Civil Service Pensions: Capita
Baroness Finn Excerpts(4 days, 23 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
With regard to Fujitsu, I think the noble Baroness will be aware that there are ongoing issues that relate to the Horizon scandal. With regard to Capita, there are two companies at play here: the company and whether it fulfilled its responsibilities for the previous provider and what Capita actually inherited, which was double the backlog that it was expecting. So there are more complex issues at play here and I am sure that, in the coming months, we will be discussing this in great detail in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, whatever the failings of the contractor, the agreement will contain options for the contractee, but those potential remedies are only effective if the contracting authority itself is on the case relentlessly. Can the Minister tell the House what concrete steps the Civil Service has taken over the years to improve the quality of its contract management? No well-run business would tolerate a contractor underperforming in this way, so why should the Government allow such behaviour?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I want to be very clear that this was a contract signed by the noble Baroness’s Government in 2023, and we are now managing the contract that they signed. As regards where we are in holding Capita to account, we have withheld £9.6 million in transition payments up until this point, from a contract value over seven years of £285 million. That is a significant withhold at this point. We are making sure that Capita is meeting its KPIs and we are meeting it every day as part of the recovery taskforce. However, the noble Baroness is absolutely right that a great number of public procurement challenges relate to the original contract and all this needs to be looked at in the round.
Think Tanks: Funding
Baroness Finn Excerpts(5 days, 23 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, if a think tank is a charity, it is subject to regulation by the Charity Commission. If it is engaging in election activity, it is subject to the Electoral Commission for any spend over £10,000 and donations over £700. But the noble Lord raises an important point, which is why we asked Philip Rycroft to undertake his review, and I look forward to reading it at the end of March.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, think tanks plays an important role in advancing democratic engagement by developing ideas and policy. There is currently no legal requirement for them to disclose their funders, and imposing such a requirement on charities and research institutes would risk a disproportionate intrusion into civil society. The ability of organisations across the political spectrum to contribute freely to public debate is an important part of our civic strength. Will the Minister therefore confirm that the Government recognise the value of the current arrangements in enabling think tanks to carry out this work and that they have no plans to change that existing regime?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I hate to disappoint the noble Baroness, but I cannot and will not. To be very clear, while I appreciate and have worked directly with think tanks—as I think most Members of your Lordships’ House have—and sat on panels and engaged with them, the reality is that if a regulatory framework is required to make sure that people know who they are engaging with and whether there are any ulterior motives, we have to be clear on what those are. I have written for organisations such as the Policy Exchange, and I used to run HOPE not hate, a third-party campaign organisation. There are different structures that everybody has to engage with, but it is only right and proper that we know who is funding what, when and why.
Public Trust in National Politics
Baroness Finn Excerpts(1 week, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I helped run HOPE not hate for many years, and I was on the board until the general election. There is a responsibility on everybody to make sure that we are celebrating the hope, and embracing hope rather than hate, in our society and looking at what unites us rather than what divides us. Especially since 7 October, that has proved to be very challenging for parts of our community, including my own, but we need to make sure that core British values remain at the heart of who we are and that we can celebrate those things that bring us together.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, trust is something a Government must earn. It is built on honesty, transparency and consistency, all of which are essential if we are to begin restoring public confidence in politics. Against that background, can the Minister tell the House what assessment the Government have made of the impact of the 14 policy U-turns we have endured during this Parliament? Does she accept that repeatedly promising one course of action and then pursuing the opposite risks further undermining that trust?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I asked the Labour Party unit how many U-turns the previous Government had done in their 14 years, and they are still to come back to me because they are still counting.
Chinese Embassy
Baroness Finn Excerpts(2 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s decision to approve planning permission for a new Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint Court site is profoundly troubling. We should be clear about the nature of the regime with which we are dealing. This is a state that our own security services have warned is actively seeking to undermine our democracy, has placed bounties on the heads of Hong Kong democracy campaigners living here in the United Kingdom, has spied directly on Members of Parliament, supports Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and systematically infiltrates our universities and businesses to acquire, and often steal, sensitive intellectual property.
Yet the Government’s response to this mounting threat has been characterised by confusion, equivocation and weakness. Ministers have shrunk from calling China what it is: a national security threat. They show a singular lack of transparency by refusing to publish their China audit. They have failed to place China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and properly support the prosecution of two men accused of spying on MPs in the other place. Now, astonishingly, they have waved through the creation of a Chinese super-embassy in the heart of our capital.
On the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit, one thing remains strikingly absent: any clarity whatsoever about this Government’s approach to China. From these Benches, we have been clear about what a serious and responsible policy on China must look like. It requires relentless scrutiny of the national security threat China poses and firmness in the defence of sovereignty. It requires the courage to call out, clearly, plainly and without equivocation, the systematic human rights abuses inflicted on millions of people in China and across its sphere of influence.
We are equally clear-eyed about the realities of the global economy. China is the world’s second-largest economy, and engagement is unavoidable. But engagement must never mean acquiescence, pragmatism cannot become passivity and economic interaction must be matched by strategic resilience, moral clarity and a willingness to confront wrongdoing wherever it occurs. This Government have failed that test. What they have offered is not balance but capitulation. Their failure of clarity, resolve and principle leaves this country weaker, not stronger, on the world stage.
On the question of the embassy, let us be clear about what has just been approved. This will be the largest embassy in Europe, not for one of our closest allies but for a state that spies on us, represses people on our soil and backs an aggressor waging war on our allies in Ukraine. It will be an embassy so vast that it includes a 208-room underground complex, with a basement running just metres from cables carrying some of the most sensitive financial data in the world and linking Canary Wharf and the City of London. The question for the Minister is simply: what is the purpose of such a large embassy? What is it for? Why have the Government approved such a facility for a country described by our intelligence agencies as a national security threat? Why does the Chinese embassy need to be on such a scale?
Perhaps most alarming of all is the fact that the Secretary of State who approved this development has admitted that he did so without seeing the unredacted plans. How can a Government that claim to put national security first possibly maintain that the risks were properly assessed when the decision was taken on the basis of redacted documents? I ask the Minister directly: how is that compatible with any serious conception of responsible national security? It has been reported, furthermore, that the Chinese authorities could legally refuse access to UK inspectors during or after construction. If that is true, we will not know what is being built beneath our feet. Does the Minister dispute these reports, and has China said that it will allow access?
This decision cannot be divorced from the wider pattern of behaviour we are witnessing. China is spying on us. It is subverting our democracy by attacking our democratic institutions, the Government and the custodians of our electoral system. It is engaging in transnational repression on British soil, intimidating dissidents, targeting Hong Kongers who have sought refuge here and attempting to coerce British citizens themselves. The Secretary of State’s permission letter made out that, so long as China undertook
“lawful embassy use of the site”,
everything would be fine. I ask the Minister: is it lawful to assault Hong Kong activists on our streets? Is it lawful to operate so-called “police stations” on British soil? Is it lawful to place bounties on the heads of people living under the protection of UK law? Is it lawful to pressure neighbours of Hong Kongers to lure them into embassies so that those bounties can be collected? The answer to every one of those questions is no, and yet we are now proposing dramatically to expand China’s diplomatic footprint here, adding hundreds of additional staff, despite clear evidence that, wherever China expands its embassy presence, transnational repression increases. Does the Minister seriously dispute that pattern?
The truth is simple: China poses a security threat on multiple fronts. That means that, yes, we need to engage, but with our eyes wide open. We must remain vigilant and call out national security threats. It is the first job of government. Giving China exactly what it wants is a damaging capitulation. The Prime Minister might benefit from easier small talk during his imminent visit to China, but it is the British people who will pay the price and the impact of this decision will be felt for years to come. This House should be deeply ashamed that such a decision has been allowed to stand, and the Government should think again, before they discover, too late, that the risks they waved through so casually are risks that the country will be left to bear.
In closing, I emphasise that all this plays into a wider narrative of neglect and disregard for our national security. At the same time the Government are greenlighting the Chinese Government to build their mega-embassy, they are also paying millions of pounds to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which is itself in a long-standing friendship with China and has committed to supporting China’s core interests and major concerns so as to further deepen their mutual strategic partnership. As my noble friend Lord Callanan and other noble Lords have tirelessly pointed out, it is not our allies who welcome the Chagos deal but those who seek to harm us. It is Russia and China who have been fully supportive of the UK giving up its sovereignty of a key strategic asset.
I briefly touch on the Hillsborough Bill, on which the Government have been forced into yet another unedifying U-turn. When we debated this matter last week, the Minister was unable to answer the questions on national security that I raised, and this episode only reinforces the wider concern that the Government do not grasp what national security means in practice and instead treat it as something that can be traded away or manipulated for political convenience. The Government are fond of reminding the House that the first duty of any Government is the defence of national security. On that test, I regret to say, they have fallen at the first hurdle.
Public Inquiries: Costs
Baroness Finn Excerpts(3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I absolutely agree. We have seen, whether in the infected blood scandal or the Horizon scandal, that people who genuinely wanted answers had to wait years before we even got to the point of a public inquiry. The Government have an opportunity to help rebuild trust in the institutions that should matter to people. At a time when there are significant threats to our democracy, it is incredibly important that people have trust in them. So, expediting this is key.
One of the things we have also done brought forward the dashboard where people can see what recommendations have been made by some of these public inquiries, to make sure that the recommendations are being implemented. There is a balance here. We must listen to people and ensure that they have their day and have their issues heard, and we must also act on the recommendations of the inquiries.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, some of the most serious matters considered by public inquiries inevitably touch on the actions or knowledge of the intelligence and security agencies. Can the Minister explain how the Government ensure that bodies such as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ are able to participate fully and properly in public inquiries by providing relevant evidence and assistance while also preserving their essential national security duties and statutory obligations? In particular, how do the Government ensure that national security considerations do not unduly limit an inquiry’s ability to establish the facts and command public confidence in its conclusions?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Baroness will be very aware of the pre-existing processes that are in place through the public interest immunity certificate and the fact that, in statute, chairs of committees can see intelligence reports that allow them to work to ensure that nothing is being hidden and that key findings are made. PII certificates are a mechanism for Ministers to withhold highly sensitive material from disclosure in court proceedings, and they can be used in relation to statutory inquiries. It is fundamental that we make sure we get the balance right between ensuring that everybody is duly held to account while at the same time protecting the people who strive every day to keep us safe.
Exercise Pegasus 2025
Baroness Finn Excerpts(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My noble friend is right that my statistics may not be someone else’s statistics. We should always interrogate the data that is being put in front of us.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the scale and ambition of Exercise Pegasus. Simulating crisis events in this way is clearly vital if we are to strengthen national resilience and avoid the shortcomings exposed during the Covid pandemic. However, the exercise was conducted on discrete days over several months, with breaks in between. A real pandemic is relentless, cumulative and exhausting for systems and decision-makers alike. Can the Minister explain how the Government ensured that this sense of sustained pressure, operational fatigue and compounding risk was adequately captured within the exercise design, despite the staged nature of the simulation?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises an important point about how realistic we can make exercises. Some of this is about making sure that the processes and people are all in place and that they know each other; that was one of the fundamental factors that that did not necessarily work during the pandemic. We sought to use focus groups and other mechanisms to ensure that the environments were as realistic as possible and to try to stress-test what was going on. We will continue to do that as the exercise continues into this year, and I look forward to seeing the initial findings report imminently.
Government Communications: X
Baroness Finn Excerpts(1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises a very important point about our defence supply chain. As an honorary captain in the Royal Navy, this is of key importance to me. I will have to write to her with the details of any contract.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, there have been reports that the Government’s ongoing assessment of their use of social media platforms is relatively informal, conducted without direct ministerial oversight and triggered only on an ad hoc basis when officials consider that a material change has occurred. Given that the Civil Service Code makes it explicit that officials must ensure they have ministerial authorisation for contact with the media, can the Minister update the House on what steps the Government are taking to ensure that the process is subject to clear ministerial accountability, so that decisions about how the Government communicate with the public are properly overseen by Ministers?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Baroness will be aware that there is a new Permanent Secretary of the Government Communication Service. All these issues, as ever, are under review, but she will not be surprised to learn that how we engage on social media platforms is constantly under review, given the changing nature of communications. However, to clarify, there is an annual review of the platforms we use which are not social media platforms, such as Mumsnet, as well as ad hoc reviews when something clearly changes, as was the case in the ownership of X.
Office for the Impact Economy
Baroness Finn Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
This is a genuinely important point from the noble Baroness. There are several parts to this: it is about empowering local communities but also ensuring that there is training undertaken, so that community groups can genuinely access some of the funds. I used to run a national charity and am very aware of how challenging it can be for local charities to access some philanthropic pots of money. There are two schemes where I think that we genuinely will be able to work with communities. The first is the Pride in Place scheme, where we are seeking to deliver over £5 billion-worth of funding in 244 areas. We are talking in this space about £2 million per year for 10 years in specific communities; I should declare that my husband is on the board of my local Pride in Place scheme in Bentilee. We will also hope to work with them to ensure match funding to expand that £2 million to up to £4 million a year, which can genuinely make a difference at the award-based community level. There is also the better futures fund, which is an outcomes-based fund. It is government saying not what needs to be done but what ultimately we need to achieve, and leaving it up to local people to determine how to get there.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, while the objectives of the Office for the Impact Economy are welcome, the creation of a new office is no guarantee of delivery. We have seen how other co-ordinating bodies, such as the Government’s newly reformed mission boards, have struggled to translate cross-government ambitions into outcomes. The Office for Value for Money has been closed down, at a cost of the taxpayer of £1.6 million. What assurances can the noble Baroness give that this office will be different, and what specific measures have the Government incorporated to ensure that it achieves tangible and measurable results?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
And there was me hoping for Christmas miracles and not for the Grinch.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
Thank you for the “Merry Christmas”.
My Lords, let us be clear about why this is so extraordinary and exceptional. We are working to bring together social investors, social enterprises and philanthropists to deliver, using their expertise and ours to make sure that this works. Already, a significant number of assets are delivering. Why do I think this will be so successful? Only last month, Legal & General announced an additional £2 billion of investment in this space, which is going to lead to an additional 24,000 jobs and 10,000 social and affordable homes. When we talk about what this Government are trying to do for our national renewal, it is about 1.5 million homes and homes anchored in communities. This is about delivering for every corner of society; that is what we are doing with the Office for the Impact Economy.
Infected Blood Compensation Scheme (Amendment) Regulations 2025
Baroness Finn Excerpts(1 month, 4 weeks ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the progress that has been made by the Infected Blood Compensation Authority—IBCA—and the Government in delivering payments. I pay tribute to the work of Sir Brian Langstaff and all those involved in the Infected Blood Inquiry and its additional report. This report made a number of recommendations to improve the compensation scheme. The Government have broadly accepted the recommendations, five of which are given effect by the regulations before us. After the catastrophic failures that led to the infected blood scandal, it is vital that justice is delivered swiftly and fairly to all who were affected.
I also take this opportunity to thank the noble Baroness opposite for her letter of 27 November, which addressed some of the questions that were raised when we discussed this matter on 4 November. In particular, I am glad to see in response to my question about the steps the Government and IBCA are taking to ensure that those who should be prioritised for compensation are being identified that the noble Baroness has confirmed that IBCA will prioritise claims in the order recommended by the inquiry.
In line with my colleagues in the other place, I make it clear at the outset that His Majesty’s Opposition support these regulations. There are no substantive differences between the position of the Government and that of the Opposition, or even of the previous Government. However, we cannot forget that we are discussing one of the most egregious and profound injustices: the infliction, collectively, of grievous harm upon thousands of people by the state. It is paramount that we have a scheme which delivers justice and redress compassionately, quickly and fairly. We support the five recommendations that the Government are accepting and legislating for today. I welcome that they go some way to making this ambition a reality.
The changes include: provision to remove the 1982 start date for eligible HIV infections; removing the need for applicants with hepatitis C or B to evidence their date of diagnosis, which does not have a bearing on the calculation of an individual’s compensation; and removing the earnings floor on the exceptional loss award for the financial loss supplementary route, thereby creating a route for infected people to present evidence on their actual earning loss.
We welcome the Minister’s confirmation that lifting the HIV start date means that it will not matter when a victim was infected with HIV, provided that the infection arose from treatment with contaminated blood or blood products administered before 1 November 1985. However, can the Minister confirm that this also applies to those who only discovered or were only informed much later that they were infected, but where the likely cause was treatment before the relevant date? Similarly, can she assure the House that no one who should be eligible will fall through the cracks because of earlier failures in record keeping, particularly those infected as children whose medical records may have been incomplete at the time? We must ensure that no one is denied the compensation they both need and deserve, and I am sure that this is something the Government will wish to avoid.
The Minister will also be aware of the representations from those deliberately infected with haemophilia as part of clinical studies and of their deep concern at the proposed level of compensation for deliberate infection. Will the Minister commit to working with Sir Brian to review whether that component is appropriate?
When we debated this matter on 4 November, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and I raised concerns about IHT and the risk that the Government could be giving out compensation with one hand and clawing it back with the other. The Minister said in response to our concerns that she was listening and would seek to arrange a meeting with Treasury officials to discuss this issue further. Can she update us on this meeting, and what recommendations or changes have come out of it? Can she confirm that all infected blood compensation payments, whether made directly to victims or through estates, are entirely exempt from inheritance tax, regardless of the circumstances or timing of payment?
The noble Baroness also raised the review by Sir Tyrone Urch when we last discussed this matter. Can she give us an update on what assessment the Government have made of the recommendations he made and whether any of them are going to be given effect? Can she please assure the House that the changes we are debating today will not impact on the timeliness and swiftness of repayment to victims, given that they will likely impact on the scale of the operation? As the Minister in the other place confirmed, we have moved from the test-and-learn approach to the exponential phase of delivery. Rather than having yet more reviews and recommendations, the Government must now focus on the delivery of IBCA at scale. The scaling up process must be commensurate with the urgency of the situation.
Finally, as we have repeatedly highlighted over the past year, many victims and families still feel that they are in the dark—an issue identified again in Sir Brian Langstaff’s most recent report. The Minister in the other place has given an undertaking that transparency will be at the heart of any expert group going forward. Will the Minister commit to publishing a clear communications plan and to working with IBCA to ensure regular updates and accessible guidance in plain English so that those who may be eligible understand their rights and can access the compensation they need?
I reiterate that we support these regulations but would welcome clarity from the Minister on the points that I have raised. I thank her again for the steps that she and the Government are taking to provide some redress after this terrible saga. We appreciate the need to proceed with care and consideration, but we must not lose sight of the need to scale up delivery so that the process can be as quick and effective as possible. That is the only way to ensure that those victims and their families who have already been failed so profoundly by the state face no further injustice.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I would usually say I thank noble Lords, but I thank the noble Baronesses—as is our wont when we talk about issues of infected blood—for their points and their continued representation of the infected blood community with unwavering dedication. Many in your Lordships’ House have consistently ensured that the voices of the infected and affected community are given a voice in this Chamber. I particularly pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell—I was delighted to see her in your Lordships’ House last week, and she is definitely on the road to recovery—and the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, who has ensured that we always have a human voice, as well, of course, as the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. Their resolve in seeking justice for the victims of this scandal cannot be overstated, and their generosity of time to make sure that I am fully abreast of such issues has been incredibly personally beneficial.
I also thank my opposite number, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, for how constructively we have worked together on these issues to deliver for a community that rightly has limited faith and trust in government after its experiences. The onus is on all of us in your Lordships’ House to make sure that community knows we are listening. I will look in detail at the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, whose questions were very specific, as she highlighted. It may be useful for us to have a meeting with officials. I will invite all those who have participated today to attend , but I will also reflect on the points and write in advance of it.
We are here first and foremost to debate the regulations, and I will prioritise the issues raised on them in my response. I am aware of the other points that have been raised and will do my best to address those too, but obviously I will reflect on Hansard if I miss any of them. On the specific points raised, I will start with those from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. These are incredibly important points, and she worried me, when she gave me the detail in advance, that there was a gap that we had missed. So, to clarify for the record—I think that would be useful—someone infected as a child would receive injury, social impact, autonomy, care and basic financial loss awards in the same way as an adult. They would not receive an additional financial loss award for the years when they were aged under 16. However, they would still receive an additional financial loss award for the years when they were or will be aged 16 or over. I hope that gives a level of reassurance.
In the heartbreaking situation when an infected child has passed away, a bereaved parent would receive injury, social impact and autonomy awards based on the child’s infection and infection severity. This will not change based on how old their child was when they passed away. The awards to parents are higher where their child’s infection has caused or is expected to cause an early death in the future. This includes those infected with HIV or levels 3, 4 and 5 hepatitis infections. They would also be the likely beneficiary of their child’s estate under the law of intestacy. All such would likely be the recipient of whatever injury, social impact, autonomy, care and financial loss awards are due to the child’s estate. So there is still a level of compensation, but I will make sure that I also write to the noble Baroness so that she has a copy in writing as well as from Hansard.
I will touch on IBCA’s prioritisation, because that is helpful in this context. IBCA is prioritising those nearing the end of their lives because community members and representatives have highlighted how important it is for these people to start their compensation claims. “Nearing the end of life” means that a person has been told by a doctor or medical professional that they might have fewer than 12 months to live. This could be due to any medical illness or condition; it does not need to be caused directly by an infection from contaminated blood.
Official Secrets Act and Espionage
Baroness Finn Excerpts(2 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, the report from the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy describes the handling of the Cash and Berry case as “shambolic” and highlights serious systemic failures and deficiencies. The report raises serious concerns about the ability of the Government to pursue those who want to undermine our security. The chair of the committee, a Labour MP, has urged the Government to show the public that they are confident in standing up to adversaries when required. Will the Minister commit to responding to and implementing the key recommendations of the report? Can she now confirm that the Government accept the conclusion of this report that there was clear evidence that China poses a threat to the UK’s national security?
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her questions. I join her in thanking the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy for its scrutiny and its work in shining some light—where there has been a great deal of heat—on what actually happened. On the key points that she has raised, we will reflect on the committee’s findings and I look forward to debating them with her across this Dispatch Box in due course when we come forward with our response to the report. I remind her of the Prime Minister’s comments at the Lady Mayor’s banquet last Monday about our position: China
“poses real national security threats to the United Kingdom … It’s time for a serious approach, to reject the simplistic binary choice. Neither golden age, nor ice age”.
He said:
“So our response will not be driven by fear, nor softened by illusion. It will be grounded in strength, clarity and sober realism”.