Hong Kong Security Legislation

Tom Randall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

That is not a matter, as the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate, only for us. But he is right in his fundamental understanding, as he has set out, about the breach of the law that is going on. As he might have seen, Volker Türk, the UN human rights lead, has said that it looks, on the face of it, incompatible with international humanitarian law.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Having also been at the Hong Kong all-party group meeting this morning, I, too, heard the powerful testimony given by those pro-democracy activists who have suffered so much in advocating their cause.

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. In his opening, he said that the law does not apply here; of course it does not, but that is not how the Chinese see it. It is for them an extraterritorial law. It outlaws external interference that intends to interfere in Hong Kong affairs, bans the work of non-governmental organisations advocating for human rights and civil liberties and might also affect those Hongkongers in the UK who are working in the UK civil service or the UK armed forces. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that active discussions are happening across government, with the Home Office, the Ministry of Defence and others, to ensure that Hongkongers living in the UK have the protections necessary against any future Chinese prosecution?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend knows a great deal about these matters and speaks with great wisdom on them. He is right to speculate that these discussions are taking place across government. They take place through formal mechanisms most of the time. But I suspect that he is concerned about the possible misuse of Interpol, which is an issue that has been raised, and which we take extremely seriously in the requirement to protect individual rights and uphold article 3 of Interpol’s constitution. He may rest assured that we continue to watch over these matters with all possible concern and rigour.

Israel and Gaza

Tom Randall Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

There is no need for me to raise it with the Israeli forces, because they are themselves conducting an inquiry into the matter.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

At Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital last weekend, approximately 80 Hamas fighters were arrested, some of whom took part in the 7 October massacres. Weaponry, Hamas intelligence, and military and technological equipment were recovered, and reports suggest that hospital staff directed the Israel Defence Forces to weapons that Hamas had stored inside incubators for premature babies. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning Hamas for those appalling war crimes, and does he agree that that incident underlines Hamas’s disregard for civilian human life in Gaza?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right to point to those reports. As I mentioned earlier, there have been reports of weapons found in incubators, in particular in Kamal Adwan Hospital. I am sure that every Member of this House condemns without qualification the appalling events perpetrated by Hamas, starting on 7 October.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I want to assure the hon. Lady that we will do everything we can to make sure that there is not a culture of impunity in the dreadful civil war in Sudan. Together with our allies, we hold the pen at the United Nations, and with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the African Union, and the Troika—all of these different organisations—we are doing everything that we can to ensure that there is transparency on what is being done in Darfur and to bring to an end this dreadful conflict.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

T2.   In April three members of the British-Israeli Dee family were killed in an appalling terror attack. The Palestinian Authority continues to proudly send hundreds of millions of pounds to the terrorists behind these very same attacks. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning this grotesque “pay for slay” policy?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (David Rutley)]

The UK has not directly funded the Palestinian Authority since official development assistance reprioritisation in 2021. We do not fund prisoners’ payments and we believe that the prisoner payment system should be reformed so that it is needs-based, transparent and affordable. We continue to raise this at the highest levels with the Palestinian Authority.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The United Kingdom has a like-minded position alongside a number of our international friends and allies. We seek to protect the viability of a sustainable two-state solution. We raised with the Israeli Government our concerns about activities that might put that future at risk. That is not something the UK does alone; it is something we do in close co-ordination with a number of our international friends and allies. That will continue to be our diplomatic stance.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Last Thursday, a Hamas terrorist shot three Israelis in the heart of Tel Aviv, just a few streets away from the British embassy. Shooting and bombing attacks have rocked Israel for over a year now and this wave appears to be intensifying. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning those attacks? What meaningful steps can he take to counter the resurgence in terrorist activity?

[James Cleverly]

The UK Government condemn terrorism in all its forms. Whatever criticism Palestinians may have of the Israeli Government, there is no justification for terrorist action. We always encourage dialogue, we always encourage co-operation and we always encourage actions that de-escalate. That will continue to be our posture with regard to Israel and the OPTs.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Randall Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I am afraid that I cannot speculate about future sanction designations, but as I said in answer to an earlier question, we maintain a range of sanctions that work to constrain the destabilising activity of the IRGC.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

T4. It was reported last week that the US coastguard cutter, the Oliver Henry, aborted her visit to the Solomon Islands. That followed a similar aborted visit by HMS Spey. In the light of those events, what assessment has my right hon. Friend made of the current state of UK-Solomon Islands bilateral relations? Furthermore, what steps are the Government taking to counteract communist Chinese influence in the south Pacific?

Elections Bill

Tom Randall Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 27th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Patrick Grady]

I think we are getting slightly philosophical here. The reality is that when voter fraud/personation is detected, it is punished to the full extent of the law. We heard in evidence that it is an incredibly inefficient way to swing the outcome of an election. As my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) said, people who want to swing the outcome of an election can do so in far more effective ways that are not tackled by the Bill, starting with the kind of postal vote fraud we have heard described. All that this little ping-pong exchange has done is serve to demonstrate that this is, as others have said, a solution in search of a problem.

The fact that this is ideologically motivated, for the Government’s own reasons, is demonstrated by their unwillingness even to accept the relevant Lords amendment, such as it is. One of the counter-arguments we heard from Government Members was about other circumstances in which ID needs to be presented—for example, when collecting a parcel at the post office. Lords amendment 86 extends acceptable forms of ID for voting to include the kind of ID that would be acceptable in collecting a parcel at a post office counter, so, on the basis of that argument, I am not entirely sure why that is not acceptable to the Government.

The Order Paper notes under the listing of this business that the Scottish Parliament has refused legislative consent for the Bill. Once again the Government are ignoring the Sewel convention and showing their disregard for the devolution settlement. Constituents in Glasgow North have written to me in large numbers opposing this Bill. All of this, alongside the Government’s refusal to accept Lords amendments 22, 23 and 86, simply demonstrates the growing divergence between politics in this place and the direction of travel in Scotland.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I thought that we also learned in Committee that the voter ID proposals would actually make us a more European country, in that they introduce things that we see in European voting systems. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with this divergence, and would have thought he would welcome it if he wants Scotland to be at the heart of Europe.

[Patrick Grady]

I am delighted by the hon. Gentleman’s conversion to the cause of European democracy and alignment. The simple answer is that Scotland has one of the widest, most open and transparent franchises that has ever existed in western democracies. It includes 16 and 17-year-olds, asylum seekers—people who have made their home here—and people who are serving certain types of prison sentence, because we want to rehabilitate everyone and bring them back into the democratic fold. That is the franchise that will deliver independence for Scotland. Unlike the UK-wide franchise—[Interruption.] Conservative Members seem to find this highly amusing. They can laugh all they want once Scotland has voted for independence in the next couple of years, because that is the reality; it is not far away now, and it will be achieved on that wide and open franchise, whereas the UK-wide electoral system will be weakened and undermined by this Bill and by the Government’s refusal to accept the Lords amendments before us.

--- Later in debate ---

[John McDonnell]

We introduced the super-affirmative procedure about a decade ago, I think, and it enables the House to amend the statement. What happens under the super-affirmative procedure is that the Minister publishes the statement, there is consultation, the Parliament comments on that, and then the Minister brings back the statement in the light of those comments. Actually, it works. If we look at past practice, what has happened is that even when there has been considerable dispute, the Government and the Secretary of State have usually been able to amend the statement and we have reached consensus. I urge the Government to follow that procedure, rather than the “take it or leave it” of the affirmative procedure.

We raised this issue in the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee with the Secretary of State. With the Government majority as it is, “take it or leave it” means that the Secretary of State is dictating terms to the Electoral Commission and therefore undermining the independence of the commission, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) said in quoting the letter from the commissioners themselves.

In another debate on another matter some years ago, people on the Government Benches—I thought it was interesting and constructive—said, “When you legislate for this, you have to legislate for your worst scenario.” Someone stood up and said, “Just think if John McDonnell was in power.” I therefore just say this: what we legislate for today might well be done in good faith by Government Members, but we have to guarantee in legislation for the future at least some form of level of practice that we can all support. I disagree with the whole concept of the statement, which undermines the commission’s independence. If we are to have one, at least give us the opportunity to have a proper debate and amend the statement before it is formally agreed.

My second point is about ID. On PACAC, we could not find evidence of large-scale electoral fraud. To address the point that the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) was making time and time again very eloquently, and at times with some amusement, the issue around it is that if we cannot find the evidence, it might still be happening. We therefore have to make a judgment when legislating as to whether the remedy we are introducing will cause more harm than the problem we are addressing. That is a subjective judgment.

A number of us have come to the view that, no matter how many times we have trawled for evidence of large-scale electoral fraud, we could not find the evidence that there were not sufficient powers to deal with the issue. The only time there was a real problem was Tower Hamlets. There was a special investigation, and special measures were taken, and I hope and believe the problem has been properly addressed. My worry is that the remedy we are introducing will suppress votes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and will do greater harm than the harm we see at the moment, which is relatively minuscule, but there we are—that is a judgment.

[Tom Randall]

I enjoy serving with the right hon. Gentleman on PACAC. As a footnote to what he is saying, one of the concerns I have, which is shared by many—I know we divided on this in the Committee, and I found myself in a minority of one—is that allegations of offences are not properly investigated by the police. He might consider that to be a separate issue. As another footnote, he mentioned Tower Hamlets. Next week, we find ourselves in the horrible situation that Lutfur Rahman, who was the man who perpetrated all that electoral fraud, is on the ballot paper in Tower Hamlets. It is a fact that these problems have only been investigated to an extent, it seems.

[John McDonnell]

That is a valid point. Rather than change legislation, which could introduce a remedy that does more harm than good, it is a matter of looking at how the existing system is working to ensure proper resources for investigation. The point that the hon. Gentleman makes about the individual—I will not name them—is about whether the sanctions were severe enough to prevent such a return. That is the way forward on all that.

The other aspect is about the list of alternative provisions that the Lords have come up with. If the Government had looked at them and said, “Okay, we’ll accept some and not others,” that would have been a better approach, because it would have demonstrated an open mind to work towards something that I think could operate effectively, even though I oppose the whole concept of the use of ID as a result of this legislation. The Government did not even do that, however. To reject the list wholesale demonstrates that they have dug themselves into a hole. I think that we will have to come back to a new piece of electoral legislation in due course that does exactly what the returning officers wanted and consolidates our electoral registration and also remedies some of the unfortunately difficult parts of this legislation.

Those difficult parts could be quite dangerous. I caution about the issue around suppression. I stood for election in my constituency in ’92 when poll tax had been introduced and 5,000 people dropped off the register there—by the sound of it, most of them were Labour voters because I lost by 54 votes. That demonstrates that, if necessary, people will drop out of the system, which worries me. It is not so much that the votes go missing but that those people become distant from the democratic process. They do not engage and, if they do not engage once or twice, it is very difficult for them to re-engage. That is why what seems like relatively minor procedural legislation could have a dramatic effect, particularly in certain constituencies, and could be quite dangerous in the hands of future Governments. I urge the Government to think again on that.

Elections Bill

Tom Randall Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman has taken his two interventions, and his time is now up.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson), I served on the Bill Committee. It was my first time on a Bill Committee on a major piece of legislation. I do not know how often there is a change in Minister, PPS and Whip during a Bill Committee, but I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister, and my hon. Friends the Members for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and for Castle Point (Rebecca Harris), on getting up to speed on the Bill so quickly and taking us through the Committee.

Bill Committees can sometimes be sleepy affairs, but that one, like this debate, certainly was not. We had vigorous debates on various parts of the Bill, including the measure on voter ID, which I fully support, as it closes a vulnerability in our electoral system. We discussed a number of points surrounding voter ID, including many examples from abroad—countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands. We are now, through this Bill, introducing a form of legislation that will make us more European, in many ways, than we were. It is interesting that the Opposition parties that would have had us remain members of the European Union are so resistant to a system that is more in line with our continental friends than what we have at the moment. It will be a more secure system. I accept that there is a lot of work for Government to do in order to popularise and inform voters of these measures, and also to roll out the electoral ID card that will be introduced, but if the measures are introduced properly, there is no reason why anybody should be left out.

It is said that these are solutions in search of problems, but problems have been identified in places such as Tower Hamlets, Slough, Wycombe and Birmingham, among others, and this Bill will finally address them.

[Jerome Mayhew]

In an earlier speech, reference was made to an electoral judge suggesting that personation was neither here nor there, but does my hon. Friend recall the evidence to the Bill Committee where that electoral judge, in a judgment during the Labour Administration of 2005, said, “If you don’t look for fraud you won’t find it”, and described the Government as “having its head in the sand” on this issue?

[Tom Randall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the key problems is not only not looking for it—it is a matter of training. There is a big problem that needs to be addressed in terms of making sure that the police are aware of electoral law issues and getting them out there to go and investigate. He is completely right that a lot of this goes undetected.

I am pleased to see that the clauses on undue influence remain. I spoke on Second Reading about having to run the gauntlet of people trying to use intimidating behaviour on election day by thrusting leaflets into people’s faces. The central thrust of many of these measures is to protect the security of the ballot. I appreciate that I may be slightly testing the limits of what I am allowed to say on Report, but I have seen today an email from Scotland Yard to somebody I know who has reported an alleged breach of the secret ballot, but advice from the Electoral Commission and the local authority concerned is that the onus is on the individual who cast their vote to claim that secrecy has been breached. I would suggest that that is contrary to section 66 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which says that every returning officer, presiding officer, clerk, candidate, election agent and polling agent

“shall maintain and aid in maintaining the secrecy of”

the vote. So if this legislation is to be reformed further in the other place, it should not be by removing the parts that we have introduced, but by giving some consideration as to whether the need to maintain a secret ballot is restated in primary legislation.

We have heard the argument for votes at 16, which I will not support. We have raised the age of marriage to 18, we have raised the age at which people have to be in education or training from 16 to 18, and the age at which you can smoke was raised by the Labour Government to 18. We have raised the age at which people can buy a lottery ticket from 16 to 18, I am sure with the Opposition’s support, as well as the age at which people can buy alcohol. Voting is an adult activity; it is something that adults do—if we want to encourage younger people to vote, I see no reason why we cannot introduce votes at 12. I think all the arguments advanced by Opposition Front Benchers could also apply to 12-year-olds.

I support the measures in this Bill. I look forward to its going on to Third Reading and the other place, and to seeing those measures come on to the statute book as soon as possible.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Bosnia and Herzegovina: Stability and Peace

Tom Randall Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and the hon. Members for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) and for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) on securing this important debate.

The tone of this debate has been grave, and it has been one of concern. If Bosnians are watching, I hope it will be understood that the motivation is one of love and affection. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a beautiful country of rivers, valleys and mountains, with a vibrant and friendly population. Bosnia could be a great southern European country, if its great potential can be exploited.

In saying that, I do not dismiss the obvious challenges that Bosnia and Herzegovina faces. It has faced the worst atrocities in post-war Europe, and after the civil war it has weak governmental structures, having what has been called a “flat tin roof” of central Government covering two statelets, and there is still a strong international presence in the High Representative. I thank Mr Christian Schmidt for taking the time today to brief parliamentarians on his work. Bosnians should take pride in the fact that for more than two decades there has been peace in that country. As we have heard, no harm has been caused to peacekeepers during that time either.

As a result of those achievements in the past two decades, I share the serious concerns about talk of secessionism; attempts made to weaken central structures even further and to undermine the role of the High Representative; the great deal of political uncertainty; and the weakness of civil society structures. Those concerns build a picture of a lost opportunity to build Bosnia into a strong country. I do not have the experiences that other right hon. and hon. Members have voiced this afternoon, but my small experience came from visiting Ježevac, where there is a refugee camp about 12 miles from Tuzla. It is remote and off the beaten track. I visited in 2000 as a young undergraduate doing some charity work. It is a pretty village of white buildings built by a Norwegian non-governmental organisation, but it is a village of women, girls and boys—an entire generation of men from about 17 onwards is missing there, as they were murdered at Srebrenica. In this remote village were survivors of Srebrenica who were eking out an existence, having been abandoned by the world. In my preparation for this debate, I wanted to know what happened to Ježevac, and I found a report in The Guardian from just last year that showed it was still there. Some 20 years later, the people in Ježevac are in this small remote village outside Tuzla eking out an existence on the hillside in their little huts. That just shows that although great progress has been made, there has been a big lost opportunity to build the country that Bosnia could be. So there is a great deal of work we can do.

I appreciate that only the people of Bosnia can build that strong Bosnian nation, but I add my voice to the calls we have heard this afternoon for Her Majesty’s Government to be that friend of Bosnia that it needs, to support the Dayton structures, including the role of the High Representative, and to take on the malign forces that are seeking to undermine the nation. As we have heard, we have seen twice in the 20th century that Bosnia has been a flashpoint for great violence, and I hope that we can start to take the action that we need today to make sure that Bosnia will not become the headline in the 21st century, as it has been previously.

Amnesty International Offices in Hong Kong

Tom Randall Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Rosindell]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I of course agree with everything he said.

I was going to go on to say that other organisations have been forced to close as well, including Human Rights Watch. In the last few months, I believe that Beijing has weaponised this draconian law to force the disbanding of the Hong Kong Professional Teachers Union, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, the civil society group that organised the annual Tiananmen Square massacre vigil, and the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which provided the financial assistance and paid the legal fees of protesters.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on such an important subject. Would he agree with me that civil society organisations play a very important role in modern democracies? We do not of course always agree with what civil society organisations say, but they play their role and have their function. This removal, in effect, of organisations such as Amnesty International from Hong Kong is further evidence, if any further evidence is required, that Hong Kong is no longer functioning as a modern democracy or an open society in any meaningful sense of the words.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I believe that the way China has treated Hong Kong is a betrayal of everything we thought we had agreed with China. My hon. Friend makes the point very clearly, and I intend to emphasise this still further as the debate progresses.

Let us make no mistake about this: the dismantling of civil society organisations is another step in the Chinese Government’s relentless pursuit of the destruction of Hong Kong’s autonomy and the freedoms that were previously guaranteed by the one country, two systems model and the Sino-British joint declaration that underpinned it. Despite previous claims that the national security law would be used sparingly, would not be applied retrospectively and would not impact on the rule of law, we have seen the Chinese Communist party use the smokescreen of state security to arrest journalists, former pro-democracy lawmakers, activists, students, trade unionists, lawyers and even speech therapists.

This month alone, Beijing and the Hong Kong Government warned the Foreign Correspondents Club that it risked closure and possibly violated the national security law for publishing a survey of its members on press freedom. The Justice Secretary stated that gestures, words and signs could lead to convictions, and the Security Minister cautioned that Hong Kongers who cast blank ballots or boycott the upcoming Legislative Council elections could be violating this draconian law.

No one looking at these developments can be under any illusion whatsoever that the old Hong Kong that guaranteed freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and freedom of religion or belief, and upheld the rule of law, exists today: that has gone. The two trials we have seen under the national security law have already demonstrated the export and establishment of China’s judicial system in Hong Kong, with suspects denied bail on spurious grounds, judges hand-picked by Beijing and one individual receiving a sentence of six and a half years in jail simply for carrying a flag with a pro-democracy slogan on it.

Elections Bill (Tenth sitting)

Tom Randall Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Aaron Bell]

It is a pleasure, once again, to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North. I could not disagree more with his point about a power grab. This is a clause that provides welcome clarity. The Electoral Commission has neither the capacity nor the competence to act as a prosecutor; I believe there are too many conflicts of interest. It would end up marking its own homework, because it would be providing advice and guidance on the law first, and then acting as an arbiter and prosecutor over its own decisions. That is clearly a matter for an independent Crown Prosecution Service and for the police, all overseen by the courts.

We can only think about what happened in the EU referendum, in which the Electoral Commission was criticised for the legal advice it gave, for failing to ask for evidence from the accused, for the handling of documents, for its enforcement decisions and, ultimately, its flawed bids for criminal prosecutions against leave groups, which were then thrown out by the police and the courts. It was incredibly embarrassing for the Electoral Commission because Vote Leave had followed the advice that the Electoral Commission had given it on making donations to other campaigns, such as BeLeave. That perfectly illustrates the potential conflicts of interest in this area.

This is not just about the referendum. If we go back some time to 2005, when Labour were last in government, there was a controversy about loans to political parties before the 2005 general election. Again, that was fuelled by questionable advice from the Electoral Commission. If it was then marking its own homework on those loans, after the election, the Labour party would have felt in the same position that the leave campaigners did. It is welcome that the Electoral Commission has never brought prosecutions until now, but given the demand and clamour for that in recent years, I really welcome the fact that this clause makes it clear that that cannot happen in future.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. We have mentioned Tower Hamlets again. Perhaps another footnote in this is that the Electoral Commission registered a political party, Tower Hamlets First, without checking whether it had a bank account, which it did not. It is perhaps further evidence that giving further powers to the Electoral Commission may not be the best idea, and that they should be given to other bodies instead.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point about Tower Hamlets—a case that he knows well. Indeed, the Pickles report said:

“Despite years of warnings on misconduct in Tower Hamlets, the Electoral Commission gave the Borough’s electoral system a gold-star rating for electoral integrity in its inspection reports”

and went on to say that it was a tick-box inspection of town hall electoral registration departments. There are other reasons why we need to have better scrutiny of the Electoral Commission and why we need the clause that we debated previously, but the point about criminal proceedings is the one that I particularly wanted to speak to. I will leave it there and let colleagues come in.