Chinese Police Stations in UK

Bob Seely Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his robust line, and I thank Ministers for all the work they are trying to do. I think it is true to say that in the past 10, 15 or 20 years, collective Governments have been slow and naive in dealing with these more nuanced, politicised threats from Iran, Russia, China and so on.

I get the fact that the Government are making transnational repression illegal and that there is an ongoing police case, but the point has already been made: repression is already illegal in this country, and has been for centuries. People have the right to the freedoms of this nation, whether they are visitors or citizens. We know who these diplomats are, and we are not going to be imprisoning Chinese diplomats, so we do not have to wait for a court case before we start expelling diplomats who are engaged in these practices. I think that is the point that I and others are trying to make today.

[Chris Philp]

There is no reluctance to ensure that diplomats engaged in inappropriate activity will leave: as I have mentioned already, six officials who were based in the Chinese consular office in Manchester have now left the United Kingdom. The gentleman in Croydon, the subject of the article in The Times today, is of course not a diplomat and is therefore susceptible to prosecution in the normal way, exactly as the former Police Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), described earlier. That is exactly why there is an ongoing investigation that is taking place.