China and Japan

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 2nd February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We raised a number of issues in relation to smuggling. The focus was very much on the engines for small boats because of the fact that 60% of them are coming from China, and we need to stop that supply chain if we are going to deal with the crossings.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

In spite of the somewhat thin economic gruel with which the Prime Minister has returned, he was absolutely right to visit China. If I may return to the issue of human rights, particularly Jimmy Lai, did the Prime Minister say, as the whole House would have wished, that this British citizen—nearly 80 years old, held in solitary confinement and denied the chance to practice his religion—should surely receive clemency and be returned to the United Kingdom? Or did the Prime Minister merely deliver a written note?

G20 and Ukraine

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 25th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree. This is clearly a really serious case. Any other party would want to investigate to assure itself of how this could happen. This is not a minor transgression; it has now been visited with a 10-year sentence because it undermines our country. Surely the Reform leadership want to know how that happened on their watch, and what other links there are between their party and Russia. No wonder they are Putin-friendly. How on earth could they respond to a situation like this? There is no point in standing up and saying that you support Ukraine if within your own party, you are pro-Russian.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The Prime Minister’s role in marshalling European co-operation is essential and very welcome, but would it not be obscene and unconscionable for any country—indeed, one of the permanent five at the United Nations—to invade its neighbour and murder its citizens, and to get away with it and profit from it, let alone to rejoin the G7? Have we not seen this film before? Do we not know how it ends?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for raising this. That is why it is really important that we make the case for, and ensure that it is, a just and lasting peace—because we have seen this before. We have seen agreements brokered before without security guarantees, with the inevitable result that Putin will go again. That is why, in relation to all the principles I have been operating on, in setting up the coalition of the willing and in all my discussions, it has got to be a just and lasting peace. It has got to be one that actually deters Putin from doing this again, because we know that without that deterrence and those consequences, he has the ambition to go again, and he will go again, and we must guard against that.

Middle East

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do acknowledge the important role that the National Security Adviser played. It was a typical UK role: quiet, behind-the-scenes and diplomatic, but bringing about really helpful steps towards the desired end. I will make sure that my hon. Friend gets a meeting with the relevant Minister on the other issues.

[Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Was not yesterday an historic and much-longed-for day for which this Government and the last one worked tirelessly since the dreadful events of 7 October? Does the Prime Minister agree that, just as real progress at Oslo was made on the back of the intifada, so now we must use the exceptional connections and deep historical knowledge that Britain has throughout the region to help secure a definitive resolution for the middle east to problems that have disfigured the world and poisoned the well of international progress and opinion for so many generations?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I acknowledge the role that the right hon. Gentleman played in office just before the election, what he personally brought to the table in relation to this issue, and the cross-party way in which he worked to ensure that the House as a whole could bring to bear pressure to bring about change. He is right about the goal that we need to achieve and the way we want to achieve it, so I wholeheartedly agree with him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)]

The Government take the security of critical national infrastructure extremely seriously. The UK�s national technical authorities, including the National Protective Security Authority, the National Cyber Security Centre and the UK National Authority for Counter-Eavesdropping, already provide expert guidance and best practice to owners and operators of UK critical national infrastructure, including on risk assessments and supply chains. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss this further.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

T2. The Minister for Intergovernmental Relations is an extremely experienced Minister, so will he cause to be reviewed the quite extraordinary decision to cut the integrated security fund by �120 million? Is that fund not a classic example of how development complements defence demonstrably and effectively? Will he listen to the great concerns that Members on his own side of the House feel at the terrible decision to axe crucial development spending?

[Pat McFadden]

The right hon. Gentleman has great experience in this area, and I respect his judgment very much. He will also have seen the world rapidly change before our eyes in recent weeks. The leadership task when the world is changing so fast is to understand the change, respond to it and explain it. I believe that in the decisions the Prime Minister has taken in this area in recent weeks he has fulfilled those obligations in full and in a way that this House is proud of.

Ukraine

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I set out our position last week, which is that spending will be 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament, as fiscal circumstances allow.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The Prime Minister should surely be commended both for the meetings that he held in the White House last week and for the effective leadership that he showed over the weekend. Will he bear in mind, as he seeks to forge this coalition of the willing with urgency and vigour, that the GDP of Russia is some $2 trillion, while the GDP of the six European members of NATO that are the most committed is more than seven times that, at $15 trillion? That should surely add to the effectiveness of the deterrent and the work that he is now doing with European allies.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. We must not lose sight of the fact that the Russian economy is being damaged by the measures that we are taking collectively, particularly on sanctions, and we should have self-confidence in the ability of Europe to pull together, whether that is on military or financial issues, for the collective security of the defence of Europe. We have said many times that Europe needs to step up. Now is the time to step up; now is the time to lead. That is why I was pleased that in the last few days we moved things on a little in that regard.

Defence and Security

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that because cyber is one of the tools for warfare these days. That is why we increased funding in the Budget, and why I have adjusted the 2.5% to 2.6% in the case presented to the House today.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I agree entirely with the strategic direction that the Prime Minister has set out. Defence and security must come first, but he does have choices about how he funds that important uplift. In the last Parliament, he and I voted together against balancing the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world. Does he still think that vote was right?

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

For the final question, I call Andrew Mitchell.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

The Prime Minister will be well aware of the global vaccination fund, Gavi. One of the United Kingdom’s great success stories, it has vaccinated from deadly diseases more than a billion children under five, it presents real value for money to British taxpayers and more than 80% of our constituents support it. Will he give the House an undertaking that Britain will continue that leadership and make a decisive pledge at next month’s replenishment conference?

[The Prime Minister]

This is a really important issue, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly points out. I have long supported it and will continue to support it, and I will share details with him just as soon as I can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

T7.   Earlier this year, the Government cut almost £6 million of funding for a Save the Children programme providing education and other services to girls in Afghanistan, despite a promise to put women and girls at the heart of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s work. Will the Secretary of State work with colleagues at the Department to deliver on the Government’s commitment and reinstate that funding?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

Educating girls is one of the top priorities under the British Government’s international development strategy—indeed, it is the way to change the world. Over the last five years for which figures are available, the British taxpayer procured a decent education for more than 8 million children in the poor world.

The Prime Minister was asked—

Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

For all the pomp and tradition, Her late Majesty’s true magic was in her humility. She did not need a gilded throne or royal regalia to touch people; it was in her smile, her poise, her natural charm: understated yet reassuring—the best of Britain.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for allowing me to make this brief tribute on behalf of the royal town of Sutton Coldfield—a royal town now for 494 years and one that, at this sad time, is united with the rest of the country in shared sorrow. The Queen’s visit to the ninth world scout jamboree held in Sutton park in 1957 is still remembered by my older constituents, as she came to join in the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of scouting and had lunch in our magnificent town hall.

I have never visited a primary school where one of the first questions has not been, “Have you met the Queen?” I had the privilege and good fortune to meet the Queen when I was her International Development Secretary. Like millions around the world, I will never forget every second of those meetings. She was intensely interested in the less developed members of the Commonwealth. She was the reason that the Commonwealth not only survived but flourished and grew, reaching out to unexpected parts of the world, with Rwanda enthusiastically joining.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting held in June this year in Rwanda, I watched the binding power of the monarchy, as the King, as he now is, spoke on behalf of Her late Majesty of the ideals and values that she inspired and to which so many nations now aspire. In Kigali, the capital of one of the Commonwealth’s youngest countries, the national flag and the flag of the East African Community are today flying at half-mast and will continue to do so until the Queen’s funeral.

I also remember travelling for many hours in Uganda to the hospital in Masaka run by the 80-year-old sister of the Medical Missionaries of Mary who had recently received an OBE from the Queen for her 50 years of service. In the hospital entrance hung a huge picture of the President of Uganda, Mr Museveni, alongside an equally huge one of Her Majesty the Head of the Commonwealth.

Tomorrow in the royal town of Sutton Coldfield, we will hold a service of remembrance in our town church, Holy Trinity, followed by a reading of today’s proclamation, and we will mourn the loss of our great Queen, who meant so much to us all.

Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady very much for her question, and I can assure her that in a long political career so far—but barely begun—I have of course picked up political opponents all over the place. That is because—[Interruption.] That is because this Government have done some very big and very remarkable things that they did not necessarily approve of. What I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no one, least of all her, is going to stop us from getting on with delivering for the British people.

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

Q2. The whole House will unite behind the Prime Minister on his determination to hold Ukrainian war criminals to account, but is he aware that there are five alleged Rwandan war crimes perpetrators living freely in the UK, who have been doing so now for 16 years and have neither been extradited nor put before the British courts under our existing laws? As he prepares to go to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda, will he look carefully at this issue, because it is bound to be raised with him? Will he reassure the House and the Rwandan Government that he takes these matters extremely seriously, and that what has so far been justice massively delayed for 16 years will not be grotesquely denied?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He raises an issue on which the UK has campaigned for a long time, and no country is more committed than we are to bringing war criminals to justice. I know that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has raised the subject recently with the International Criminal Court. However, as he knows—and I will certainly, of course, study the case and take it up appropriately—it is the subject of an ongoing investigation, and it would not be appropriate for me to comment on it further.