National Security Council Leak

Debate between James Cartlidge and David Lidington

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

The various tests for a criminal offence are set out in detail in the Official Secrets Act. Whether or not that threshold has been breached depends on harm tests, and those harm tests are different depending on the category and the content of the information we are talking about.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Surely one risk of this leak is that it effectively predetermines the public mood on the substantive issue of Huawei in a more hawkish fashion before we have come to our own policy conclusions. Of course the Five Eyes are our most important allies, and we have to do everything we can to reassure them, but we are also a sovereign country, and we have our own unique circumstances and our own more nuanced position with Beijing, so can I urge my right hon. Friend to continue all the work across Whitehall in a calm, deliberative and, above all, objective fashion so that we come to the right policy on the point of substance?

[Mr Lidington]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments, and he is right. In carrying out that work, it is vital that we have a forum in the National Security Council where the intelligence chiefs can talk frankly to Ministers about their assessment of the balance of risks and threats this country faces and where Ministers, taking account of the best advice available to them, can weigh up how to strike the right balance between this country’s future and developing security interests and our future and developing economic interests to try to steer a way forward that delivers the best outcome for the people of the United Kingdom.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Cartlidge and David Lidington

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

Consequential sums will flow to the Northern Ireland civil service as a result of the Treasury’s announcement yesterday. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is closely involved in all Government discussions about contingency planning, and I have invited representatives of the Northern Ireland civil service to a meeting with UK Ministers later today where they will have the opportunity to put Northern Ireland’s case directly.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

T4. On no-deal planning, what discussions has my right hon. Friend had with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy about the contingency of our ending up on the WTO’s default tariff schedule, particularly in terms of the potential impact on farming and industry?

[Mr Lidington]

I discuss these matters regularly with both the Secretaries of State my hon. Friend alluded to. I am afraid that there is no getting away from the fact that going to WTO tariffs would impose very considerable additional costs upon our dairy, meat and livestock exports, and upon our vehicle manufacturers. That is another reason why the House should back the deal on the table and not let us be sucked into the damage that a no-deal exit would bring.

UK’s Relationship with the EU

Debate between James Cartlidge and David Lidington

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

I am in no doubt about my position and that of the Prime Minister: we will accept the verdict of the people of the United Kingdom as a whole, and we will regard that as binding.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is something completely absurd about the Leader of the Opposition using his entire remarks to criticise the absence of a Prime Minister to deliver a statement on a renegotiation that will lead to a referendum, none of which would have taken place had there been a Labour Government?

[Mr Lidington]

I think it was a pity that the questions from the Opposition Dispatch Box were about today’s process rather than about the substance of European matters, but the Opposition will have another chance tomorrow.

Europe: Renegotiation

Debate between James Cartlidge and David Lidington

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lidington]

My right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary made a very clear pledge to the House from this Dispatch Box, and the Government will pursue that.

[James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)]

Part 1 of the letter on economic governance states:

“There are today effectively two sorts of members of the European Union”—

those in the euro and those outside. Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of the countries currently outside the euro other than ourselves are likely to remain in that position for many, many years to come, and that therefore it is in the wider interests of the whole EU that the European Union accepts that reality and enters into our negotiations on this point with an understanding of that fact?

[Mr Lidington]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. For as far ahead as I can see, some EU member states will be part of the single currency and a significant number, not only the United Kingdom, will be outside it. I believe that those in the eurozone will need to integrate their fiscal, economic and, to some extent, political arrangements more closely. The stability of the currency union is in the interests of the United Kingdom, even though we are not going to join it, so getting that relationship right between euro-ins and euro-outs is an important strategic challenge, and it is a central feature of our negotiation for that reason.