Chinese Police Stations in UK

Sarah Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Chris Philp]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Matters of national security should be tackled on a bipartisan, or tripartisan, basis across the House. All democratic political parties in the wider western world, including the United Kingdom, are at risk from inappropriate influence. All of us must work together to combat and exclude that risk, and we should approach these issues in that spirit of cross-party co-operation.

[Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab)]

I am perplexed, and my constituents are very concerned. At the start of November, the Security Minister said in response to an urgent question that there was an investigation and that he would come back to the House as soon as possible to provide a report. He promised to meet me. I have emailed him multiple times and have even texted him, but I have had nothing in response, and now we read that the man in Croydon has links to both the Chinese Communist party and the Conservative party. Was the Security Minister’s failure to respond to me multiple times a discourtesy, or is there something else going on?

[Chris Philp]

That insinuation of party political influence is frankly a disgraceful slur. The hon. Lady is not doing Croydon residents a service by attempting to ask the question in the way that she just did. I do know, because I have asked him, that the Security Minister has never met or encountered the gentleman concerned. He does, however, owe the hon. Lady an update, as I said in response to the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), and I will make sure that the Security Minister meets with both the hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) extremely quickly to provide an update on this issue.