Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

Can the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster provide an update on the current situation for British nationals in Lebanon, including the measures being taken to ensure their safety? Are there any plans for further evacuations, given the ongoing instability in that region?

[Pat McFadden]

The situation in Lebanon is serious, and there are several thousand UK nationals in Lebanon. The Foreign Office advice for some time has been simple: leave now. The Government have chartered several flights to help UK nationals to leave. We are also running a “register your presence” site, to ensure we can track anyone who is in country and have the best possible communications with them. We have made preparations for other evacuation measures, should they be necessary for the protection of our citizens in Lebanon.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I thank the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster for that answer. May I echo from the Opposition Benches that the correct approach for British nationals is to leave now, rather than to rely on the Government to take further steps for them? However, in the event that the situation deteriorates further, what contingency plans do the Government have in place to ensure the swift and safe evacuation of British nationals, particularly in high-risk areas?

[Pat McFadden]

We have been monitoring the situation closely for some months. I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the whole House that the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and all parts of Government are putting in place the necessary measures, should the situation on the ground change to a point where we judge that more needs to be done to get people out of the country.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:

“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill because it is not an acceptable or effective method of enacting major constitutional change, because it proposes a significant alteration to the composition of the House of Lords which should not be considered in isolation from other changes, having regard to the undertakings given by the then Government in 1999, because it drip-feeds changes that hinder proper scrutiny of measures that could change the relationship between the two Houses, because it risks unintended consequences, does not reflect the lack of political consensus on House of Lords reform and does not provide for full consultation and pre-legislative scrutiny which would give the opportunity to consider the case for overall reform, seek cross-party engagement on proposals, and review the implications of all proposals.”

The British constitution is not codified. One might not choose to craft such a system if one were establishing a new country from scratch, but we are proud to be an old country. The checks and balances of the House of Lords—its tried and tested conventions—work. The House of Lords does not claim to be a democratic Chamber. That is the key point: this elected House has primacy. Of course, the British constitution does—and should—continue to evolve, but we should fix only what is broken and be cautious about rushing into change. Our evolution should start with questions of efficacy, not optics. We should be guided by the wisdom of past generations, and the continuity of history and tradition. As Edmund Burke wrote:

“We have an inheritable crown, an inheritable peerage, and a House of Commons and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.”

The Paymaster General has described the excepted peers as “out of step” with modern Britain. Like the Blair and Brown Governments, this Government seem obsessed with change for change’s sake. We have seen it all before. We have seen this rebranding spun to give the impression of progress: the Law Lords replaced with the Supreme Court; the Lord Chancellor’s Department aping the US-style Justice Department; even Her Majesty’s Stationery Office recast as the Office of Public Sector Information. At best, it is cosmetic; at worst, it risks irreversible damage. As we saw with the changes to the House of Lords’ judicial role, rushed constitutional change leads to unintended consequences. We should, therefore, proceed with caution.

[Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)]

The role of hereditary peers in our democratic system is a bygone relic of a less democratic age. May I ask whether that is why the shadow Minister feels such an affinity for it?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I join the Government in paying tribute to the hereditary peers. The argument that I will elucidate in my speech, as set out in the amendment, is that if this Government are committed to reform of the upper House, they should consider all the consequences of that reform, and this House, and the other place, should have ample opportunity to consider it properly.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The right hon. Gentleman has made great play of how our constitution should develop, but does he not accept that almost every Government, apart from the most recent one, have looked at the House of Lords and how it could be reformed? Many of us believe that the reform should go much further than that put forward by this Government, which we see as just a first step towards a properly elected, fully democratic upper Chamber that serves the people.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

As we have seen in the debate so far, there is a range of views on both sides of the House about how we should proceed with reform. The argument that I am making is that this House should have the opportunity to consider all the changes together in the round before we rush ahead with constitutional change for the sake of virtue signalling and optics rather than what suits the needs of the nation.

[Sir John Hayes]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I shall give way one more time.

[Sir John Hayes]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Will he consider that political legitimacy derives from many sources but not entirely from democratic election for, if it did, we would not have life peers or a constitutional monarchy? Legitimacy is not wholly and solely a matter of being elected, or the Labour party would be abolishing the House of Lords per se.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

It will not surprise my right hon. Friend to hear that I completely agree with him. As ever, he makes an erudite point.

[Shaun Davies]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will make some progress and then I will give way.

Instead of proceeding with caution, the Government have done precisely the opposite. The Bill has had no pre-legislative scrutiny, no Joint Committee and no cross-party engagement. Indeed, Labour Ministers have explicitly refused to consult on the removal of excepted peers.

All that forms a pattern with Labour’s past constitutional tinkering. We have the Equality Act 2010, which both the Equality and Human Rights Commission and His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary have said in recent months is too complicated and needs changing. There is also the Human Rights Act 1998, which, in departing from Britain’s common-law tradition, further expanded judicial review, undermining the very laws made by this Parliament and dragging the courts into answering political questions that should be a matter for the legislature. The same applies to Tony Blair’s successive surrenders to EU treaties. Those Acts created new problems for an old country, and this Bill risks doing exactly the same.

[Pete Wishart]

The right hon. Gentleman has been on his feet for five minutes and I am finding it difficult to follow him. Can he answer me directly: is he in favour of getting rid of hereditary peers and people who are in the House of Lords on birthright—yes or no?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I am strongly of the view that we should consider all these things in the round. There is merit here—that is why we are proposing a reasoned amendment—but the risk of proceeding in a rushed fashion is that we come to regret it, as we have on many previous occasions.

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Shaun Davies]

rose—

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will make some progress and then I will give way.

In 1999, Baroness Jay, the then Leader of the House of Lords, said that a partly reformed Lords with only excepted hereditaries remaining would be

“more legitimate, because its members have earned their places”

and would have more authority. That was termed the Jay doctrine at the time. If the excepted peers go, what other conventions are at risk of change—the Salisbury convention, or the restraint against vetoing secondary legislation? The lack of consultation and scrutiny, and the Government’s piecemeal approach to reform, has meant such questions have the potential to be reopened.

[Gareth Snell]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) and then to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell).

[Shaun Davies]

The compromise of allowing the remaining hereditary peers to be in the other place is 25 years old. How much longer does the right hon. Gentleman need to consider the options and whether he is in favour of them?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I gently say to the hon. Gentleman that the reforms were introduced in 1999. By my calculation, the Labour party was in power for another 11 years and did precisely nothing further. I will come to this point in a moment, but the reason the hereditaries remained in the House of Lords in 1999 was to ensure that all these things were considered at the same time. The Government are breaking a principle that they agreed to previously.

[Gareth Snell]

The right hon. Gentleman rightly talks about the Salisbury convention. Is that his way of telling us that, as the Bill was a manifesto commitment— as pointed out by the right hon. Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson)—Conservative peers will be voting for it to comply with the convention that he has said is so important?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

Well—

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

The right hon. Gentleman would not want to break convention, would he?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

The Paymaster General knows how much I respect conventions, but that is ultimately a matter for the other Chamber.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will make some progress, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will give way.

We should not be surprised that the Labour Government have only introduced this short Bill because they have no clear plans for wider Lords reform. In 2022, the Prime Minister endorsed Gordon Brown’s plans for an assembly of the nations and regions, but now that has been kicked into the long grass. Labour grandees such as Lord Blunkett have warned it risks mirroring “gridlock” too often seen in the United States. Lord Mandelson described the plan as a

“multi-layered cake…barely been put in the oven yet, let alone fully baked.”

Lord Adonis observed that within Labour,

“there is no consensus on reform”

and that it will be “difficult and controversial.” Even the current leader of the Lords, Baroness Smith, admitted this year that an elected Chamber risked

“losing the primacy of the Commons.”

Therein lies the dilemma for the Labour party and its new-found Commons majority. Perhaps Labour Ministers are starting to realise that Lords reform is challenging and difficult.

[Graham Stringer]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will make some more progress and then I will give way.

In 1999, the reforms recognised the challenge. In this July’s King’s Speech background brief, the Labour Government asserted that the continued presence of excepted peers is “by accident”. That is simply not true. In 1999, Labour’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, told the other House that the presence of hereditaries was an intentional anomaly; it would ensure a future Government undertook proper and considered reform of the Lords. His fellow architect, Viscount Cranborne, called that

“the sand in the shoe”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 22 June 1999; Vol. 602, c. 791.]

Now, this Labour Government want to declare war on the past without a clear target in sight. As they cannot agree on what to do, the Prime Minister has gone for this chipolata of a Bill, the mantra of change serving as a tiny fig leaf to cover his embarrassment. The emperor has no clothes—perhaps other than from Lord Alli.

[Graham Stringer]

The right hon. Member is making a case on shifting sand, which seems to boil down to one of people not having had time to consider the issue. First, this reform has been in two Labour manifestos, one in 1997 and one this year, and it had overwhelming support from the electorate. Secondly, the compromise reached between the Labour party and the Conservative party in 1999 was nothing to do with the good work done by many hereditaries; it was to stop logjam, because the House of Lords was threatening to hold up Labour’s programme and throw the Salisbury convention aside.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

The purpose of the 1999 compromise was to ensure that we did not remove hereditary peers without considering the wider consequences. That is precisely my concern with the approach being pursued by the Government. This meagre Bill is not motivated by considered and enlightened principle. Labour wants to remove the independent and experienced voices of excepted peers so that it can parachute in a wave of new Labour cronies. It is change in the name of an Executive power grab, not change to serve the British people.

The excepted peers are immune from the needs of political patronage. They work in the public interest for the good of the nation. Edmund Burke once described them as

“the great Oaks that shade a Country”.

The same, I am afraid, cannot be said of the saplings of the new Labour intake.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I will give way in a moment.

I shall prove my point. Before the election, Labour sources admitted that

“we’re going to need to appoint a dozen peers on day one to do big junior ministerial jobs that the MPs shadowing them aren’t up to doing.”

In 1999, Lord Strathclyde, the then shadow Leader of the Lords, presciently warned of

“the return of an almost medieval executive power—a noisome bramble-patch of presidentialism, patronage, private pressure, preferment and place”—

past words that speak truth today.

One central argument evinced by the Paymaster General is that no one should be in Parliament by “an accident of birth”. Yet, today’s Labour party reeks of the hereditary principle—the elevation of the nepo babies of north London, the coronation of the red princes: the Goulds, the Falconers, the Kinnocks, the Benns, the Eagles, the Reeves. Many of them are distinguished Members, but under Labour’s closed shop, it is hereditary peers out and hereditary MPs in.

The question this House must address is whether a wholly appointed Chamber and waves of new Labour peers will improve the governance of our nation. Will they mean a proper impact assessment of the cuts to the winter fuel payment? Will there be better scrutiny of the proposed French-style union laws? Or, as Michael Foot told the House in 1969 when opposing Harold Wilson’s Lords reform Bill, will it become just

“A second Chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs”?—[Official Report, 3 February 1969; Vol. 777, c. 88.]

The Labour party apparently wants to apply that phrase to this House, given the diktat from the Labour Whips banning their Members from tabling amendments without permission. The Downing Street boys do not want dissent from either House of Parliament.

[Mike Amesbury (Runcorn and Helsby) (Lab)]

What is it about defending the indefensible? The right hon. Gentleman talks about rushing, but we have been trying to reform the other place for over 100 years. It is not about personalities; it is about the principle of ensuring that in a modern democracy people do not become legislators by birthright. Surely the Opposition support that.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

The Labour party was in power for 11 years after the 1999 changes. It completely failed to undertake this reform, and that was for a reason. We have a delicate and complex unwritten constitution of checks and balances, of principles and conventions, and when one starts to pick away at some of them, one realises the consequences of doing so. If we are to proceed down this path, it is important that Members—many on the Government Benches have been elected Members for only four months—have the opportunity to scrutinise the changes. This is a new Parliament and we should have the opportunity of proper scrutiny.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the former Deputy Prime Minister for giving way. He is right: I have not been here as long as he has. I am enjoying his audition for the shadow Cabinet when the new leader arrives, but will he join me in the Aye Lobby this evening, yes or no?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I doubt I have much chance of joining the next shadow Cabinet. This is my swansong rather than my audition.

I have set out the reasons I oppose the Bill—it is rushed and we have not considered the wider consequences.

[Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way to a sapling. The interesting thing about saplings, as I am sure he knows, is that sometimes we become oaks—I guess we shall have to see—and the reason there are so many saplings on the Government Benches is that we chopped down so many oaks from the Conservative party. Although we have not been in the House for long, many of us have been involved in the interests of our constituents and the conversations of politics for a long time. Does he agree that the House does not hold the collective knowledge of the whole country and that sometimes we may have formed views about what is necessary for the other place before reaching this Chamber?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman grows into a sturdy oak, like all the great oaks on the Benches behind me. There is a path to be followed to achieve that. Many people may well enter the House with pre-existing views, and that is of course the basis on which many of them were elected, but my argument is that we should consider the consequences of one change in relation to hereditaries for the wider composition of the House of Lords and the constitution.

[Andrew Rosindell]

My right hon. Friend rightly talks about the consequences of the changes. Has he also considered the effect of the removal of the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain of England, which were protected in the 1999 legislation introduced by the then Labour Government? Will my right hon. Friend commit to supporting their retention in the House of Lords on a constitutional basis?

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

That is a very important point. I believe that the Government have plans to address that in the legislation. Having those people, with their experience of organising coronations—as I saw during the coronation two years ago—is another part of how our constitution works. All of the elements work together, and if we pick away at one, there are unintended consequences.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

To be clear, the Lord Great Chamberlain and the Earl Marshal will not continue to sit and vote in the House of Lords under this Bill, but they will continue with their important ceremonial functions.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

The risk is taking away something that has formed part of the fabric of our constitution. The role of those two officeholders has been essential to the role of the Crown, and preventing them from fully playing their part in the House of Lords may have unintended consequences that are deleterious to the interests of the nation.

Hereditaries and appointees aside, I would argue that the precise composition of an unelected second Chamber is a second order issue. Both the Government and Parliament should be considering how we can better improve the scrutiny powers of the revising Chamber. We need a strong Government, but we need a muscular Parliament too. All Governments should be held to account, particularly one with the biggest gap in history between their number of MPs and their popular vote. We should particularly consider how Parliament can better scrutinise the quango state—unaccountable tiers of government that are ballooning under this Labour Government.

Lords reform is challenging. For a century, no one has cut the Gordian knot—certainly not Gordon Brown. The system we have inherited from the turn of the millennium still works, proving the strengths and adaptability of the British constitution.

Constitutional change is an area where one should tread lightly. It requires proper consultation, engagement and consideration. On that basis, as set out in our reasoned amendment, the Opposition will oppose the Bill, not to defend the privilege of old, but in defence of a strong and independent Parliament that stands up to an over-mighty Executive, and for our nation’s long-standing liberties and freedoms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

I begin by welcoming the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to his position. I know that he will be supported by a brilliant team of civil servants who are truly dedicated to public service. As we saw in module 1 of the covid inquiry report last week, biological threats pose potentially catastrophic risks to our nation, and those risks will be exacerbated by long-term trends such as climate change. To help to prepare us, I published the UK biological security strategy. Will he take the opportunity to recommit to its objectives and to provide an annual update to the House on its implementation?

[Pat McFadden]

I welcome the right hon. Member to his position. I mean that genuinely: it is not easy to step up and serve in opposition after an election defeat, so I welcome what he and his colleagues are doing. I echo his praise for the civil service and the Cabinet Office team, who have supported me and my colleagues in the best way in the past few weeks. On the UK biological security strategy, my answer is simple and short: yes.

[Mr Speaker]

Let us keep going in that way.

[Sir Oliver Dowden]

I welcome that answer and I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind words. An effective strategy must be underpinned by dedicated resources, which is why one of my final acts in the Cabinet Office was to announce that we would ringfence biological security spending across Government. Will he uphold that commitment, so that important resilience spending does not fall victim to day-to-day spending pressures?

[Pat McFadden]

If the right hon. Member set aside spending for his commitments, he did something pretty rare for the last Government. When we look under the bonnet, we find that that was not often the case. We will have more to say about that in the coming days.

CrowdStrike: IT Outage

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Dowden (Hertsmere) (Con)]

May I begin by welcoming the hon. Lady to her role and thanking her for advance sight of the statement? In that role I know she will be supported by a dedicated team of civil servants, who represent the very best of public service. I have no doubt that they will serve her as well as they did me.

The hon. Lady will be aware of the enormous challenges facing this Government and those around the world in relation to cyber-security. As I warned when I was the responsible Minister, threats to public services and critical national infrastructure come from a range of challenges, from hostile state actors to human error and design flaws. Last week we saw those challenges vividly brought to life. Following the corrupted antivirus update by CrowdStrike on Friday, 8.5 million Microsoft devices globally were rendered unusable. That left airports disrupted, patient records temporarily lost and GPs unable to access important patient data, creating significant backlogs. That is more than an inconvenience.

I pay tribute to all those working in our public services for the efforts they undertook over the weekend to restore those services, and to the work of dedicated cyber specialists across Government, including in the National Cyber Security Centre. In government we undertook a wide range of measures to enhance the nation’s cyber-security: creating the National Cyber Security Centre, introducing secure by design, setting cyber-resilience targets, launching GovAssure and transforming the oversight of governmental cyber-security.

I note, as the hon. Lady said, that the Government intend to build on that progress by bringing forward a cyber-security and resilience Bill. Will she therefore outline the timetable for the Bill, and will the Government consider mandatory cyber-security targets for the UK public sector? Are the Government considering obligations to ensure that infrastructure is designed to be resilient against common cause problems, such as this one? What steps are being taken to enhance cyber-security in the devolved Administrations and in parts of the public sector such as the NHS, which are operationally independent?

Specifically in relation to this incident, what assessment has been made of the prevalence of CrowdStrike within critical national infrastructure? What further reassurance can the Government give in relation to the timetable for full recovery of key systems and data? In particular, can the Minister assure employees that this month’s payroll will not be adversely affected?

Britain’s cyber industry is world leading. Cyber-security now employs more than 60,000 people and brings in nearly £12 billion-worth of revenue annually. This transformation was in part due to our £5.3 billion investment, which launched the country’s first national cyber-security strategy. I therefore urge the Government—I see the Chancellor in her place—to continue such investment.

Incidents such as that of CrowdStrike should not deter us from the path of progress. We must embrace digitalisation and the huge improvements to public services that it offers. The adoption of artificial intelligence across Government is the closest thing we have to a silver bullet for public sector productivity. However, if we are to command public confidence, people must be assured that technology is safe, secure and reliable. Such incidents demonstrate how reliant the Government and public services are on large technology companies, and how much responsibility they have for the services that have become critical to people’s lives and livelihoods. That is why, in government, I called for us to work more closely with leading technology firms to address these shared challenges. The best solution is partnership. To that end, what further engagement will the Minister undertake with Microsoft, CrowdStrike and the wider sector to ensure that there is no such recurrence?

The task for us all is to build on existing progress that has transformed Britian’s cyber defences, and to enhance protections for British families, businesses and the very heart of Government. In that mission, the Government can rely on the support of the Opposition.

[Ellie Reeves]

I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution and his questions. In particular, I echo the thanks to all those in Departments across the civil service who were involved in dealing with the outage last Friday and in mitigating its effects. I set out in my statement that our cyber-security and resilience Bill, which was included in the King’s Speech, will strengthen our defences and ensure that more digital services are protected. That is a priority for this Government. The Bill will look at expanding the remit of regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing reporting requirements, so that the Government can build a better picture of cyber-threats. We will consider the implications of Friday’s incident as we develop that legislation, but rest assured that we are working across Government to ensure resilience.

As the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said in his statement on the covid inquiry module 1 report, he will lead a review assessing our national resilience to the full range of risks that the UK faces, including cyber-risks.

National Security and Investment Act: Statement for the Purposes of Section 3

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2024 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

On 18 April I published the Government’s response to the national security and investment call for evidence, which sought feedback from stakeholders on how the Government can increase understanding of the National Security and Investment Act 2021 and the risks it seeks to address. As part of the Government’s response, I committed to publishing an updated section 3 statement setting out the factors I expect to take into account when exercising the call-in power under the NSI Act. I also committed to publish further guidance on a range of topics to help stakeholders understand how the Act works.

Today I have fulfilled both of those commitments by laying an amended section 3 statement before Parliament and publishing updates to the extensive market guidance the Government have published on www.gov.uk.

The previous version of the section 3 statement was published in November 2021, ahead of the NSI Act’s commencement. While this updated version has a high degree of continuity with the previous version, several key changes have been made to better explain how the Secretary of State has used, and will continue to use, the Act’s powers.

These changes include further information on the approach the Government take to assessing risk in relation to:

Trigger events—including the circumstances in which certain acquisitions could be considered under the NSI Act, including the incorporation of new entities, formation of joint ventures, and outward direct investment.

The targets of acquisitions—including how the Government may consider technology transfer risks when reviewing asset acquisitions.

Acquirers—including where the Government may see risk from UK acquirers or acquirers that have previously been cleared through the NSI system.

The control being acquired—including how the Government may consider control risk in cases involving passive and non-controlling investments.

How decisions are made—including improved examples of how the Government assesses target risk, acquirer risk and control risk.

Today I have also updated the guidance for the NSI system, which is published on www.gov.uk. This includes additional guidance for higher education institutions as well as new guidance on how the Act can apply to outward direct investment and how statutory timelines are calculated. A full summary of the changes is available on www.gov.uk.

I will place a copy of the updated NSI statement for the purposes of section 3 in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS490]

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

8. What steps his Department is taking to protect public institutions and services from cyber threats.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

The cyber threat facing the United Kingdom is intensifying. State and non-state actors have targeted our critical national infrastructure, our businesses and even our democratic institutions. The Government have introduced a new national cyber strategy, which takes a whole-of-society approach. We have set out high standards of cyber-protection for our critical industries and, with the help of our world-leading agencies, we are offering advice to institutions, businesses and individuals on protecting themselves online.

[Nick Smith]

Cyber-security is crucial not only to our defence sector but to others, including finance, energy and retail. Sector leaders have raised fears about the future supply of cyber professionals. There is some brilliant work taking place at Ebbw Vale College in my constituency—pioneering stuff is going on around cyber-security—but can the Deputy Prime Minister say what is being done to onshore these critical roles to protect our economy from attacks by hostile actors?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this issue. We have tremendous strengths in national cyber-security, and there are many relevant institutions around the country. I have visited universities in Wales that are churning out brilliant graduates. We need to do more at secondary school level to encourage more children to get involved in cyber-security, because the demand is only going to increase in the months and years ahead, and I have been engaging with the Education Secretary on precisely this point.

[John Cryer]

We have all seen in recent weeks how weak cyber-security can compromise elected representatives and lead to the extraction of often compromising information. Could the Minister update the House on what he is doing to provide support and technology specifically to elected representatives to make sure that this does not happen in the future?

[Oliver Dowden]

This is an important issue, which is why we established the National Cyber Security Centre. It brings together Government Communications Headquarters expertise with that of the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and others. Through the National Cyber Security Centre, we work with the House authorities and others to make sure that they have sufficient and appropriate advice, but also to advise on equipment and the general security of Members of Parliament. If they have concerns about their cyber-security, I would urge them either to get in contact directly with the National Security Cyber Centre or to do so through the relevant House authorities.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that the threat is intensifying. Late last year, the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy urged the Government to offer more active support on cyber-security to local authorities. He may be aware that last month my own local authority, Leicester City Council, suffered a hugely sophisticated attack, which disrupted many local authority services and has hugely inconvenienced many of my constituents, who rely on those services. Given that we are seeing more of these ransomware group attacks on public institutions across the world and that he says, rightly, that the threat is intensifying, what urgent support and guidance is he offering local councils, such as mine in Leicester?

[Oliver Dowden]

Specifically in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s local authority, I have been briefed by the National Cyber Security Centre on that incident. He is totally right to say it is a significant and serious incident, and we are working on remediation through the National Cyber Security Centre. To prevent this type of attack from happening in the first place, we invested £2.6 billion in the national cyber strategy, which is about improving cyber-resilience and reducing legacy technology. I have been quite open with the House in saying that the threat is intensifying because we see hostile states creating environments in which cyber-criminals can flourish, both for their own benefit and for the benefit of those hostile states. We are working through our intelligence agencies and the National Cyber Security Centre to continuously improve our performance.

[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to strengthen national security.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

Protecting national security is the Government’s first duty. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister announced a fully funded plan to increase our defence spending by £75 billion over the next six years. As part of this uplift, we will bring forward a national defence and resilience plan, building on the resilience framework and integrated review to respond to the evolving threats we face. We are bringing our defence and civilian preparations together to reflect the interconnectedness of those threats. The Cabinet Office plays a central role in this endeavour, co-ordinating strategy through Cobra, resilience directorates and the National Security Council.

[Mike Amesbury]

In the past week, three people in Germany have been arrested on suspicion of spying for China and two have been charged in the UK. This comes on the back of the Intelligence and Security Committee report which concluded that the Government have no strategy or whole-system—whole-Government —approach to deal with this serious threat. When is the Minister going to get a grip on this serious threat to our democracy from China?

[Oliver Dowden]

I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. We dealt explicitly with this in both the integrated review and the integrated review refresh, which set out a co-ordinated approach and are clear about the threats we face from hostile states—Russia, North Korea, Iran and indeed China. We are very clear about the threats China poses to our economic security and our democratic institutions, and that is why we have taken a range of actions, including for the first time directly attributing attacks to China and imposing sanctions in respect of them.

[Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

With local and national elections on the horizon, it is vital that voters can have full confidence in the integrity of our electoral system. With that in mind, what assessment has the Department made of the risks posed by deepfakes and misinformation in the upcoming elections?

[Oliver Dowden]

I have considerable concerns about deepfakes being used in the upcoming elections. We have seen hack and leak being used as a tactic by hostile states in previous elections, and we have to take into account deepfake capabilities, particularly enhanced by artificial intelligence. That is why we are developing our strategy through the Defending Democracy Taskforce and undertaking exercises right now to enhance our capabilities. It is, however, a challenge to all citizens not necessarily to take images to be true on first sight, because of adversaries’ enhanced capability.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

5. What steps he is taking to improve support for female veterans.

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[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

The Cabinet Office continues to play a central co-ordinating role in protecting our national and economic security. Last week, we published the response to the call for evidence on the National Security and Investment Act 2021, and I set out the steps we will take to fine-tune that system, including honing our approach to export controls, outward investment and providing more support to business.

Later, I will be convening a round table of university vice-chancellors to brief them on the security risks in research and academia, and to discuss how we address those. All of that complements our plans for a generational £75 billion uplift in defence spending, including a new national defence and resilience plan, setting out a cross-Government approach to security, preparedness and resilience as a nation.

[Christine Jardine]

It is often claimed by critics that the continual stream of ineffective and incompetent legislation we see from Holyrood is evidence of the need for a second, democratically elected Chamber to scrutinise properly. We have such an effective Chamber here and this week we have seen how important it can be in legislation. Would that Chamber’s position not have been strengthened by being a democratically elected second revising Chamber? Does the Secretary of State agree that the time has come when we need to look again at how we reform the House of Lords to make it more relevant to the 21st century and more democratic?

[Oliver Dowden]

I am afraid that I completely disagree with the hon. Lady about having an elected second Chamber. This is the democratic Chamber for our nation. It is the principal voice of the nation. We do not need a second Chamber in conflict with this one, further burdening and complexing legislative processes.

[Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)]

The very welcome Windsor framework demonstrated a strong commitment to human and animal health by extending Northern Ireland’s access to veterinary medicines until 2025. I welcome the establishment of the veterinary medicines working group by the Cabinet Office and the Northern Ireland Minister of State. I am pleased to be part of that group, which is working hard to find a permanent solution to this matter. Can my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office, reassure the House that the Government will continue to strain every sinew in discussions with the EU to protect both animal health and public health in Northern Ireland and right across the UK with a permanent solution for access to veterinary medicines in Northern Ireland?

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[Mr McFadden]

Thank you for your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. I shall ask a policy question.

The Government recently awarded a contract for a supercomputer to Lenovo, a China-headquartered firm that has been the subject of enforcement action by the United States on security grounds. This supercomputer will be used by critical Government bodies such as the UK Atomic Energy Authority. How will Ministers safeguard the public against any possible misuse of sensitive Government data as a result of the awarding of the contract?

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. I know that he has also written to me regarding that topic. I can assure him that we will be working with the National Cyber Security Centre and the National Security Secretariat to ensure that full checks and measures are put in place to prevent such abuse from occurring.

The right hon. Gentleman referred to his role as general election co-ordinator for the Labour party. I understand that he sits on the quad, which determines Labour policy, so perhaps he could clear up, for the benefit of us all, this question on an issue of national security. Does the Labour party support our £75 billion increase in defence spending? If he cares about these things, the answer should be plainly, “Yes, we do”.

[Mr McFadden]

When we announce a policy, we ensure that it is properly costed and funded, which I recommend to the Deputy Prime Minister. One other cyber-threat that modern states are facing is prepositioning: the planting of destructive software in critical infrastructure that can then be activated at a later date. The director of the FBI said that prepositioning of the Volt Typhoon type discovered in American infrastructure was

“the defining threat of our generation”.

America’s cyber-defence agency said that Five Eyes allies were also likely to have been targeted. Have the Government looked for or found Volt-Typhoon-type infiltration of any parts of our critical national IT infrastructure, and if so what action is being taken to remove it?

[Oliver Dowden]

The right hon. Gentleman has been around this place long enough to know that he is delivering a non-answer on Labour’s support for defence spending. The whole House will have noted that, although he raises an important issue in respect of prepositioning. He will appreciate that there are limits to what I can say from the Dispatch Box given that some of this relates to high-side intelligence, but I assure him that we are working with our Five Eyes allies, in particular the United States, since the US and the UK have exceptional capability in these areas, to ensure that we both have adequate knowledge and understanding of such prepositioning, and take effective steps in respect of it.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Eight weeks ago, on 29 February, at first order questions, I asked the Minister without Portfolio what the Government would do to assist people who are adversely affected by the statute of limitations as a result of having been injured by covid-19 vaccines. My right hon. Friend said in response that she had taken the issue to the permanent secretary. Will she update us on what has happened with the permanent secretary over the past eight weeks?

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[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

T2. I recently met with Emma Howard Boyd to discuss the interim findings of the Mayor of London’s climate resilience review, which she has been leading on. It involves the work of many different Government Departments at a national level. Will the Minister update us on whether we are conducting a similar exercise? The review is looking at what the impact would be of a similar heat- wave to the one we had a couple of years ago, flash flooding and all sorts of things. It is not just the responsibility of DESNZ or the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; it covers many Departments, so it is a Cabinet Office responsibility.

[Oliver Dowden]

It is an important question. We are doing exactly that. Extreme heat is something that we have to increasingly plan against. That is why last year, for the first time, we introduced an alert system for extreme heat that matches the alert system for extreme cold. I disagree, though, with the Mayor of London that the way to deal with this is to start imposing 20 mph speed limits everywhere and an ultra low emission zone. I hope that the people of London will take the opportunity to vote against that next week.

[Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)]

Earlier we heard a number of statements from the Opposition questioning ministerial integrity, but perhaps they should look closer to home—to be precise, at the first Minister of Wales and his links with donations to his leadership campaign and the Development Bank of Wales. Can the Minister tell us when the Welsh Labour party will apply to itself the standards that Labour has called for in the Chamber this morning—[Interruption.]

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[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T5. If I may press the Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Office officials have refused to say whether Lord Cameron has recused himself from parts of his role as Foreign Secretary, given his previous well-paid work in promoting the China-backed Port City Colombo. Can the Minister tell the House whether the Foreign Secretary has recused himself from any part of his ministerial duties?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, shortly before taking office the Foreign Secretary not only had all his interests properly reviewed by the propriety and ethics team in my Department, but went through them with the independent adviser on ministers’ interests. The independent adviser set out all relevant interests, and those have been published, so the information is transparently out there for people to be able to judge for themselves.

[George Galloway (Rochdale) (WPB)]

T6. Ever since the monster Cyril Smith, formally of this House, but initially mayor of Rochdale, the town has been blighted by scandals of grooming and cover-up. We currently have 64 men on bail on grooming charges in Rochdale. The previous Labour mayor of Rochdale and the next mayor of Rochdale—the King’s representatives—were both investigated on charges of sexual malpractice towards young girls in their employ, with all the power imbalances that that implies. Self-regulation, with no investigation by any outside party—how can this be right? What will the Minister do to help me to clean up Rochdale?

[Oliver Dowden]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, any criminal allegations are properly a matter for the courts, and he would not expect a Minister to comment on them from this Dispatch Box. If he wishes to write to me in respect of the further allegations he makes, I will be happy to take them up myself or with ministerial colleagues.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

What consideration has been given to the merits of making it illegal for public sector bodies to pay ransoms if they are the victim of a ransomware attack?

[Oliver Dowden]

That is a good question; it is something the Government continue to keep open and under review. The argument against doing so is that it could discourage companies that are subject to ransomware attacks from reporting them, for example to the National Cyber Security Centre. Those reports help us to gather intelligence on the nature of those threats and to work with victims to resolve them. It is not something I rule out totally, but that is the reason that we have not imposed it so far.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

The Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), will know that many councils in Northern Ireland have appointed veterans’ champions. Will he join me in acknowledging the work that many veterans’ champions do? Will he also call on the wide range of political parties on councils in Northern Ireland to offer their unstinting support to those champions to help to deliver services to veterans?

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[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This is a very simple question to the Deputy Prime Minister: does the Foreign Secretary stand recused in any aspect of his job by virtue of his financial interests, either now or before he was appointed to his post—yes or no?

[Oliver Dowden]

The Labour party keep on pushing on this point, but I refer the hon. Gentleman to the latest list of ministerial interests, which was published in December and provides details of Minister’s interests, including those of the Foreign Secretary, that are judged by the independent adviser to be relevant, or could be perceived to be relevant, to their ministerial roles. All of it is there in the public domain.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

With reference to the written questions that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Cabinet Office has answered, can he outline what the Government consider to be the difference between a foreign court and an international court?

--- Later in debate ---

[Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)]

Just now, the Deputy Prime Minister raised the issue of the £75 billion public spending announcement. Would he care to tell the House why, after 14 years in power, it takes an upcoming general election for him and his party to make defence spending policies?

[Oliver Dowden]

It may have escaped the hon. Gentleman’s attention, but Russia has invaded Ukraine and Iran’s proxies are attacking our allies in the middle east. That demands a response from the Government, and it has been provided by the Prime Minister. It is very notable that the Labour party is failing to match that commitment.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Papers at an employment tribunal last week reported that Rowaa Ahmar, a former civil servant, stated that

“the racism within the Cabinet Office appeared to be unrelenting and systemic”,

and that, despite having a role as head of policy in the Government’s illegal migration taskforce, she was made unwelcome at meetings about the Rwanda plan because of her views on the racist ultra-hostility of the policies. Is Ms Ahmar right that speaking up against racism in the Cabinet Office is a career death sentence?

Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

1.   If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 24 April.

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Oliver Dowden)]

Mr Speaker, I have been asked to reply. I know that Members across the House will wish to join me in offering condolences to the family and friends of Lord Frank Field. He was an outstanding parliamentarian who worked tirelessly to make society a better place.

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is in Berlin. He has announced the biggest strengthening of our defence in a generation.

I am sure that Members will want to join me in wishing the Jewish community a happy Passover, a celebration of freedom. Of course, we remember the empty chairs of those hostages still being held captive in Gaza and call for their immediate release.

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I, too, wish to pass on my thoughts and prayers to Lord Field’s family, friends and colleagues and particularly to students and teachers at the Birches Head Academy in Stoke-on-Trent who are part of the Frank Field Education Trust.

Since being elected in 2019, I have: helped to reopen Tunstall Town Hall with a new library and family hub; secured funding for additional CCTV, new alley gates and better lighting in Tunstall to ensure that our streets are safe; and helped to breathe new life into Tunstall’s old library and baths, thanks to this Government’s levelling-up fund of £56 million to Stoke-on-Trent.

Sadly, Labour-led Stoke-on-Trent City Council seeks to undermine that progress by: introducing a brand new tax on residents to have their garden waste collected; refusing to take planning enforcement against rogue and absent landlords who plague Tunstall High Street; and increasing crime and antisocial behaviour by dumping undesirable people in the centre of Tunstall. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that Stoke-on-Trent Labour—[Interruption.]

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[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is a question to be asked and a time in which we ask it. I suggest that the hon. Member puts in for an Adjournment debate. I am sure that he has the answers.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Mr Speaker, there is not much that I can add to that. [Laughter.] The hon. Member has, as ever, proved what an excellent campaigner he is for his constituents. He highlights the same problems with Labour councils across the country, raising taxes and letting services fall into disrepair. Of course he is totally right to be holding rogue landlords to account.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

First, may I share the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments regarding our Jewish community and wish them a happy Passover? I wish to acknowledge the loss of David Marquand and Baroness Massey, both of whom made historic contributions in Parliament, politics and wider life. I also send my condolences, following today’s news, to the family of Lord Frank Field, who was a good friend of mine and a colleague. He was a tireless campaigner against poverty and a champion for his constituents.

Mr Speaker, I know that the Conservative party is desperate to talk about my living arrangements, but the public wants to know what this Government will do about theirs. Natalie from Brighton has been served with two no-fault eviction notices in 18 months. She joins nearly a million families at risk of homelessness due to the Deputy Prime Minister’s failure to ban this cruel practice. Instead of obsessing over my house, when will he get a grip and show the same obsession with ending no-fault evictions?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

To begin with, it is a pleasure to have another exchange with the right hon. Lady in this House—our fifth in 12 months. Any more of these and she will be claiming it as her principal residence.

On the issue of no-fault evictions, it may have escaped the right hon. Lady’s attention, but we will be voting on exactly that matter later today. This is the Conservative Government taking action.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly thought that he could spend all week obsessing over my living arrangements and did not even bother to read up on his own Government’s Bill this afternoon. The reality is that he caved in to vested interest on his Back Benches and delayed justice for people like Natalie. This week, the Housing Minister said that there is no solid date for banning no-fault evictions. The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities now says that it will not happen before an election. If the Deputy Prime Minister can give us a date, will he name it now?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I can name the date for the right hon. Lady: today. It is today that the House will vote on it, and I am confident that, in line with our manifesto, we will deliver on that commitment.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister clearly has not been looking up his own Government Bills. Let me turn to another Tory housing failure. Leaseholds are a rip off and a con, but the Government’s proposed ban on new leaseholds applies only to houses. The majority of leaseholds are in flats. What is the point of a ban on new leaseholds if it will not apply to flats?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Again, the right hon. Lady is talking about legislation introduced by this Government that the Labour party totally failed to introduce in its entire time in office. It is no surprise, because it is this Government who have brought social housing waiting lists down by nearly half a million, and delivered more affordable homes in the last 12 years than Labour delivered when it was in office. Of course, all this can only be paid for by ensuring that we have a strong economy. Her policy to repeal every single Conservative trade union law in the first 100 days would open the door to French-style wildcat strikes, sweeping away the reforms that made this country great. We all know, though, the one reform by Margaret Thatcher that the right hon. Lady would not abolish: the right to buy your council house.

[Angela Rayner]

I was expecting a little bit better from the Deputy Prime Minister. He seems to be a bit worn out. Maybe it is the 3 am calls from the “bad men” that have been keeping him up at night. He talks about strikes and the unions. We have had more strikes under this Government’s watch than at any time before. Once again, he has not read his own Bill. Their ban on leasehold will not apply to the majority of people. It is like banning non-doms but exempting Tory Prime Ministers. He speaks about affordable homes. Families are trapped in temporary accommodation and stuck on waiting lists, and in the west midlands the Conservative Mayor has used his multi-million pound housing budget to build just 46 social homes in eight years. That is almost as many as in the Chancellor’s property portfolio. The British people know that the Conservative party will not build the homes that this country needs, so when will they get a chance to vote for a Government who will?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am surprised that the right hon. Lady raises the west midlands when Labour-controlled Birmingham has virtually bankrupted the council and is hiking up council tax by 21%, while in the meantime—I am sure that this would please her—continuing to hand out £1.8 million to the trade unions. By contrast, Andy Street, our brilliant Mayor of the wider west midlands, has delivered £6.1 billion of investment to improve transport. There you have it: the contrast between the Conservative party and the Labour party, and the usual political opportunism from her, failing to ask about the issues that really matter. If you want more bin collections, more potholes filled, lower debt and lower council tax, vote Conservative, because whether it is Ben Houchen in the Tees Valley or Andy Street in the west midlands, it is only the Conservative Mayors who deliver more for less.

[Angela Rayner]

It is pretty revealing that the Deputy Prime Minister thinks that housing is not an issue for the British people; I think it really is. People in glass houses should not throw stones, because in Birmingham and across the whole country, councils are facing black holes because of his Government’s austerity programme. I warn the Deputy Prime Minister that Tory councils have also faced section 114 notices, and Birmingham City Council has had over £1 billion taken from its budget—from some of the poorest people. More than 16,000 families face losing their home after the Tory party’s mini-Budget, and mortgage bills continue to soar. Meanwhile, the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), parades around the world in a twisted victory lap promoting her new book, saying that the mini-Budget was her proudest moment. Since she will not apologise to those families losing their home, will he?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What the Prime Minister has done since he has taken office, with the Chancellor, is to restore stability to our economy, with inflation halved and more, down to 3%. As a result of that, in an increasingly dangerous world, the Prime Minister was able to announce his plan for the biggest strengthening of defence spending in a generation. But it should come as no surprise that the Labour party refused to say whether it backs that, because this comes from the right hon. Lady who voted to scrap Trident and to install in Downing Street someone who wanted to change the Army into a peace corps. There you have it.

[Angela Rayner]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about defence. We all want to see 2.5%; the difference is that we have not cut the Army to its smallest size since Napoleon. Never mind some secretive deep state, it is the state of the Tory party that is the problem. The Tories are in a deep state of sewage. After 14 years they have failed renters, they have failed leaseholders and they have failed mortgage holders. I read with interest that the right hon. Gentleman has been urging his neighbour in No. 10 to call an election, because he is worried they might get wiped out. Has he finally realised that when he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to get his mate into No. 10, he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the whole House will have heard, despite all the bluster from the right hon. Lady, not a single word on whether she would actually back our plans to invest in our armed forces. No plans, in a dangerous world. Of course, as ever, the deputy Labour leader is always looking to attack others’ failures, but never one to take responsibility for her own. She once said, “You shouldn’t be waiting for the police to bang on your door. If you did it, then you shouldn’t be doing your job.” The right hon. landlady should forget her tax advice and follow her own advice.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Q4. Levelling up, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) mentioned earlier, is absolutely on fire in the Calder Valley, with £196.5 million for hospital reconfiguration, £150 million for flood defences, no fewer than 11 schools being remodelled or rebuilt as we speak, £45 million for the regeneration of three town centres and Elland getting a new railway station. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the naysayers around levelling up need look no further than the Calder Valley to see the great achievements of this Government?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right; it is not just in the Calder Valley, but in communities up and down the country. The Government are investing billions in infrastructure across the United Kingdom, creating jobs and opportunities in every region. I know that he has been a staunch advocate for the Calder Valley, which is a fantastic example of that in action.

[Mhairi Black (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (SNP)]

I join in wishing the Jewish community a happy Passover and sending my condolences to the family and loved ones of Frank Field.

Two years ago, when mass graves were discovered in Ukraine, this House united in condemnation and rightly treated those graves as evidence of war crimes, which Russia must be made to answer for. Yesterday, Palestinian officials uncovered two mass graves outside the bombed hospitals in Gaza. Those graves also constitute a war crime, do they not?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course, we would expect the democratic Government of Israel to investigate any allegations of misconduct. That is exactly what they are doing, and it is exactly what the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister urge them to do. However, I find it quite extraordinary that the hon. Lady seeks to draw parallels between the legitimate war of self-defence of Israel and the conduct of Russia.

[Mhairi Black]

Three hundred bodies, including of the elderly and the injured, some of which had been stripped naked and mutilated, with their hands tied behind their backs. The UK’s own arms policy states that if there is even a risk that war crimes may be taking place, that is reason enough to halt the sale of arms. Given all that we know, why is the Prime Minister yet to do so?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We continue to urge the Israeli Government to investigate any allegations of misconduct. The difference though is that we can trust the Israeli Government—a democratically elected Government—to properly investigate those things. Of course, we keep the advice under review. The Foreign Secretary has recently made it clear that he has conducted a determination and has not changed his advice regarding export licences, and I think that is the correct decision.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

Q6. The good people of Lincoln, who all declare their taxes and pay tax on profit when selling their second homes, overwhelmingly want Lincoln Christmas market to be brought back after the Labour-run city council cruelly closed it last year. The Labour city council has refused to do what the people of Lincoln want. What message does the Deputy Prime Minister send to the voters of Lincoln before next week’s local elections?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am afraid that what my hon. Friend has described is the Grinch in action. That Christmas market, in the home of Magna Carta, was beloved by local residents, but the council has totally ignored their wishes and cancelled it. It should reverse that decision.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

On behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I offer our condolences to the friends and family of the late Lord Frank Field, and wish a happy Passover to all those in the Jewish community.

Unpaid carers have shared heartbreaking stories of how they have been hounded by the Department for Work and Pensions and told to pay huge fines for minor infringements of carer’s allowance earning rules, all because the Government have failed to do anything about a problem that they have known about for years. Yesterday, one of the Prime Minister’s own dementia advisers resigned, saying that the Government’s treatment of those unpaid carers was “beyond the pale.” Will the Deputy Prime Minister apologise to all unpaid carers who have been failed by his Government, and will he commit to a full review of the system?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to all unpaid carers. Indeed, I met some of them over the weekend and know how hard they work. They keep our society functioning through their commitment to us. That is why we have uprated the benefits by £81.90 a week, and have increased the carer’s allowance by almost £1,500 since 2010. In respect of allegations of overpayment, of course appropriate discretion should be shown, but if there have been erroneous overpayments, it is right, on behalf of the taxpayer, to be able to recuperate them. However, we will work with anyone who is struggling with those repayments to negotiate sustainable and affordable repayment plans.

[Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)]

Q7. My island constituency of Ynys Môn is accessed via two bridges: the Menai suspension bridge and the Britannia bridge. Holyhead is the second busiest port in the UK, but bridge repairs and the weather can result in long traffic queues. To make the most of our Anglesey freeport and new nuclear at Wylfa, a third crossing is vital. Last year, the Welsh Labour Government scrapped plans for all new road projects, including our third bridge. Will the Deputy Prime Minister use his influence to ensure that north Wales is not ignored by Cardiff, and that we get that third bridge?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know and understand the frustration across Wales, particularly in my hon. Friend’s constituency, about this state of affairs. The Welsh Government have not prioritised building new roads. They are damaging growth potential in places such as Anglesey, and are spending £100 million on new politicians. We will work with her to ensure that we resolve the matter.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

Q2. The Conservative candidate for London Mayor has promoted Islamophobic tropes online, endorsed the beliefs of Enoch Powell and claimed that the black community has a problem with crime. In the week when we marked the 31st anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, does the Deputy Prime Minister really endorse those views?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the hon. Lady knows that she does not correctly represent the views of the candidate. I find it extraordinary that she has raised the issue of crime, because while Labour’s London Mayor has increased the precept by over 70%, recorded crime in London has increased by 20%. That is the record of the Labour London Mayor—no wonder people will be voting against him.

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Q13. I note that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, and thank the Government for the recent pollack catch compensation. On 12 May, we will see the first ever national fishing remembrance day. I will be marking the occasion by laying a wreath at a service held at Looe quayside by the memorial plaque that has the name of my late husband and, unfortunately, others on it. Will the Deputy Prime Minister mark the occasion by remembering those who have died bringing this important food source to our tables, and will he ask the Prime Minister to do so?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know how important this matter is to my hon. Friend—I am sure she will be remembering her late husband Neil on that day. It is important that we all recognise the sacrifices made by fishermen and women to bring food to our tables, and I know that my colleague the Minister for Food, Farming and Fisheries, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sherwood (Sir Mark Spencer), will be visiting Grimsby on that day.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q3. In today’s Northern Echo, Boro chairman Steve Gibson describes the Mayor of Tees Valley as having given away the future of the region’s children. He was referring to the 40% of Teesworks, with a forecast worth of £500 million, gifted by Lord Houchen in a deal to two local business mates. Mr Gibson, who helped establish the local development corporation, describes that deal as “unforgiveable”. Will the Government finally admit that Lord Houchen and the Conservatives have sold Teesside taxpayers down the river?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman talks about Teesside taxpayers, but Ben Houchen has never imposed a mayoral precept in Tees Valley, full stop. At the same time, he has saved Teesside airport and secured a new freeport for Teesside—no wonder people will be voting for him again.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Has my right hon. Friend seen the video that is doing the rounds of the theft in a shop in my constituency, Boots the chemist on Station Road? In the space of eight minutes, two threatening individuals robbed thousands of pounds out of that shop, and they are not alone: it is happening again and again. In fact, one of my team went out and photographed them leaving brazenly, not caring, and even spitting at the police. Will my right hon. Friend please now say to the Home Secretary, and through him to the police, that this is not a petty crime? This is a threat of violence and massive robbery, and it should be a priority for the police. We always talk about more police; surely what we should be asking for is more effective policing that gets those criminals off the streets.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight this issue: often, the allegedly lower-level crimes are the ones that have the biggest impact on communities. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been very clear on that point, and I will make it to him again. That is also why we are rolling out a range of crime prevention measures through the safer streets fund; it is why we are improving CCTV and street lighting; and it is why we introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 to give the police greater powers to deliver tougher sentences for more serious offenders.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

Q5. Earlier, the Deputy Prime Minister said that when the Prime Minister and the Chancellor took office, they restored stability to the UK economy. Who does he think caused the instability?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Labour Members might want to forget it, but I remember the day the Conservatives came into office in 2010. What was the note left on the desk of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury? “There is no money left.” That is the challenge that we have addressed through the Prime Minister and Chancellor successively.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

Labour’s mayoral candidate in the West Midlands talks about housing, but makes no commitment to protect our precious green belt. He talks about transport, but he fails to commit to reopening Aldridge train station. He committed to saving police stations such as Aldridge; then, when the Labour police and crime commissioner said he would close them, he changed his mind and agreed to that. So we are left wondering in my constituency what he stands for. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that only Mayor Andy Street has a plan and a track record to be trusted to deliver for the West Midlands?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As ever, my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct to highlight the record of Labour’s police and crime commissioner, and West Midlands police has actually been put in special measures on Simon Foster’s watch. When it comes to the green belt, we have all seen the new wheeze from the Labour party—redesignate green belt “grey belt” and concrete all over it. Well, the Conservatives will not allow that to happen, and people up and down the country will vote Conservative to stop that happening.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Q8. Conservative Ministers like to blame strikes and the pandemic for the appalling waiting times in the NHS. The Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has not hit its target for seeing patients in A&E within four hours since 2015—before the strikes and before the pandemic, but five years after the Conservatives came to office. So who does the Deputy Prime Minister blame for that?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Labour Members like to pretend the pandemic did not happen, and they like—[Interruption.] That is the cause of the biggest pressure on the NHS. They complain about NHS performance while backing strikes by doctors, who unreasonably want a 35% pay rise. Despite all of those pressures, actually A&E performance has improved in the past month.

[Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

The Labour leader of the almost bankrupt Hastings Borough Council and several other Labour councillors resigned from the Labour party citing that the national Labour party has become overly authoritarian, in a “dereliction of local democracy”, and has “lost its moral compass” and is suffocating local voices because its only objective is power for power’s sake. Would the Deputy Prime Minister agree that voting for Conservative candidates in upcoming elections will ensure local voters are heard, local democracy is upheld and better services are delivered?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight the really serious concerns about Labour councillors in Hastings. One former Labour councillor said that Labour are no longer providing

“the policies, the support, or the focus on local government”.

I could not have put it better myself.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

Q9. With thousands of steelworkers’ jobs on the line, the likelihood of industrial action and reports of a deal for India to be exempt from carbon taxes, will this Government now back the detailed, serious and robust multi-union proposal as the only way to keep primary steel making in the UK?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Government will engage with any proposals that have been brought forward, as we always do, but it is actually the case that we have already provided over £700 million in energy cost relief to the steel sector in the past 10 years. It is also the case that, even in the past year, the Government spent £97 million more on UK-made steel for major public projects. So we are continuing to work with the steel industry, but we have already provided tremendous support.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I very much associate myself with the remarks of my right hon. Friend regarding Lord Frank Field, who was a good man.

I very much welcome the Government’s firm commitment to increase defence spending to 2.5% by 2030. It is something that will send the right message to our allies and potential adversaries alike, and it is something on which the 1922 defence committee has been campaigning for a little while. However, would my right hon. Friend do what he can to ensure that some of that increased money is spent on additional recruitment—including, if necessary, increasing wages sufficiently—to ensure that the Navy can manage ships, the Air Force can maintain its aircraft and the Army can dominate ground?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know what a staunch advocate my hon. Friend is for the armed forces and for funding the armed forces. All of us can take great pride that we are putting the resources in to meet the challenges that the nation is likely to face over the next five years. We will be working through the allocation of that, but it is already the case that in January we had the largest ever number of applications in recent years to join the armed forces, so we are making progress on that.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Q10.   My constituent Lisa cares for her mother. She works part-time at WHSmith and was sure to keep the Department for Work and Pensions informed so that she would not be overpaid carer’s allowance. However, because of a DWP blunder, she now faces a bill for £4,000. The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology cares for her career. She works part-time as a woke detector. However, when she blundered, calling a top scientist a Hamas supporter, the bill—tens of thousands of pounds in costs and damages—was picked up by taxpayers like Lisa. Why?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is this Government who have uprated benefits for carers, with almost £1,500 more. I think it is the case that the hon. Lady’s constituents, my constituents and people up and down the country would expect the Government to seek to recover overpaid sums. We need to do that in a compassionate way, and if people are struggling to make repayments, the DWP will engage to ensure that they have a sustainable and affordable way to make those repayments.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

May I associate myself with the tributes and condolences paid to the late great Frank Field? One of his lasting achievements in the world of education is the holiday activities and food fund, which this Government can take great pride in having funded. May I urge my right hon. Friend to use his good offices across Government to ensure that we secure a multi-year settlement for the continuance of that vital work?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know what an important piece of work this is, and I know my hon. Friend’s commitment to campaigning for it. We have already provided substantial sums, and I am sure we will continue to do so.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

Q11.   As the chair of the Scottish arm of Feeding Britain, may I thank you, Mr Speaker, and those on the Front Benches for their tributes to the great Frank Field? He chaired an all-party parliamentary inquiry 10 years ago on food poverty, and food bank use has increased relentlessly since then. Will the Government consider, in Frank Field’s memory, a cross-sector summit with the aim of helping communities to secure the resources to deliver food security programmes at the necessary scale?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to Lord Frank Field’s campaigning. It is the case that over the past couple of years, we have provided more than £108 billion-worth of support with the cost of living, including extra cost of living payments of £900 last year. The effect of all that is that 1.1 million fewer people are living in absolute poverty than when the Conservatives came to office.

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

Last week we had the Finance Bill, and in it I noticed a reduction in capital gains tax from 28% to 24% on residential properties to try to turbo-boost the residential market. Will that apply retrospectively, so that hypothetically, if a Labour Front Bencher owed capital gains tax, they would benefit from this Conservative tax cut?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I have always believed in having lower taxes that everyone pays.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

Q12. This week marks the fifth Lesbian Visibility Week, founded by my good friend and publisher of DIVA magazine, Linda Riley. It comes at a time when LGBTQIA women are being let down by this Government, and nowhere more so than in their failure to remove the financial burdens that same-sex couples face when accessing IVF. My constituents Holly and Leanne, like so many others, have been priced out of having a family, so will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to finally ending this gay tax for same-sex couples who want to start a family?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I would dispute the hon. Lady’s characterisation of the Government’s record in this area: it was this Government who introduced marriage for same-sex couples and passed the Turing law. She raised an important point that I am happy to take up the Health Secretary, but the overall record of this Government is an excellent one.

Economic Security

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2024 Written Statements

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office (Oliver Dowden)]

Today, I am setting out a series of new steps to boost the UK’s economic defences and enhance the capabilities of the Government to respond to economic security threats.

The openness of the UK economy is a reflection of our values, the driver of our prosperity and that which distinguishes us as democracies. As the integrated review refresh set out last year, we are experiencing rising geopolitical competition alongside a more integrated global economy in which our strategic competitors play a far greater role. Our economic and security interests are intertwined as never before, and as we continue to promote the many benefits of an open economy, we must also protect ourselves from the vulnerabilities which arise from this openness.

In order to respond to the rapid evolutions in emerging technologies and to keep our export control toolkit up to date, the Department for Business and Trade will shortly be consulting on steps to strengthen our work with UK academics and businesses to ensure we can respond quickly to cutting-edge developments. We have also been reviewing our recently enhanced military end use control. The Department for Business and Trade will be providing more details on the outcome of this review. We are confident we have a robust regime, supporting human rights and national security objectives while helping our business to grow. We do however recognise that enhanced controls have an impact on UK exporters, and we are keen to make sure decision making for business is as timely and transparent as possible.

The ability of UK companies to seek growth and opportunity by investing overseas is a fundamental source of our economic strength. However, the Government recognise the potential for a small number of outward direct investments to be of national security concern through fuelling technological advances that enhance military and intelligence capabilities of countries of concern. The available data is extremely limited, meaning that evidence of this risk is scarce in the UK. Over the next 12 months, we will engage allies and businesses to better understand and assess this risk and how HMG’s existing tools can mitigate it. In parallel, we will evaluate whether further action is warranted. We will also provide public guidance on how the existing powers in the National Security and Investment Act 2021 allow the Government to intervene in certain outward direct investment transactions. We will update the National Protective Security Authority’s “Secure Business” campaign to ensure businesses can make informed investment decisions and are aware of these risks.

I am also publishing the Cabinet Office’s response to the call for evidence on the NSI Act, which ran between November 2023 and January 2024. The Act continues to function well, but the Cabinet Office will bring forward updates to fine-tune the system to ensure it stays ahead of the threats facing the UK, and remains as pro-business as possible, without compromising the Government’s ability to conduct proper scrutiny and protect our national security. This includes considering a small number of targeted exemptions from the Act’s mandatory notification requirements, the publication of further guidance, and a new consultation on updates to the mandatory area definitions, which set out the areas of the economy subject to the NSI Act’s mandatory notification requirements.

[HCWS415]

Cyber-security and UK Democracy

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 25th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Oliver Dowden)]

With permission, I will make a statement about malicious cyber-activity targeting the United Kingdom by actors that we assess are affiliated to the Chinese state. I want to update the House on our assessment of this activity and to reassure it on the steps that the Government have taken to shore up our resilience and hold those actors to account.

I know that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber will recognise the seriousness of this issue, particularly in a year when so many democratic elections will be taking place around the world. Members will want to be reassured that the Government are taking steps to address the associated threat.

I can confirm today that Chinese state-affiliated actors were responsible for two malicious cyber-campaigns targeting both our democratic institutions and parliamentarians by, first, compromising the United Kingdom’s Electoral Commission between 2021 and 2022, as was announced last summer, and secondly, by attempting reconnaissance activity against UK parliamentary accounts in a separate campaign in 2021.

Later today, a number of our international partners, including the United States, will issue similar statements to expose this activity and to hold China to account for the ongoing patterns of hostile activity targeting our collective democracies. Mr Speaker, you and parliamentary security have already been briefed on this activity. We want now to be as open as possible with the House and with the British public, because part of our defence is in calling out this behaviour.

This is the latest in a clear pattern of hostile activity originating in China, including the targeting of democratic institutions and parliamentarians in the United Kingdom and beyond. We have seen this in China’s continued disregard for universal human rights and international commitments in Xinjiang, in China’s erasure of dissenting voices and stifling of the opposition under the new national security law in Hong Kong, and in the disturbing reports of Chinese intimidation and aggressive behaviour in the South China sea. That is why this Government have investigated and called out so-called Chinese overseas police service stations and instructed the Chinese embassy to close them.

However, China’s cumulative attempts to interfere with the UK’s democracy have not succeeded. Last summer, the Electoral Commission stated that it had been a victim of a complex cyber-attack between 2021 and 2022. That was the work of Chinese state-affiliated actors who gained access to the Electoral Commission’s email and file-sharing systems, which contain copies of the electoral register. As the Electoral Commission stated in 2023, when that attack was first made public, the compromise has “not affected” the security of elections. It will not impact how people register, vote or otherwise participate in democratic processes. I want to reassure people that the compromise of that information, although obviously concerning, typically does not create a risk to those affected. I want to further reassure the House that the commission has worked with security specialists to investigate the incident and remove the threat from its systems, and has since taken further steps to increase the resilience of its systems.

In addition, the National Cyber Security Centre assesses that it is almost certain that the Chinese state-affiliated cyber-actor known as APT31 attempted to conduct reconnaissance activity against UK parliamentary accounts during a separate campaign in 2021. Hon. Members may recall that APT31 was one of several cyber-actors attributed to the Chinese Ministry of State Security by the UK and its allies in July 2021. That email campaign by APT31 was blocked by Parliament’s cyber-security measures; in this case, it was entirely unsuccessful. However, any targeting of Members of this House by foreign state actors is completely unacceptable.

Taken together, the UK judges that those actions demonstrate a clear and persistent pattern of behaviour that signals hostile intent from China. That is why the UK has today sanctioned two individuals and one entity associated with the Chinese state-affiliated APT31 group for involvement in malicious cyber-activity targeting officials, Government entities and parliamentarians around the world. We are today acting to warn of the breadth of targeting emanating from Chinese state-affiliated actors such as APT31, to sanction those actors who attempt to threaten our democratic institutions, and to deter both China and all those who seek to do the same.

Last week, at the summit for democracy in Seoul, I said that we would call out malicious attempts to undermine our democracy wherever we find them. This is an important tool in our armoury and today we are doing just that. The UK does not accept that China’s relationship with the UK is set on a predetermined course, but that depends on the choices China makes. That is why the Foreign Office will be summoning the Chinese ambassador to account for China’s conduct in these incidents. The UK’s policy towards China is anchored in our core national interests. We will engage with the Chinese Government where it is consistent with those interests, but we will not hesitate to take swift and robust actions wherever the Chinese Government threaten the UK’s interests—we have done so today and previously. This Government will continue to hold China and other state actors accountable for their actions.

We will also take serious action to prevent this behaviour from affecting our security. The steps we have taken in recent years have made the UK a harder operating environment for foreign state actors seeking to target our values and our institutions. Through the National Security Act 2023, we now have, for the first time, a specific offence of foreign interference. That new offence will allow law enforcement to disrupt state-linked efforts to undermine our institutions, rights or political system.

Our National Security and Investment Act 2021 has overhauled our scrutiny of investment into the United Kingdom by giving the Government powers to block, unwind or put conditions on investments that could create national security risks. We have significantly reduced China’s involvement in the UK’s civil nuclear sector, taking ownership of the CGN stake in the Sizewell C nuclear power project and ensuring Chinese state-owned nuclear energy corporations will have no further role in the project.

We have put in place measures to prevent hostile infiltration of our universities, including protecting campuses from interference through the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. The Procurement Act 2023 includes national security devolvement provisions that allow us to act where we see malicious influence in our public procurement. I have taken steps to reduce the Government’s exposure to Chinese operators, banning Hikvision and TikTok from Government buildings and devices. Through the national cyber-security strategy, we are investing £2.6 billion to increase the cyber-resilience of our critical national infrastructure by 2025, making the most important parts of our digital environment a harder target for state and non-state actors.

The Government are continuing to build the tools, expertise and knowledge to respond to the systemic challenge that China poses to the United Kingdom’s security and its values. The integrated review refresh in 2023 took steps toward this, doubling funding for a Government-wide programme, including investment in Mandarin language training and deepening diplomatic expertise.

We must be clear that this is not a problem for the Government to solve alone. That is why we created the National Protective Security Authority within MI5 to help businesses and institutions play their part in protecting our security and prosperity. The NPSA will help organisations in the UK’s most sensitive fields, including critical national infrastructure operators and world-leading science and tech sectors, to protect themselves against state threats. I set up the economic security public-private forum to ensure businesses and business leaders in crucial sectors understand the threat to the UK and what they can do to defeat it.

In Parliament, the National Cyber Security Centre has launched an opt-in service for Members of both Houses. This allows the NCSC to alert high-risk individuals if they identify evidence of malicious activity on their personal devices or account, and swiftly advise them on steps to take to protect their information. Today, the NCSC has published new guidance for political organisations, including political parties and think-tanks, which will help these organisations take effective action to protect their systems and their data. The NCSC is also working with all political parties to increase the uptake of their active cyber-defence services in the lead up to a general election. A key component of increasing our resilience is supporting the NCSC and parliamentary authorities by taking up that cyber-security offer. I urge all Members of this House to do so. I will be writing to colleagues later today, setting out again the steps that they can take.

At the summit for democracy, I was struck by the powerful strength of our collective voices when we work together to defend our democratic freedoms. The summit provided the United Kingdom Government with a platform to build international agreements on a new global Government compact on countering deceptive use of AI by foreign states in elections. It is important and welcome that our partners across the Five Eyes, as well as those in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, are standing in solidarity with our efforts to call out malicious cyber-activity. I pay tribute to the dedicated public servants, whose painstaking work has continued to expose the reality of the threat we face.

Our political processes and institutions have not been harmed by these attacks. The Government will continue to call out and condemn this kind of activity in the strongest terms. We will continue to work with our allies to ensure that Chinese state-affiliated actors suffer the consequences of their behaviour. We will take preventive action to ensure these attempts do not succeed. The cyber-threat posed by China-affiliated actors is real and serious, but it is more than equalled by our determination and resolve to resist it. That is how we defend ourselves and our precious democracy, and I commend this statement to the House.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement, and for advance sight of it. It is a statement about which there has been significant briefing in the press over the past couple of days. On questions of national security, Labour will support the Government in efforts to counter attempts by China, or any other state, to interfere with or undermine the democratic process, or attempts to stop elected representatives going about their business, voicing their opinions, or casting their votes without fear or favour. With that in mind, I pay tribute to the efforts made every day by the intelligence and security services to protect the public, and to protect our democracy and way of life. The economic relationship between the United Kingdom and China can never mean compromising on national security or our democratic integrity.

The Deputy Prime Minister’s statement touches on a number of issues, and I have some questions about them. Will he say more about the Government’s assessment of Chinese motives? Does he believe, for example, that Beijing wants to disrupt our democratic process, or instead to gather data about our citizens for some other reason? On the specific issue of the Electoral Commission and the electoral register, why does he think that the Chinese Government hacked what is a publicly available database? Does he believe they were after the details of those who may not be on a public register for good reasons, for example because they might be employed in security-sensitive areas? Does he believe they were after details and the personal data of political donors, or was there some other motive?

The Deputy Prime Minister referred to the democratic electoral process, and with an election coming it is vital that people have confidence in their ability to register and to vote. Will he confirm that our electronic register to vote system is sufficiently well protected? He said that the attacks on parliamentary accounts were unsuccessful. Does he believe that China now wants to engage in the kind of hack and leak activity that we have in recent years associated with Russia, in order to compromise either individual politicians or the wider democratic process? On sanctions, only last week the Minister of State was reluctant to respond to the claim that the Foreign Office “indefinitely paused” targeted sanctions against Chinese officials late last year. Will the Deputy Prime Minister explain what has changed in the past week?

We are grateful for the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, and the report it issued on China last year, which covered much of the same ground that the Deputy Prime Minister covered in his statement. When discussing individual politicians, paragraph 98 of that report stated:

“Targets are not necessarily limited to serving politicians either. They can include former political figures, if they are sufficiently high profile. For example, it is possible that David Cameron’s role as Vice President of a £1bn China–UK investment fund…was in some part engineered by the Chinese state to lend credibility to Chinese investment,”.

What have the Government done to look into that allegation from the Intelligence and Security Committee? How can Ministers ensure that those leaving politics are not targeted in that way?

In that spirit, Mr Speaker, I have read reports that the Conservative Back-Bench 1922 committee is to be briefed on these matters later today. Given the importance of national and democratic security to all the parties in this House, is the Deputy Prime Minister intending to arrange a briefing for the Leader of the Opposition, the Intelligence and Security Committee and, indeed, the other political parties represented in the House?

Experts in this field have warned of China’s voracious appetite for data, and its potential uses as computing power improves—for example, as quantum computing develops. The UK’s record on data security is patchy, to put it mildly. What are the Government doing to protect complex and valuable datasets from being stolen now, possibly in order to be manipulated later by more powerful computers that are controlled by authoritarian adversaries?

Finally, Mr Speaker, on the broader issue, does the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister chose to make this statement today signal a fundamental reassessment of the overall threat? He referred to the United States and our allies. On 12 February, the US Administration warned Congress that the cyber-threat from China was changing. Previously, a threat that largely involved spying and influencing now looked like it was getting ready to disrupt critical American infrastructure—aviation, energy, healthcare and other sectors. Is it now the UK Government’s view that we should change our assessment of the threat in a similar way? If so, this is of the utmost importance, and we would need to know what corresponding improvements the Government would make to the preparedness of our critical infrastructure, because if the threat really has changed then so too should our response.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. I shall seek to address as many of them as I can.

When it comes to Chinese motivations, ultimately, it is a matter for the Chinese to be able justify their motivations, but the points that the right hon. Gentleman made were apposite. First, the Chinese look at successful democratic countries, such as the United Kingdom, Japan or the Republic of Korea where I was last week, and they want to seek to undermine them. It is no surprise therefore that they should seek to interfere in electoral processes, in the way that we have seen conduct from Russia that aligns with that. Indeed, the successful democratic elections around the world right now stand in contrast to the sham elections that we saw in Russia last weekend.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the public record of the Electoral Commission, I think that that is the essence of what has happened here. These attacks and these attempts were ultimately pretty unsuccessful. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman and Members of this House that there was no infiltration of the closed register of the Electoral Commission, so the concerns that he raised have not arisen. On the further strengthening of the electoral register, that is precisely the work that the National Cyber Security Centre does in co-ordination with GCHQ, working with Government agencies, including the Electoral Commission.

The right hon. Gentleman was right to raise the risk of hack and leak. It is certainly something that we saw in previous elections, and I remain concerned. I also remain very concerned about artificial intelligence, deep fakes in particular, being used to disrupt elections, hence the work that I undertook at the conference last week and the progress that we are making with the accord on artificial intelligence use by malign states.

In relation to targeted sanctions, it is not the case that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office paused targeted sanctions. On the conduct of the former Foreign Secretary—[Interruption.] I am not sacking the Foreign Secretary from the Dispatch Box. On the conduct of the current Foreign Secretary, who sits in the other place, all appointments to Government are subject to the usual propriety and ethic processes. Lord Cameron is addressing the 1922 Committee in his capacity as Foreign Secretary in the usual way, addressing a wide range of issues. It is not a specific briefing on this issue, but if leaders of the principal Opposition parties wish to have a further briefing on this issue I am of course very happy to facilitate that, in the way that they know I have done in relation to other national security issues.

We are highly alert to the risks of hostile states hoovering up currently quantum-encrypted information that could subsequently be decoded with advances in quantum computing. We do extensive work with the National Cyber Security Centre and the Ministerial Cyber Board on critical national infrastructure to ensure that we guard ourselves against exactly that risk. On our relationship with China more broadly, Members of this House should take this moment very seriously. It is a grave moment, against a backdrop of an escalating threat from China, and we will take proportionate action in response to that escalating threat.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

Tomorrow, it will be three years since parliamentarians here were sanctioned; your defence of us, Mr Speaker, has been remarkable. Although I welcome the two sanctions from the Government, it is a little bit like an elephant giving birth to a mouse. The reality is that in those three years the Chinese have trashed the Sino-British agreement and been committing murder, slave labour and genocide in Xinjiang. We have had broken churches, and, in Hong Kong, false court cases against Jimmy Lai. My question is: why two? America has sanctioned more than 40 people in Hong Kong; we have sanctioned none, and only three lowly officials in Xinjiang. Surely the integrated review should be changed. China is not an epoch-defining challenge, strange as that may be, but it is surely a threat. Can the Government now correct that, so that we all know where we are with China?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend’s views are well known to me, I genuinely welcome the constructive, at most times, debate that I have with him, but nobody should be in any doubt about the gravity of this matter. These are not the actions of a friendly state, and they require our serious attention. As he has described, this is an escalating situation. The measures that we have announced today are the first step, but the Government will respond proportionately at all times to the facts in front of us. No one should be in any doubt about the Government’s determination to face down and deal with threats to our national security, from wherever they come.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement, and for advanced sight of it. In the statement, he said:

“I have taken steps to reduce the Government’s exposure to Chinese operators, banning Hikvision and TikTok from Government buildings and devices”,

but the reality is that the Hikvision ban extends only to sensitive sites, despite the fact that we have pushed him to ensure that it extends to all public buildings. Surely the majority of things that happen in government involve some sort of confidential information. Will he confirm whether he is extending the ban beyond sensitive sites to all Government sites, as we have been calling for for a number of years? The attacks on the Electoral Commission and parliamentarian accounts happened nearly three years ago. Will we be sitting here in 2027 hearing about an attack that is happening right now? The EU is currently delivering €240 million for cyber-security to improve its collective resilience. Will the Government deliver an equivalent fund for these islands? Finally, without more action, can he give us real assurances that this year’s general election will take place without international interference?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady is aware, we currently ban Hikvision, and indeed any other Chinese technology relating to CCTV. We continue to keep that under review. I do not rule out a further progression in the policy, but that is not the case right now.

On the time taken, it is essential that, before Ministers stand at the Dispatch Box and make assertions attributing such activity to a hostile state, we are absolutely sure of the basis on which we do so. That requires extensive work by our intelligence agencies, it requires fine judgments to be made, and it requires work to be done with our allies around the world—there will be comments from the United States shortly after my statement. I would rather we did this in the proper way.

We have invested £2.6 billion on cyber-security during this spending review. I can never be totally confident in relation to cyber-security—no Government Minister anywhere in the world can be; it is an environment in which the risks are escalating all the time and are turbocharged by artificial intelligence—but I can assure the hon. Lady and other Members that we are constantly increasing our activity and vigilance in the face of it.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I am rather underwhelmed by this statement. In the three years since seven parliamentarians were sanctioned, we have been subject to intimidation, impersonation and hacking, as have the families of exiles from China with whom we have associated. Today, the Deputy Prime Minister has described hostile actors’ malign acts towards the integrity of our electoral system and parliamentary democracy—foreign interference—and sanctioned two individuals and one company employing 50 people with a turnover of £208,000. Does he think that that is proportionate, and can he confirm that the Government will put the whole of the Chinese Communist Government in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend may be aware that we are currently in the process of collective Government agreement in relation to the enhanced tier of the foreign interference registration scheme. Clearly, the conduct that I have described today will have a very strong bearing on the decision that we make in respect of it.

In relation to the sanctions, it is worth noting that this is the first time that the Government have imposed sanctions in respect of cyber-activity. I believe that they are proportionate and targeted, but they also sit in the context of actions that we have been taking with our international allies. They are a first step, and we remain totally open to taking further steps as the situation evolves. The path we are going on with this is clear.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

My first reaction is: “Is that it?” The spin was clearly not matched by this statement. The Deputy Prime Minister says that there is an issue around nuclear and higher education. That is because the Government encouraged China to invest in nuclear, and cut the budgets of our universities so they are reliant on Chinese students. The Deputy Prime Minister also ducked the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) about Lord Cameron. Will Lord Cameron publish all the money and interactions that he had with Chinese entities when he was out of government? The Deputy Prime Minister says that he is committed to the security services. Why, then, in the Budget on 6 March, was the security budget cut by £600 million next year? That is not a sign of a Government who are taking this issue seriously.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Foreign Secretary has provided a full declaration of all his interests—

[Hon. Members]

No he hasn’t!

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will take lectures from Labour Members on action in relation to security threats with a pinch of salt. It was this Government who introduced the National Security and Investment Act 2021; it was this Government who passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023; it was this Government who passed the National Security Act 2023—none of which we saw from the Labour party during its years in office.

[Suella Braverman (Fareham) (Con)]

We have seen reports of espionage on UK campuses, aggression on UK soil, massive cyber-attacks and hostile corporate takeovers. It is abundantly clear that China is a hostile state and poses an unprecedented threat to our national security. As Home Secretary, I oversaw the enactment of the National Security Act, which built the foreign influence registration scheme designed specifically to deal with such threats so that our authorities have the right powers to tackle them. Is there not a compelling case for China to be listed on that register, and if not now, when?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend for the work that she did—she and I worked closely together on many of those things. There is a strong case, and my right hon. and learned Friend will be aware of the process that we go through to determine that. It has to be agreed through a collective Government agreement.

On the point about hostile states, though, I disagree with my right hon. and learned Friend; it is not the case that any Five Eyes nation has designated China explicitly as a hostile state. The language I have used in relation to China reflects the complex situation of that state, but I want colleagues to be in no doubt about the direction that Government policy is taking, how gravely we take this issue, and the overall escalation of our stance on it.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I, too, am quite surprised at the difference between what was briefed and some of the information that the Deputy Prime Minister has given us today, and the sum of the action taken. He said that the Government had taken rapid and robust action when talking about things that happened three and four years ago, and the sanctioning of two individuals and a minor company does not seem to meet the definition of robust. How does he think that taking the tiny steps he has announced today will deter the Chinese from carrying on in the way they have been doing, as the Deputy Prime Minister has outlined and is very clear from the China report that the Intelligence and Security Committee was finally allowed to publish late?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First, in relation to briefings, I can categorically assure you, Mr Speaker, and Members of this House that there has been no briefing whatsoever from me or my Department in respect of this matter. As ever, I would say, “Don’t believe everything that you read in the newspapers.”

As for the overall direction of Government policy, it is clearly set. This is not just about offensive action, but the extensive defensive action we have taken to continuously increase the security of our Government systems. I make no apology for the time we have taken to properly call out China in this respect. I want to make sure that when I stand at the Dispatch Box, I am able to do so on a solid basis, painstakingly put together by our allies and our security agencies.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

The front page of The Telegraph today reports Whitehall sources saying that China, Russia and Iran are even fuelling disinformation about the Princess of Wales to destabilise the nation. Hostile states with leaders who fake their own elections and are hated by their own people are spreading wild conspiracy theories about the royal family, among many other things—our royal family who are hugely popular and much loved. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that British people will ignore that grotesque disinformation despite the pathetic attempts of those autocratic regimes?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for raising the issue, and extend my best wishes to members of the royal family at this very difficult time. The appalling speculation that we have seen over the past few weeks comes as a reminder to us all that it is important for us to ensure that we deal with valid and trusted information, and are appropriately sceptical about many online sources.

[Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South) (SNP)]

As one of the parliamentarians targeted, can I thank the security officials for the work they did to repel this attack? I am glad it was not successful.

However, I have to say that the Deputy Prime Minister has turned up at a gunfight with a wooden spoon. The attack that he stood up and announced at the Dispatch Box happened three years ago, but he comes to the House and calls this “swift”. He comes to the House and says he has taken robust action but, as the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned, the entity he has sanctioned has fewer than 50 employees and has a turnover of £200,000 a year. He has not sanctioned a single Chinese state official. He has not even told the House whether the Chinese ambassador has been summoned, after what he has come to the Dispatch Box to tell us today. [Interruption.] Forgive me, he says he has been summoned—my apologies.

Can I press the Deputy Prime Minister on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme? What possible good excuse could there be for not having China in that, and if we do not take more robust action and see a proper sea change in Government thinking, rather than this tinkering around the edges, will this not happen more and more and get worse and worse?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think everything about the hon. Gentleman’s question suggests that he did not actually listen to the statement I made. I said that there had been a démarche, and that is exactly what is happening. I have already set out the position in relation to the foreign influence registration system.

[Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister knows that cyber-attacks on UK institutions come from a wide range of actors—states and criminals—as we saw in the recent big attack on the British Library, and it is important that our laws are up to date to protect against this. In 2022 the Government announced that they would update the Network and Information Systems Regulations 2018 to

“protect essential and digital services against increasingly sophisticated and frequent cyber attacks both now and in the future.”

In 2022 that was to be done as soon as parliamentary time allowed. Why has it not been done, and when will it be done?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The work is pretty much complete, and as soon as parliamentary time allows we will be bringing forward those measures.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am sorry, but I find the Deputy Prime Minister today utterly unconvincing. The idea that “swift” means taking three years to publish something that has already been published by a Committee of this House is utterly preposterous. It means that if there were an attempt this year, we would hear about it long after the general election and possibly after another general election after that. The truth is that, if he actually thinks this is the sum total of all the Chinese state’s attempts to disrupt the British democratic system, he is wilfully blind and is therefore dangerous.

There are two things that the Government could do immediately to enhance confidence in this area: first, bring forward the motion to allow the Foreign Secretary to answer questions in this House from Members of the House of Commons; and secondly, publish the full unexpurgated Russia report.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am sorry that the hon. Member is not happy with the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is sitting to my right, and who I think does an excellent job of answering questions in this House. On the time that this has taken, there is a difference between acknowledging, as the Electoral Commission did, the fact that an attack has taken place, and the process of attribution, which takes a longer period of time for the reasons I have set out repeatedly from this Dispatch Box.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I am proud to have the British Library at Boston Spa in my constituency, and I will be meeting it in a week’s time to talk about the cyber-attack. That is just one aspect of what has happened recently, but we are talking about the protection of democracy as well, and the timeframes on which we are moving on some issues does concern me. One of the big concerns will be deepfake news profiles—with people alleged to have said things, and videos of people allegedly doing things—at the next election. I urge my right hon. Friend to work now to try to establish procedures so that everybody across this House will be able to call out efficiently the fake news that may be used to try to influence the election. As he has said, people should be careful what they believe, but what can people believe in unless there are robust systems to call out what is absolutely fake?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. We are working with tech companies on, for example, the watermarking of images to ensure that people have a sense of whether they are real. However, this cannot just be action from the UK Government; we have to work internationally, which is why at the global summit for democracy we launched the global Government compact on countering the deceptive use of AI by foreign states in elections. That is the United Kingdom leading across nations around the world to ensure that we can act in co-ordination to address this issue. Moreover, everyone in this rapidly evolving technological world needs to be mindful of the fact that information cannot be trusted in the way it used to be just a few years ago.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The Deputy Prime Minister talked in his statement about

“the powerful strength of our collective voices”.

We can contrast the sanctions that have been announced this afternoon with those that followed the Novichok poisoning in 2018. On that occasion, 130 Russian diplomats were expelled from more than 25 countries, and the EU ambassador to Moscow was withdrawn. What steps are the Government taking to co-ordinate a robust response to this alleged attack on democracy by working with our democratic allies?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That is exactly what we are doing. I raised the issue with opposite numbers in Japan and Korea when I was there, and I have raised it with the United States, with whom we have been co-ordinating exceptionally closely. The US will be making a statement on its actions shortly, if not currently. We have proceeded in this way precisely to ensure that we act not alone but with like-minded states. Interestingly, that is in relation not just to the Five Eyes but to European partners and international partners, particularly in the Asia-Pacific. This issue requires that kind of co-ordinated action, at a time when our democratic institutions not just here, but around the world, are under increased threat. It is important that democratic nations work together in concert, and that is exactly what we are doing.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

May I join the Deputy Prime Minister in paying tribute to all those who do so much in the UK intelligence community? Will he join me in reassuring those on the shadow Front Bench that Lord Cameron in the other place oversees GCHQ and the Secret Intelligence Service, and he is probably in a good place to know what is going on? Reference has been made to the China report published in July 2023—I was one of the co-authors, with one or two others in this Chamber. Page 198 of that report referred to the UK security services facing “a formidable challenge”. I welcome the fact that the Government have played catch-up—that was another criticism—and have caught up to a certain extent. I particularly welcome the £2.6 billion over the past three years going to cyber-protection for our critical national infrastructure.

[Mr Speaker]

We were going to finish because, in fairness to the Deputy Prime Minister, he indicated that he wanted to finish early because of other things happening around the world. If he is happy to continue, then so I am.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am happy to continue.

[Mr Speaker]

In which case, let us carry on.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am sure that I will regret saying that, Mr Speaker.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to pay tribute to our intelligence agencies. I see their work at first hand, day in, day out. We are one of a very small number of countries that have intelligence agencies of this standard. It enables us all to be more secure.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

I welcome the tone of vigilance, which is in stark contrast to the nonchalance shown by the Johnson Government over earlier Russian interference in our elections and the Brexit referendum. Why should we believe the Government’s honest intentions when they still have not implemented all the recommendations of the Russia report?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman will have seen the conduct of the Government and, for example, the further sanctions we imposed on Russia just a few months ago. We have not hesitated in taking robust action in relation to Russia, just as we will continue to do with any threats from China.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

Bearing in mind all that my right hon. Friend has said, he may be concerned to hear what we have heard in the Defence Committee. English Ministry of Defence companies are having a nightmare in employing those with specialist AI skills from university, because they are all Chinese. Is he aware of that, and what will he do to counter this potential threat to our security?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Clearly, anyone employed by a relevant defence company or in the UK Government will be subject to advanced vetting, which would likely preclude a number of the individuals my hon. Friend described. The main thing that we have got to do is increase our skills in this country, which is why we are investing in science, technology, engineering and maths. We are very fortunate in having three or four of the top 10 universities in the world in the United Kingdom—wherever I go in the world, people look at that with envy—which is a base from which both our intelligence agencies and industry can draw.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

These cyber-attacks occurred in 2021 and 2022, so we really must ask how it has taken the Government so long to make this statement. We should reflect on the Deputy Prime Minister saying that these actors

“gained access to the Electoral Commission’s email and file-sharing systems, which contain copies of the electoral register.”

This is an election year, and it should put fear into the hearts of all of us that the Chinese have access to the UK’s electoral register, at a time like this when we are already worried about bad actors, about cyber-attacks taking place and about the use of AI.

The Deputy Prime Minister talked about taking robust action—good grief: two individuals are being sanctioned. Reference has been made to what happened over Novichok, when we swiftly took action to expel diplomats from this country and around the world. I hope that when the Chinese ambassador meets the Deputy Prime Minister, he will be told that diplomats will be expelled. Will the Deputy Prime Minister come back to the House tomorrow and tell us about the robust action that he should be taking?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

You are confusing shouting with robustness.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I will answer the question slightly less aggressively than how it was put; I will make my point in my own way. First, as the Electoral Commission said in its statement, the data contained in electoral registers is limited, and much of it is already in the public domain. The Electoral Commission had already declared the fact of the attack. What is different today is that, contrary to some speculation at the time, we are announcing that it was in relation to Chinese-related actors. That is what has changed. On our overall approach, I have set out a direction. These are grave threats, which we take seriously. We are taking proportionate action now, and we will continue to take steps as required.

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

A successful deterrent requires the capability and the will to retaliate. Have we got either?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes, we do, on both fronts. My right hon. Friend will be well aware of our National Cyber Force, but I do not comment on the conduct of that from the Dispatch Box.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

In January 2023, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton—prior to his appointment as Foreign Secretary, of course—went to Sri Lanka to drum up investment for Port City Colombo, which is a belt and road project launched by President Xi, which many believe will become a military base for the Chinese navy. Following Lord Cameron’s appointment as Foreign Secretary, many freedom of information requests have been submitted to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to try to shed some light on his visit to Sri Lanka, including who he met and what sort of conversations took place, but to date not a single one of those FOI requests has been complied with by the FCDO. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that that is a matter of the highest public interest and that sunlight is the best form of disinfectant, and therefore the FCDO should comply with those FOI requests as a matter of urgency?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office always deals with FOI requests in the proper way. I have to say that trying to link Chinese cyber-attacks to our current Foreign Secretary is pretty desperate stuff. It just does not wash.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

It is absolutely right that we call out these malicious actions, because otherwise they will become normalised. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that when it comes to our security, and indeed our economic interests, there is an important parity between the digital space and our physical terrain, and that that should be reflected in defence spending? Does he also agree that Beijing is watching today’s events and will no doubt retaliate? Should we brace ourselves for further individual sanctions against British personnel?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the need for investment. That is precisely why, in the last spending review period, we put £2.6 billion into our wider cyber-defences. I am confident that we will be able to deal with any retaliatory action by Beijing effectively.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

We should be worried about Chinese influence in various areas of Government. Graham Barrow, the Companies House expert, has been warning for quite some time about dubious company incorporations that have originated in China. He believes that they are being created using an algorithm, and there is evidence that companies are being incorporated using stolen UK credentials, from UK addresses, streets at a time. What conversations has the Deputy Prime Minister had with Companies House, and would he be willing to meet Graham Barrow to hear his conclusions?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I, or another Minister, will be happy to meet him. That is precisely why we set up the National Cyber Security Centre, which uses GCHQ expertise to inform our approach to cyber, and engages with businesses and individuals. That approach is renowned and admired around the world, because we can give high-quality advice through the National Cyber Security Centre. Week after week, I receive delegations from around the world who want to see what we have done with the National Cyber Security Centre.

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

The £2.6 billion in additional money to counter cyber threats is very welcome. This field is constantly evolving, and those who wish us harm are innovating further. I accept that my right hon. Friend will not comment on the exact detail, but will he at least assure the House that the £2.6 billion outguns what those who wish us harm spend on new threats?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The amount of spending compares extremely favourably with that spent in similar G7 countries around the world. I am confident that we have world-leading expertise, and we are constantly evolving our capabilities in this space.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement and his answers. I had occasion just five weeks ago to see Mr Speaker about an incident. The Deputy Prime Minister may be aware—if not, he will be shortly—that the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, which I chair, had its website hacked, and the text that questioned human rights violations by China was removed. I reported it to Mr Speaker and made him aware of what took place. It is clear that nothing whatsoever is sacred to the Chinese. The work of the elected Members of this House is not treated with respect. Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to stop handling the Chinese oversteps—for want of a better description—with kid gloves, and instead handle them with authority, and help China to understand that it will not trample over democracy in this place, or elsewhere, without being held accountable in the very strictest terms?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We will certainly hold China to account in the way that the hon. Gentleman describes. I will happily make sure that the parliamentary authorities and the National Cyber Security Centre are in touch with him about the attack that he described.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

We know that legacy IT systems are most likely to be cyber-attacked. Has the Deputy Prime Minister ordered an inventory of all Government IT equipment, to see where particular vulnerabilities lie?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Yes. My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. The first step is to properly understand where those vulnerabilities lie. We have undertaken extensive work to ensure that we know where risks lie, and we are putting in place measures to remediate those risks.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

This is too little, too late. It is reactive, not proactive. Two lowly officials get sanctioned when half the UK population’s data and electoral roll get cyber-attacked. I do not feel that the issue is being taken seriously enough. Let me remind the House how serious this is: in October last year, MI5 warned of the “epic scale” of Chinese espionage, and reported that more than 20,000 people in the UK had been covertly approached online by Chinese spies. Our Commons Intelligence and Security Committee said that China was “prolifically and aggressively” targeting the UK, and had managed successfully to penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy. My question is simple: how can any of us here, or outside in society, trust this UK Government, when they are far too late, and do very little of what needs to be done?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I simply do not accept that characterisation, given that it was this Government who set up the NCSC, this Government who set up the ministerial cyber board, and this Government who invested £2.6 billion in our cyber-defences. I have consistently warned, time and again, about the cyber-threats facing the United Kingdom, and we are taking steps to address them.

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

Every time the Deputy Prime Minister comes to the House, he lays out his plans eloquently, and is more assertive; he says, “We are doing this new thing, and that new thing, to react to the threat.” Do we not still need much greater coherence across all Government Departments in how we deal with the threat, whether the issue is students, the protection of Hong Kong citizens, intellectual property or cyber-attacks?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I pay tribute to the work that he has done in this space, and I have discussed the issue with him on many occasions. He is right that the UK Government, in common with the US Government and others around the world, have evolved enormously in their approach to China. The sort of China we had hoped for even a decade ago is not the China we have now, whether we are talking about Hong Kong, Xinjiang or elsewhere. We continue to increase our efforts on the matters that he describes. That is precisely why we set up the defending democracy taskforce, led by the Minister for Security.

[Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)]

The Deputy Prime Minister is right to address these issues and, as he said, call them out, but just calling them out does not really cut the mustard. There is certainly no appearance of urgency. There is a worrying sense of “nothing to see here” in some of his responses. He referenced human rights. We know well the issues there, including the horrific forced labour and worse faced by the Uyghur population. The action he is outlining on all those fronts is very underwhelming, and actually a bit baffling. Does he think that the large number of Members across the House who are obviously very much underwhelmed by his statement are all wrong, or is it possible that his statement somehow misses the mark?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

First of all, it is important to remember that ultimately—I want to reassure the House and the public—these attempts were unsuccessful. I am not being complacent; I am setting out the facts. As for the risk, at CYBERUK in Belfast last year, I warned that cyber-threats continue to come from the usual suspects—Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. In the Government security conference, I called out Russian state interference, and we created Secure by Design. We have not hesitated to take action, and we will continue to do so.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Democracy is not perfect, but the right to choose who makes the laws that govern us is really precious, and it is really scary to hear that a foreign power might be trying to intervene in that. Mr Deputy Speaker, as one of the few women who has spoken during this statement, I want to remind you again how concerned I am about the threats and harassment that women get when standing for Parliament, especially as we get closer to an election. As well as cyber-security, I am very concerned about physical security. Two and a half years ago, my Essex neighbour was murdered at his constituency surgery. Last Friday, at my constituency surgery, the security operatives recommended by this Parliament failed to show up for the second time this year. I am very grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister for recently putting extra money into security for both parliamentarians and candidates, but will he look again at the workings of this House, and at how our security is governed, because that funding is not getting to those of us on the frontline?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes a concerning allegation, which I will take up for the Government, working with the House authorities. As she will be aware, we take the threat exceptionally seriously, which is why we agreed an unprecedented increase in protective security for Members of this House and other elected representatives. We should all take that threat very seriously, not least in the light of the two appalling murders of parliamentarians that I have seen in my time in this House.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

When it comes to matters of national security such as this, my inclination is to work on a cross-party basis, and for us to show a unified face, but does the Deputy Prime Minister not understand that the relative weakness of the response to this terrible series of attacks, combined with his evasiveness over questions about the financial interests of the Foreign Secretary, is bound to increase people’s concerns? It is understood that Lord Cameron still has close links with the Chinese state in respect of numerous business ventures, and it was reported last week that the Government had secretly softened their policy against Chinese businesses implicated in human rights abuses. Will the Deputy Prime Minister strengthen his response, and demonstrate by his actions and through transparency that this soft-pedalling is nothing suspicious?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman says that we should have a cross-party approach, and then immediately seeks, on political grounds, to denigrate the Foreign Secretary and turn this into a party political matter. I am afraid that he will have to choose one approach or the other.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

When we think ahead to the election, we should bear in mind the point raised today about artificial intelligence and the threat to democracy. We often talk about the concept of deepfake news—which used to be just fake news—but this is not just about deepfakes. It is also about the risk of rumour bombs to dissuade people from going to the polls on the day, and about voice clones; people are telephoned by someone pretending to be a daughter or other family member, who says, “Do not go and vote today.” There are many risks of which we may not even be aware, and the data that we are talking about today may be used in conjunction with data from Facebook and other sources to enable people to pretend that they are something they are not. Along with the work taking place in Government and with tech companies, could there be an education campaign, to let the public know that there are better ways to become aware of the risks that they may face during the election?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has made an important point. At a time of rapidly evolving technology, particularly artificial intelligence, there will always be limits to the ability of agencies, or companies, to call this stuff out. There needs to be greater awareness among the public of the risks, and of the need to treat images of this kind with much more scepticism, and I will take that up with my colleague the Education Secretary.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Professor Jim Saker, the president of the Institute of the Motor Industry, has warned about the threat that Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles could pose, in giving China access to big data and personal information. He has said that

“connected electric vehicles flooding the country could be the most effective Trojan Horse that the Chinese establishment has”

to impact the UK. What consideration has the Deputy Prime Minister given to the threat posed by those vehicles?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

That too is an important point. Obviously, any new technology or cars put on the UK market will have to meet our safety standards, and that will include an assessment of the threats to which the hon. Lady has referred. Under the National Security and Investment Act 2021, I can decide to block or impose conditions on any investments or transactions, from whichever state, and whichever company, in any country. That is another tool in our weaponry that we did not have previously.

[Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will no doubt be aware that the Electoral Commission failed a National Cyber Security Centre cyber essentials audit at about the time when these breaches occurred. Among the failings identified was the fact that staff laptops and smartphones were running outdated systems—including Windows 10 Enterprise, which, at the time, was no longer receiving security updates. Does my right hon. Friend not agree that these failings look awfully like extraordinary negligence on the part of the Electoral Commission, and how satisfied is he that the commission has done everything necessary to regularise its procedures?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is right to highlight that issue. It is precisely because of those concerns that we have ensured that the Electoral Commission is working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre to achieve a significant step up in its capabilities and its cyber resilience. It was essential for that work to be undertaken, and it has been undertaken.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

In May this year, Rotherham will hold a local election, like other places throughout the country. At the last local election, in 2021, Labour kept control of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council by a margin of only 54 electors. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that when people cast their votes for the Conservatives in Rotherham, those votes to end 50 years of Labour rule are secure?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I trust and hope that we will achieve that outcome. I would like to assure Members that we have every confidence in the integrity of the elections. Through the defending democracy taskforce and the action taken by the Minister responsible for local government, my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), who has written to all local authorities in the past week, we are ensuring that the integrity of those important elections is preserved.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his statement today, and for responding to questions for over an hour.

Tackling Intimidation in Public Life

Oliver Dowden Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2024 Written Statements

[The Deputy Prime Minister (Oliver Dowden)]

Vigorous and robust debate is at the heart of British democracy and is essential to its health.

However, in recent years, elected representatives and other public figures have been subject to increasing levels of intimidation and abuse, aimed at them and their families. As the Prime Minister set out on 1 March, council meetings and local events have been stormed, and MPs do not feel safe in their own homes. On 21 February, protesters threatened to force this House to have to “lock the doors of Parliament” and highly divisive slogans were projected on to the walls outside. The Government remain committed to ensuring that those who commit acts of evil or promote mob rule over democratic rule will never triumph.

It is important to distinguish between strongly felt political debate on the one hand, and unacceptable acts of abuse, intimidation and violence on the other. British democracy has always been robust and oppositional, but there can never be an excuse to try to shout down democratic process or deliver social change through force, rather than force of argument.

Free speech within the law can sometimes involve the expression of political views that some may find offensive. But a line is crossed when disagreement mutates into intimidation, which refuses to tolerate other opinions and seeks to deprive others from exercising their free speech and freedom of association.

Three years ago, my right hon. Friend, the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) set out the steps that the Government are taking to tackle intimidation in public life—9 March 2021, HCWS833. This followed the then Prime Minister’s 2017 commission of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to undertake a review into abuse and intimidation in elections and the subsequent Government response.

With scheduled elections in the UK on 2 May, I wish to update hon. Members on the Government’s wider programme of work in this area.

Attachments can be viewed online at: http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2024-03-18/HCWS348/

[HCWS348]