China Espionage: Government Security Response

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will try not to outlive the welcome that the Minister extended to me and the nice words expressed by so many colleagues from all sides of the House. I hope that she will forgive me if I press her further on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and the point about academics that was raised earlier.

It comes as no surprise to those seven parliamentarians —of whom I am one—who have been sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party to hear warnings about CCP operatives spying and laying the groundwork for subversive long-term relationships with parliamentarians. But those sanctions are nothing compared with the imprisonment of hundreds of pro-democracy advocates, such as Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong, or the atrocities committed against Uyghur Muslims. They are nothing compared with the evidence that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I have the privilege to chair, received during our inquiry into transnational repression and published in our report of 30 July. For instance, we cited the bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars on the heads of UK residents, including the courageous 20 year-old Chloe Cheung.

I have raised the intimidation of academics, such as Professor Michelle Shipworth, who was referred to by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, as well as the case of Professor Laura Murphy, which was in the newspapers recently. Laura Murphy works at Sheffield Hallam University, and she gave evidence to our Joint Committee on Human Rights in our inquiry on supply chain transparency and modern-day slavery. Both of those academics have experienced intimidation as a consequence. When the Minister has her meeting with university vice-chancellors, I hope she will emphasise the dangers of becoming far too dependent on money pouring into our universities, which then starts to call the tune.

During our hearings, we received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. We found:

“China conducts the most comprehensive TNR”—


transnational repression—

“campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK. Its omission from the enhanced tier risks undermining the credibility and coherence of FIRS”.

We recommend that

“the Government specify China under the enhanced tier of FIRS”.

In the light of these most recent revelations, I hope that the Minister will go back and talk to the honourable Dan Jarvis, who gave evidence to the Joint Committee, to try to speed up that consideration. It is high time that we did so, and it is high time that we reduced our dependency and enhanced our resilience.

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

To reassure the noble Lord, I am still delighted that he is back. He raised some very important points. I cannot go any further at this point on the enhanced tier of the FIRS, but the noble Lord will be very aware that, before I joined the Government, I ran Index on Censorship, so the issues related to Jimmy Lai—I have met Sebastien Lai—and the issues about Xinjiang and transnational repression are ones that I campaigned on for many years.

I will be clear on some of the specifics that have been raised. I have to be very careful when discussing Sheffield Hallam, because ongoing legal processes are happening there. I recognise the admirable and tireless work of my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, whose name is on the centre at the heart of this. Her work to progress social justice and human rights, including as a patron of the Centre for International Justice at Sheffield Hallam University, is at the heart of the allegations. Any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate and coerce universities to limit free speech and academic freedoms in the UK will not be tolerated. The Government have made this clear to Beijing after learning of the case of Sheffield Hallam and other recent cases. The new Office for Students guidance makes it explicitly clear that universities should not tolerate attempts by foreign states to suppress academic freedom.

The noble Lord knows better than I about some of the actions we have taken in tackling transnational aggression in the UK and the ongoing support that we are giving to Jimmy Lai and the Lai family. We will continue to do so. The genuine anguish that that family is currently experiencing because of this case is simply unacceptable. I reassure the noble Lord that even while he was off, we continued to do our work, and my right honourable friend Foreign Secretary raised the case of Jimmy Lai with her counterpart on 6 November. I will write to him on the other points he raised.