Pro-democracy Campaigners: Arrests

Debate between Catherine West and Mark Sewards

Tuesday 7th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West]

The right hon. Member asks two excellent questions. The first concerns training and capabilities, which feature in our audit of Government Departments and the extent of their preparedness for these increasingly different challenges and threats—they are part of what we are looking at. In response to the second question, I can tell the right hon. Member that BNO passport holders are safe because we keep them safe, and we ensure that there is adequate training and up-to-date knowledge on an ongoing basis. I think that we have the best intelligence services going, particularly when it comes to questions of this sort, but we can never be complacent. Instances such as those raised by the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) and others give us an opportunity to underline from Parliament the important and cross-party nature of cracking down on transnational repression.

[Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

Chloe Cheung, a resident of Leeds, has been subject to a £100,000 bounty simply for telling the truth about Jimmy Lai. At 19 years old, she is the youngest person to be subject to Hong Kong’s national security law. What reassurances can the Minister give Chloe and other Hongkongers that they will be protected from transnational repression while they reside within our borders?

[Catherine West]

I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent constituency work, and for knowing his constituents so well such a short time after being elected. I can reassure him that if he feels that the advice that his constituent has been given is in any way lacking, he can write to me so that I can secure a specially designed package of safety for that vulnerable 19-year-old.

Ukraine

Debate between Catherine West and Mark Sewards

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West]

As my hon. Friend might have gathered, it is from a position of weakness that those countries are being relied on to shore up support. That is why it is so important that we look holistically at our sanctions regime, which cannot be just about the current conflict. It must also be about how we stop the Iranian military juggernaut and how we look at the military industrial complex, which works across all sorts of different regimes. That is why it is also so important to understand how the economies of the DPRK can tip into Russia and for us to work with countries who support us and do not support that particular access so that we can win the argument as well as the battle.

[Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for the clarity she has brought to the urgent question. I do not think anyone in the House agrees that Vladimir Putin can be allowed to get away with taking even a single inch of territory in Ukraine, and I do not think that anyone is not alive to the danger of giving people like that what they want—they always come back for more. Given those facts, will she confirm that we will back Ukraine for as long as it takes, and that any eventual deal will be completed entirely on Ukraine’s terms and not on Russia’s?

[Catherine West]

Of course. That is why we have supported Ukraine as it has made the case for wanting to be in NATO and as it has made the case for being as close as possible to friends in Europe. That is why we have supported the Ukrainians in their requests for either military or non-military aid. That is why we have implored others, even as far away as the Indo-Pacific, to assist in this push to ensure that there is as much support as possible to stand up to bullies.