National Security

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Derek Twigg

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend is quite right to talk about international co-operation, because this is not something that we can do alone. Our partners around the world are absolutely integral to our defence. Through agencies such as GCHQ and wider work through the National Cyber Security Centre, the United Kingdom has regularly been leading different forms of engagement and different ways of co-operation. My hon. Friend has my absolute commitment that that will continue and grow, because the way we extend the UK’s influence and defend ourselves is by making sure that our friends and allies are safe, too.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to his post and welcome the taskforce. While I have no reason to doubt his integrity or commitment to security, I am a little disappointed that although the shadow Home Secretary and my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) both raised the issue of the Government’s integrity with respect to security, he has not addressed it. I thought he might have taken that opportunity, given the situation with Ministers’ email use and the security issues surrounding it. We know that mobile phones and other phones are being used, we have seen the former Prime Minister going off to meet an ex-KGB agent, and there is an issue about Russian money in the Conservative party. I thought that the Minister would address the question of how we can have confidence that he and the Government will put things right to ensure that they take security within the Government seriously.

The question that I want to ask the Minister is very simple. Given that the focus has rightly been on Russia and China, on what is happening in Ukraine—obviously—and on energy security, may I suggest that it is important for us not to lose sight of the fact that we need to keep on top of the issue of how we combat terrorism? It seems to have been left on the back burner recently, but we need to know and feel more comfortable about what the Government intend to do to protect the country from terrorism.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for what he has said. He is absolutely right. There is, sadly, no let-up in the concern about terrorism, and we know that the fact that we do not hear of incidents does not mean they were not prevented by our fantastic agencies in various different ways. The experience that I think must be the most sobering I have had for a long time was walking into my present role and hearing an update on the threats that we face every day, and the different ways in which our fantastic agencies and the officers who serve them have been conducting themselves in order to protect us. They are absolutely the best of us, and we are blessed and honoured to have them working for us and serving our state.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s other points, he will forgive me if I do not go into details. He knows why that is. As the shadow Home Secretary correctly said, it would be inappropriate to discuss operational matters for party advantage.