National Security and Investment Bill

Lord Robathan Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Robathan (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome the Bill. It has been a long time in coming. I intend to look at the context of the Bill and its genesis. Over a decade ago, when I was working in the MoD, we saw newspaper reports that 90% of cyberattacks on the UK came from one house in Shanghai. This Bill is largely about Chinese influence being embedded in our critical national infrastructure and that is why we should concentrate on China. I wish the Chinese people well but the Chinese Communist Party is pursuing a policy of hegemony and aggrandisement. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, agreed that this has been generated by China.

I will cite a few examples. The Chinese have been building military bases on reefs built out of concrete on islands in the South China Sea, which they now claim to have territorial waters around. The belt and road initiative, which is eight years old or thereabouts, was welcomed by the media and, seemingly, western Governments. But, in fact, China has been buying up Africa, Sri Lanka and elsewhere with its belt and road initiative. I was in Ethiopia 15 months ago, where there is a brand new airport in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia may find that some of these debts do not get repaid but that is for another day. Over a decade ago, we knew about Chinese reverse engineering whereby they get hold of sophisticated technology and military equipment, work out how to build the stuff themselves and then use western secret technology against us. I hope we understand that now the scales have fallen from our eyes at last. Charles Parton of the Royal United Services Institute, speaking to the Commons Committee on the Bill, described the Chinese Government as pursuing a policy of “civil-military fusion”. That sums it up.

As we can now see, we can believe reports about Chinese treatment of the Uighurs, which perhaps we denied for some time. There are BBC reports today about systematic rape. We know about organ theft [Inaudible] million people. We can see what is happening in Hong Kong, where the Chinese are breaking the terms of the joint declaration, a legally binding international agreement. We can see the military threat to Taiwan and, I fear, the chance of war. We can see Chinese moves to building a military and commercial empire, and using threats and economic muscle against, for instance, Australian wine exports after that country dared to criticise the Chinese and suggest that the virus came from Wuhan.

I support the Bill for those reasons because our national security is under threat. The Government have got the message rather late—Huawei being excluded from 5G is a particular point that I raise—but it is not six years since Xi Jinping was entertained here and declared the UK to be the best Chinese partner in the West. Indeed, George Osborne said that this would be

“a golden decade for the UK-China relationship”.

Today, Manchester University has cancelled an agreement with a Chinese electronics technology company because of that company’s involvement in surveillance in Xinjiang. Ofcom has—again, this day—revoked the licence of Chinese broadcaster CGTN because the company is

“ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist party.”

Although Cambridge University has helpfully sent us all a briefing paper saying how important Chinese money is to it, I should have thought that the exposure by the noble Lord, Lord Moore, of Jesus College and others in Cambridge and their close ties with China would have shamed it a little, at least.

Surely nobody can doubt any more the unfriendly intent of China. The genocide amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, two days ago showed that the House of Lords understands that the behaviour of the Chinese needs, at the very least, close examination. Sadly, the EU has just signed a huge trade agreement with China, which is regrettable. Yes, we want inward investment, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, and economic growth. We want to trade with the world, including China, but we need to protect ourselves and peace first, and the Bill goes some way towards doing that. I know that Governments do not always get legislation right, so we will watch the progress of the Bill, and amendments will certainly be needed as it progresses, but its spirit is correct and I support it.