Foreign Interference
Debate between Judith Cummins and Ellie Chowns(5 days, 19 hours ago)
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Dr Chowns
That is not the Green party’s position. The Green party’s position, which I clarified in a point of order in this Chamber just last week, supports our membership of NATO at this time of extreme threat on Europe’s borders.
It has long been known that the Kremlin seeks to interfere and undermine democratic politics in other countries, with online bots and cyber-disinformation. The need is urgent. In June 2025 the Government published a strategic defence review, which stated:
“The UK is already under daily attack, with aggressive acts—from espionage to cyber-attack and information manipulation—causing harm to society and the economy.”
Russia was called
“an immediate and pressing threat”,
including in key areas such as cyber-space and information operations. These concerns are not new. Credible evidence of Russian interference in UK elections was flagged in the Intelligence and Security Committee’s 2020 Russia report. In 2022, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office put out a press release that revealed that a Russian spy agency had targeted UK national infrastructure in a “calculated and dangerous” hacking campaign, and that Putin was sowing
“division and confusion among allies.”
The Foreign Secretary at the time was Liz Truss, who said that she would not tolerate it, yet she, and the moribund Conservative Government of which she was a part, did not open an investigation into the ISC’s Russia report on Kremlin-linked influence in the UK.
Obviously, Liz Truss should never have been anywhere near the levers of high office, but why have this Government not acted as the US did? The 2017-19 Robert Mueller special counsel investigation was a criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections. We need something similar here. The US report concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur in “sweeping and systematic fashion”, and that it “violated U.S. criminal law”. In 2016 we had the Brexit vote, which has so harmed and divided our country, and it is well known that the Kremlin wants a weakened, fractured EU, so where is our version of Mueller?
The upcoming elections Bill will be critical in addressing the dodgy influence of foreign money in UK politics, not least via cryptocurrency, on which I agree with the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell). Reform UK is the first British political party to accept donations in crypto, despite UK National Crime Agency investigators recently saying that cryptocurrency has turbocharged money laundering. The NCA also points out that the cryptocurrency backed by the Reform donor is used for the Russian war effort. Reform UK’s record £9 million crypto donation is just the latest offering from abroad. Last Sunday, The Observer reported that two thirds of the funds given to that organisation in this Parliament have come from donors with overseas interests.
That demonstrates why it is so urgent that the forthcoming elections Bill is robust in stopping dirty money. We have not yet seen the Bill, but as well as urgent controls to prevent big overseas donations, the Bill must, among other things, streamline national versus local spending limits with a per-seat cap on total spending, have a limit on major donations, give the Electoral Commission the power to prosecute and reinstate its independence. It is also crucial that we have rules requiring the submission of all online and offline advertisements to the Electoral Commission as soon as they are published, with data on who has sponsored the ad readily available to the public. As things stand, we get only partial transparency after an election has happened. That is too late.
Today’s debate is crucial. As we have heard, it has many strands: the impact of foreign interference on security, trade and our democracy. I reiterate the critical point that defending our democracy must mean the UK Government finally investigating Russian interference in our elections. Not to do so is effectively to send a message of permission, and that is intolerable. The stakes could not be higher. I urge the Minister to tell us when we will get the long-overdue Mueller-style inquiry into Kremlin-linked interference in our democracy.
Points of Order
Debate between Judith Cummins and Ellie Chowns
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. This is not a matter for the Chair, but she has put her point on the record and I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have noted what she has said.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Yesterday, during my urgent question on Gaza, the Minister responding, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West), who has responsibility for the Indo-Pacific, said that the Minister with responsibility for the middle east, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), could not answer the question himself as he was
“in the region pushing for a peace deal”—[Official Report, 4 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 166.]
However, I have since received a communication from the press with evidence suggesting that he was at a Labour party networking lunch at Ronnie Scott’s at the time. Could you advise, Madam Deputy Speaker, on whether the record should be corrected if it is shown not to be correct?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. Has she given notice to the Members involved that she was going to raise this matter in the Chamber?
Madam Deputy Speaker
The Chair is not responsible for the content of ministerial answers, but the hon. Lady has put her point on the record and there is a procedure for Ministers to correct the record if they wish to do so.
NHS Backlog
Debate between Judith Cummins and Ellie Chowns(11 months, 1 week ago)
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Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) for securing this debate on the vital area of NHS backlogs, which is of great importance to me and my constituents. We are short of time so I will not talk, as I wished to, about the need to tackle the crisis in social care and the need to invest heavily in public health. I will focus my comments on responding to the Government’s announcement today on elective care.
I hope the Minister will be able to respond in a moment to some of the questions I want to pose, because it is one thing to use spare capacity in the private sector to tackle the absolute crisis we have with waiting lists and backlogs—I can understand that as an emergency measure—but it is quite another to propose in effect long-term outsourcing from the NHS to private providers. To be honest, I fear that today’s announcement could essentially be a form of creeping back-door privatisation of aspects of NHS care, and specifically those in which is easiest for private sector providers to make a profit. We only have to look at PFI to understand the dangers of that approach.
I have read today’s partnership agreement between the NHS and the independent sector, and I am afraid I find it the opposite of reassuring. I will briefly canter through some of the reasons why. Section 2 indicates that the Government do envisage increased private provision of both surgical and diagnostic services.
There is some text in section 3 about trying to seek assurance that those private providers will not essentially cherry-pick the most attractive, easy and profitable patients. However, all it says is that the independent sector will review its patient criteria; there are no teeth there.
There is nothing in section 4 about measures to protect the NHS from the risk of private providers making excessive profits from the services they provide. We have recently heard in this Chamber cases of that happening in the social care sector and the children’s social care centre. Is there not a real risk that that could also happen in the healthcare sector if this is not actioned?
Finally, there is nothing in section 5 to address the risk of transferring services to private providers leading to leaching of staff from the NHS services into the private sector. How can we be guaranteed that there is not going to be excessive competition in a workforce that is already extremely stretched?
For the Green party and myself, the profit motive has no place in our NHS. I hope the Minister will provide assurances that the NHS will continue to be publicly owned and publicly run for public benefit, and that the concerns I have highlighted will be addressed so that the agreement between the NHS and the independent sector has teeth.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I now call the Liberal Democrats spokesperson, Jess Brown-Fuller.