Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Baroness Ludford Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Ludford (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the JCHR for this very important report, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for moving it.

The Government recognised in their response to the report that not only can transnational repression

“undermine an individual’s ability to exercise their freedoms and human rights”,

but that

“it is also a matter of national sovereignty and national security”.

But there seems to be an insufficient follow-through from these conclusions. Although the Government say they cannot publish their Defending Democracy review, they say that the review found that the UK had a

“hard operating environment for states wishing to conduct transnational repression”,

and that the UK had

“robust tools and system-wide safeguards”.

The JCHR begs to differ, finding that the UK currently lacks a clear strategy to address it, with no clear definition of transnational repression, as we have heard, and a failure to routinely collect data on the issue.

Hong Kong Watch advises:

“Hong Kong activists have highlighted concerns that UK police officers see harassment, disruptions and verbal abuses by Chinese individuals against the Hong Kong diaspora as internal conflicts between groups with differing political views. One activist stated he felt this framing helped the police depoliticise TNR, omitting the role of foreign Governments in pursuing activists and thus avoiding highly sensitive aspects of UK diplomacy and national security”.


We want the Government to show that that charge is not true.

It is a mystery to me why the Government resist a definition of TNR in favour of a description. The Tackling Transnational Repression in the UK Working Group, a coalition of 60 individuals and organisations, has produced what seems to me to be a good definition:

“Acts or threats against individuals, groups and communities across territorial borders carried out by Governments or their proxies, which violate human rights and/or intimidate, control, coerce or silence dissent”.


It seems to me that it is impossible to have an effective policy and operational response from the Government and police to something that is undefined. Therefore, it seems fair to claim that there is an unresolved protection gap between policy commitments and lived experience, and that the UK response is fragmented and difficult to access.

For instance, a dedicated reporting line is something the JCHR asked for. The Government consider this would be

“duplicative and potentially cause confusion”,

which I do not really understand. This seems to me to have slight echoes of the experience of and complaints from victims of domestic abuse and sexual crimes in this sector.

In particular, the committee—understandably—wants China to be specified on the enhanced tier of the scheme. The Government’s response was, “We will not rush this decision”. As has been widely referred to, there is also the lack of proscription of the IRGC. Lastly, I ask the Minister: what are the Government doing at Interpol to stop the abuse of Interpol red notices? This is of course a cause that Bill Browder—Sir William Browder—has long taken up, after the case of Sergei Magnitsky. The other tool of pressure and silencing that the committee mentions is SLAPPs, which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, also mentioned. What are the Government doing on all these matters?