Chinese Police Stations in UK

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

I assure my hon. Friend that I was listening extremely carefully to what she was saying. She asserted in her question that these locations are still operating. If I may say so, she is making an assumption in doing so—not an assumption that I am going to comment on, because it is a matter that is under live investigation, as she will appreciate. As soon as the Security Minister is able to comment on this matter, he will come to the House and do so.

As my hon. Friend will also appreciate, I cannot comment on the IRGC either, because as she knows, Ministers do not comment on matters around proscription that are being considered. What I can and will say is that this Government take interference with foreign nationals here—transnational intimidation—extremely seriously. It is completely unacceptable, and we will do whatever is necessary to stop it from happening.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Anybody who has the right to be here has the right to feel safe and secure in being here. In the past couple of years, to their credit, the Government have allowed in excess of 100,000 Hongkongers to move to this country, but we know that the intimidation and persecution has followed them. In universities up and down the country, they are shouted down, and they continue to be intimidated. These police stations are part of the infrastructure that enables that. To borrow a phrase from the Foreign Secretary, is it not time that we should be pulling down the shutters on them?

[Chris Philp]

I completely agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said, particularly in relation to the British national overseas Hong Kong citizens who have come here. We have extended a very warm welcome to those people, who are at risk of repression in Hong Kong now because of the Chinese Communist party’s brutal repression of democratic freedoms and other freedoms there, which this Government abhor in the strongest terms. That is why we have offered refuge here to those people.

The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that foreign nationals residing in this country, regardless of their immigration status, should enjoy all the rights and freedoms around free speech and freedom from intimidation that we would expect any citizen of this country to enjoy. I agree with him: it is the duty of Government and the law enforcement services and agencies to ensure that those freedoms and rights are protected, including on campuses. I think the Department for Education is doing some work in that area. Where Chinese nationals are students at universities, they should be free from harassment and intimidation—the same applies, of course, to other groups of people, Jewish students being another obvious example. It is vital that university authorities take robust action to protect their students, whether Chinese, Jewish or from any other group, from any sort of intimidation on campuses, which is totally unacceptable.