China: Breach of UK Parliamentarians’ Data

Priti Patel Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dan Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes a really helpful and important point. She is right that Members across this House have had personal experiences in this regard. I only hope that, rather than seeking to score political points as a consequence of those experiences, we come together and ensure that our response is appropriate and proportionate. That is the approach I will take and the approach this Government will take.

[Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)]

The evidence that China poses a threat to our national security and democracy is clearly overwhelming. We have spent a lot of time discussing this matter in the House, including the threats to parliamentarians and the overall security threat. The Minister has spoken in glowing terms about the foreign influence registration scheme, which the Government introduced, and said that it is working. Can he give an explanation to this House as to why China is not on the enhanced tier of FIRS?

[Dan Jarvis]

The right hon. Lady is a very experienced Member of this House and has served in very senior roles in government, which is why I hope she understands that the Government sometimes have to make quite nuanced, balanced judgments when it comes to national security policy and our relationship with other countries. There will be those in this place—I am not saying that she falls into this category—who seek to categorise our relationship with China in a single word. She knows from her experience in government that it is much more nuanced than that. As successive Governments have maintained, our relationship with China cannot be reduced to a single word. However, we recognise—it is important to be absolutely up front about this, as I have been from this Dispatch Box on many occasions—that China poses a series of threats to UK national security, from cyber-attacks to foreign interference and espionage, as well as transnational repression. We will challenge all those threats robustly and we will make sure that we have the appropriate toolkit to do so.