Middle East

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend will know that the Justice Secretary brought in new restrictions on arms sales to Israel because of our concerns about ensuring that we always stand up for international law. We have been one of the world’s leading countries in introducing sanctions, including on individual Israeli Government Ministers. She refers to some of the concerns about expanding illegal settlements, and I agree with her about the dangers of the E1 project, which is clearly illegal and damaging to peace.

I am also troubled by some of the comments that we have heard, including from Prime Minister Netanyahu, about Israel trying to take over 70% of Gaza and having a permanent divide there. That would fundamentally flout and overturn the 20-point plan that Israel signed up to, alongside Hamas and countries across the world. It is vital that the Israelis respect the 20-point plan and withdraw from Gaza as part of the agreement. That is why we want to restore the international effort and energy to implement the 20-point plan.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Those clinging to life in Gaza and scratching an existence in the west bank merely occupy different circles within the depths of the inferno. Any relief is dependent on the policy of Israel, and that in turn would require pressure from its principal ally, the United States of America. What is the Secretary of State’s estimate of any prospect of that?

[Yvette Cooper]

We need Israel to lift restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza. It is just horrifying that families are going without the food and medical support that they desperately need. I have discussed this many times, including with the US Administration and of course directly with Israel. Immediately after the 20-point plan, there was an increase in aid as a result of the international commitment, but since the start of this year that has plummeted again. That is why I believe we need the international energy restored behind the 20-point plan and the commitments made as part of it to get aid back in.

Russian Attacks on Civilian Infrastructure

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He will have seen the assessment of Russian state threats that we have made through our security reviews, and he will have heard earlier about our concerns in relation to Russia’s failure to advance on the battlefield, which is of course why it is escalating matters now. We must look at all measures we can take to keep the pressure on Russia; we do so through our economic sanctions, but we will continue to do all we can to send a message to Russia that its behaviour and its violations of international law—for which it has no respect—are unacceptable, and that we will continue to back our allies across the world.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Given that our own infrastructure is under constant cyber-attack, will the hon. Lady reassure us that Russia would be right in understanding that no such attack will go unanswered, like for like?

[Seema Malhotra]

I think that I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. He makes an important point about risks and why it is so important that we are taking all the steps we can, alongside our international allies, to upgrade our defence and security systems. We will be looking to detect and deter any potential risks to our security, and we will always defend our country and our infrastructure. That is a focus for the whole of this Government.

Strait of Hormuz

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

Let me first make it absolutely clear that Iran’s regime has been appalling, and that what it has done to its own citizens has been reckless. It cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. Its reckless attacks, not only on shipping but on civilians, and on our allies and partners across the Gulf, and indeed across the wider region, are absolutely appalling. It could stop this right now. However, the Prime Minister has been very clear about the fact that our decisions—the decisions of the United Kingdom—will be based on a calm and level-headed assessment of the British national interest at every stage.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

What is the Minister’s latest assessment of the threat of transnational oppression carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?

[Stephen Doughty]

I am obviously not going to get into a detailed assessment on the Floor of the House, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that we have faced transnational repression threats, not only from Iran but from other countries. The Security Minister, other colleagues and I are absolutely united in doing everything we can to defend the UK against that. We cannot allow Iran, or indeed other hostile states that seek to do harm outside their borders, to operate on our streets in this way.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that important question; I know she is extremely focused, rightly, on the deterioration of the situation in the west bank. She focuses correctly on the threat of annexation. We oppose that absolutely, as do our American counter-parts, as I am sure she is aware. I am not in a position to provide further commentary on what the steps I alluded to might yet be, for the reasons that we have rehearsed in this Chamber many times. We have taken action, including the three rounds of sanctions that I described, and we will continue to take action while the situation continues to deteriorate.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The Minister is absolutely right: Israel must stop. What estimate has he made of the time that we have before a separate Palestinian state becomes, geographically and economically, utterly untenable?

[Mr Falconer]

I thank the right hon. Member and my predecessor for that important question. We have pointed to a whole range of areas of concern in relation to the viability of a Palestinian state. One that has not received mention so far in our exchanges, but which is vital, is the E1 development. The British Government are deeply concerned by the speed with which the Israeli Government are proceeding with a project that we completely oppose. It is clearly designed to try to split two parts of a contiguous Palestinian territory. We oppose it, and we will continue to do so.

Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I reiterate that we continue to work with our allies and to speak directly with China, both publicly and privately, as part of the work we continue to do to secure Jimmy Lai’s release. The Government also remain in close contact with Mr Lai’s family to discuss the actions we are taking. We will continue to do that, because securing Mr Lai’s release remains a priority for this Government and for the Prime Minister.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I say to the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith) and to the Minister that this is not party political—the last Government were as bad, if not worse.

The Minister spoke about condemnation in the strongest terms. That is a complete waste of breath; the Chinese Government understand one thing, which is that there has to be a cost. Will the Minister sanction those responsible?

[Seema Malhotra]

The right hon. Member will perhaps disagree, but the key point is that we cannot move forward unless we are in dialogue. That is why what the Prime Minister did in going to China and raising this matter directly has opened the doors to further conversation. It is important to say that we continue to advocate in public and in private for Mr Lai’s release, and that we remain in close contact with Mr Lai’s family on the steps we are taking.

Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Tuesday 20th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stuart]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene one more time?

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Oh, stop giving him extra time! He is not going to trouble the scorer, is he?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Would the hon. Gentleman like to continue?

Proposed Chinese Embassy

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 19th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, but I would challenge him on it. He will know that it is possible for the Government to uphold both national and economic security as a priority, and that national security must always be the first duty of any Government.

We have talked extensively about our serious, clear-eyed approach to a relationship with China that is in our long-term interests—one in which we co-operate, challenge where we must, and compete. This is not just about balancing that; it is about being strong on security and on the economy, through engagement. The hon. Gentleman will also know that China is the world’s second largest economy and the UK’s third largest trading partner, so not engaging is no choice at all.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The urgent question secured by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), which Mr Speaker granted, explicitly refers to our Five Eyes partners. The first thing that the Minister said when she got to her feet was that she could not answer any questions about the Five Eyes partners, because that was a Home Office responsibility. Why did she come? Did she argue with those who sent her? Did she say, “Bagsy not me; I can’t answer that question”? The fact that she came, willingly or unwillingly, is an insult to this House.

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the right hon. Member for his question. It is important to acknowledge that we work with our Five Eyes partners on a range of security matters. It is important that we have that trust, and share security concerns and intelligence. It is also important to recognise that some of those matters are primarily a responsibility of the Home Office. While we routinely engage with our partners—including the US—on matters relating to security and intelligence, those matters cannot always be shared in the Chamber, but they are important to the functioning of Government.

Jimmy Lai Conviction

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

There is a deep, long-standing change that we have seen in the Chinese authorities’ approach over the last five years. Successive Governments have raised that with China, but we continue to do so because the national security law is deeply damaging, undermines the declaration and undermines the international rule of law. We will continue to raise that, just as we will continue to provide consular support for people across the world where there are British citizens who need our help and where we have work we can do to assist them.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

The Government’s dealings with China are proving to be almost as lamentable as those of their predecessor. We have summoned the ambassador to tell him just how cross we are, but I bet we will give him his embassy, won’t we?

[Yvette Cooper]

I note the right hon. Member’s lack of support for the previous Government. That Government were led by his party and, in theory, he voted and campaigned for them over many years. Nevertheless, I can probably agree with him about his disagreements with the previous Government, who managed to say things but actually did not engage in the way that we as a country need to in order to pursue Britain’s interests.

Budget Resolutions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). She caught my eye earlier when she was cheering the Chancellor with great enthusiasm, even more so than her colleagues who were making a pretty good fist of it. I recall cheering a Chancellor during a Budget speech—

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Did you get a job?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Notwithstanding the misgivings that I had, I cheered with gusto. Somewhat later, I found myself on a train to Oxford to defend the Government in the annual Oxford Union debate of no confidence. While on the train, I received the news that the Chancellor who I had been cheering had been sacked—not a particularly good wicket to go out to bat on.

I am confident that those hon. Members who cheered today will fare no better, because the economy is still reeling from the last Budget that the Chancellor delivered, with her wholesale assault on enterprise, family undertakings, initiative and every employer in the land. In fact, business confidence had collapsed significantly before that Budget. It had collapsed in the summer, when the Government warned everyone that things were so bad that they were going to have to get very, very much worse. As a consequence, when the Budget was delivered, we discovered that things were even worse than we had imagined. The Government then announced after that Budget that they had stabilised the economy. It was over; they were not coming back for any more. They trumpeted throughout the past year the fact that we had the highest growth rate in the G7. That is what they inherited, but as their monstrous regiment has proceeded, that growth rate has become more and more anaemic. There is no getting away from the fact that last month the economy shrank.

This summer, the Government repeated the mistake. All we got throughout the summer was horror story after horror story and kites being flown about ghastly taxes that might be imposed on us. That was most unwelcome for businesses planning investment and for anyone planning to take on workers; these interventions move some markets and make others absolutely sclerotic. It is a disaster. When I challenged the Chief Secretary to the Treasury last week with the example of Hugh Dalton, who properly resigned over a Budget leak, I was astounded that he admitted at the Dispatch Box that he had no idea what I was talking about. That is extraordinary. Against that background, there is always the chilling presence of the huge increase in trade union power that is part of the Employment Rights Bill currently before Parliament.

However, the Government’s anti-growth agenda is only half the story. The other half of the problem was expounded excellently by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The Government’s bloated expenditure plans have overshot by 4%, and we have this enormous, growing benefits bill. The disaster was that the Government withdrew from their attempts to provide some mild or modest restraint to the growth of that bill, and as my right hon. Friend said, we now face a bill that is running annually at £300 billion—£212 billion of which is for the economic inactivity of 4.3 million people who are under no obligation to work. That number of people is growing at a rate of 130,000 per month. That is completely unsustainable, and it is to be paid for by increasing taxes that disproportionately attack those people who are already contributing the most—the entrepreneurs, the investors and the very people who can take their investment, vision, skills and employment to where the business environment is rather more friendly. They are doing that in droves and to such an extent that even the Business Secretary has remarked on and spotted it. We increasingly face a situation in which fewer and fewer people will be able to pay for the bills of the increasing burden of people who are economically inactive.

As we approach—

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)]

Your ending.

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I do wish the hon. Gentleman would be quiet. He is insufferable.

As we approach Government activity accounting for 45% of the economy—

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

I will not give way; I have reached my peroration. I have always thought that the result of that would be the totalitarian hand clenched in anger. I have read “The Road to Serfdom”, and things have actually turned out very differently. It is not the totalitarian hand clenched in anger; it is the Minister’s hand, open, dishing out largesse. It has turned out to be not so much the road to serfdom as the road to penury.

Official Development Assistance Reductions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Edward Morello]

I agree 100% with the hon. Member. The more we work with our partners, the more we can deliver. We are living in an interconnected society; there is no way we can do this alone. We must work with others, and we must show leadership in that space.

If aid spending remained at 0.5%, it would have reached £15.4 billion by 2027. Instead, it will stand at £9.2 billion, the lowest in real terms since 2012. When we retreat, Russia and China advance; when we stay silent, violence speaks for us. There can be no security without stability, and no stability without development. Development is not an add-on to security and foreign policy, but what that policy is built on.

I therefore urge the Government to reconsider the planned reductions ahead of the Budget, and to bring forward sustainable, long-term plans for funding both our defence and our diplomacy, rather than setting them in competition. I urge them to recognise that global leadership cannot be built on cuts and withdrawals, but on conviction and compassion. The world we are shaping today, through the choices we make on aid, diplomacy and climate will determine whether future generations—our children and grandchildren—inherit a planet of opportunity for all.

We must stand up for liberal values, for compassion and for the rules-based international order. Britain has always stood tall on the world stage. Our leadership has mattered. It must matter again.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

I call Sarah Champion. I suggest five minutes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I suggest four minutes from now on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order. I am imposing a formal four-minute limit.

--- Later in debate ---

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond.

Official development assistance is changing. Just two weeks ago in Nigeria, one of the UK’s largest development partners, my colleagues and I from the International Development Committee had a glimpse of the future. Although the FCDO runs dozens of centrally managed programmes in the country, what stood out was not just the scale of the UK’s presence, but the way that we worked hand in glove with state Governments and public institutions to build the capacity that underpins long-term development. Whether that was in technical assistance to the revenue service or tax administration, support for reforming the public health system or advice on the macroeconomic reforms that Nigeria is beginning to implement, the emphasis was unmistakeable: partnership not paternalism.

That is a mature partnership that points the way to the future of international development. As painful as it is for a proponent of international development to say this, when the Government cut aid earlier this year, the writing was on the wall. The system must evolve from trade, not aid, and to transformation rather than transactions.

In that evolution, the UK possesses an extraordinary toolkit. We remain a leader in technical co-operation and capacity building, we are a pioneer in development finance and, perhaps most importantly, we sit at the centre of the global financial architecture. Nearly half of sovereign debt worldwide is governed by English law. That fact alone gives the City of London a moral and practical responsibility. If we want to see fairer, faster and more transparent debt restructuring and prevent another lost decade for low-income countries, the UK is uniquely placed to lead. Global debt reform will not happen in New York or Beijing unless it also happens in London.

In British International Investment—I declare an interest as a former employee—we have a leader among European development finance institutions, one that understands that development finance is not just about providing capital but about building markets. BII’s mission is to identify the bridges that must be built to get economic activity off the ground, create jobs and lift people out of poverty, while delivering a fair return, even when that return is concessional to the British taxpayer. That is smart, modern development policy, which will strengthen Africa’s hand.

Nowhere is the shift from aid to investment more necessary than in northern Nigeria. While parts of the south of Nigeria power on, the north is facing a humanitarian crisis, deep insecurity and environmental stress. Yes, there is an urgent need for aid to combat famine, strengthen healthcare systems and stabilise communities, but we must also confront the structural causes. A major driver of that instability is economic exclusion. Across the Sahel and the north of Nigeria, young people are being pushed off their land by drought, flooding and declining soil resilience. Many of those who end up in the orbit of Boko Haram or bandit groups are not idealogues; they are victims of climate and market failure.

Those problems are not insurmountable, but aid without investment is not the answer to that market failure. If we can give rural farmers the means to invest in sustainable crops and farming practices, agriculture can be a source of peace, dignity and security. The World Bank’s forthcoming Nigeria agricultural value chains growth project—on which I hope the Minister will comment—is now at concept stage, but it aims to do just that, and to mobilise more than $500 million to foster the kind of growth that I have described. I also commend the work that BII is doing with its investee Babban Gona in that realm.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[Seema Malhotra]

I am sorry, but due to time I will be wrapping up. At the weekend, the Foreign Secretary announced a further £5 million of support to the crisis in el-Fasher. While we have seen cuts, we have avoided disproportionate negative impacts on women and girls and people living with disabilities in this year’s ODA allocations, as confirmed by the equalities impact assessment that we published. We will continue to strengthen actions to help mitigate some of the negative impacts on equalities, including by putting women and girls at the heart of everything we do.

I will make a final point in relation to the ODA budget for supporting refugees in the UK. The Government are focused on reducing asylum costs and ending the use of migrant hotels by the end of the Parliament, and we have already made progress on that. The UK remains committed to international development. We are working with our partners to shape the next stage of global development, and at the same time, we are strengthening the UK’s safety, security and prosperity—and global safety, security and prosperity—which is essential for delivering all the missions of this Government.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)]

Edward Morello, you have less than a minute.