughout that particular process. She and she spoke about visits, and I would take a different view to the way that she characterised the visits that she described. I think it is important that members of this government, Ministers, senior Ministers engage with our counterparts in China. It is only by engaging that we are provided with an opportunity to deliver tough and consistent messages.

I can categorically assure her that any Minister or any official that travels from this country to China will deliver a series of strong and coherent messages aligned with the messages that I've delivered to the House today. She also about the audit. She'll know that the the previous Foreign Secretary gave a statement in this House about the China audit. But I'll look carefully the specifics of the points that she makes to conclude in my response to her. I hope she knows how seriously we take these matters, and I categorically assure her that I am very, very happy to work collaboratively with her and

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colleagues on her side to make sure country. John McDonnell. I.
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