Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Laura Farris]

The hon. Lady is right to mention the case of Kulsuma Akter. What happened to her was appalling. I obviously cannot comment on any specifics in relation to the case, but the hon. Lady will know that the bail conditions that the perpetrator had been released under contained restrictions that were breached themselves. So it was not a case of the court refusing to apply conditions; he breached them. In relation to her wider point, of course every single one of these cases is a tragedy. She will know, because we have worked on a cross-party basis in the past, how much time and attention we dedicate to this at the Home Office, but I simply say this. We now have domestic abuse training that has been rolled out to over 80% of forces and the Home Secretary and I are working very closely with the nine outstanding ones. They are on a timetable for delivery—I want to reassure the hon. Lady of that—and we now, this month, have trained rape specialists in every single police force in England and Wales.

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

3. What recent assessment he has made with Cabinet colleagues of the level of the security threat from China.

[The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)]

I thank my hon. Friend enormously for raising this question. Let me be clear that the hostile activity we have seen from Chinese authorities and state-affiliated groups poses a serious threat to the security and wellbeing of the British people and to our partners and allies across the world. The Deputy Prime Minister came to this Chamber last month to speak about the pattern of malign activity, including the targeting of our parliamentarians and two malicious cyber-campaigns by Chinese state-affiliated actors. We must never be afraid to stand up for ourselves and to call out this kind of activity that has targeted both my hon. Friend and me.

[Tim Loughton]

Mr Speaker, may I add my personal condolences to you on the loss of your father?

I say to my right hon. Friend that we had the scandal of the hacking of MPs’ email accounts back in March and we subsequently learnt that the FBI informed our Government—as well as foreign Governments who had legislators who were affected—about these incidents two years ago. Why has it taken two years for us to be told about a serious security breach? Will he now, with his colleagues in Cabinet, make sure that China is absolutely treated and labelled as a threat, not just an “epoque-defining systemic challenge”, and everything is done urgently to put China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme?

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend, who has given this House and our country exceptional service over many years, and who will sadly be standing down at the next election, has again made some strong points. On the first, he knows the language that I use and he has heard the words I have said. The reality is that we face threats from around the world, and many of them sadly are emerging out of Beijing today. We know it, we have seen it, and many of us in this House feel it. It is not something we are shying away from. The reality, however, is that there are many different ways of answering it. He has raised an important aspect on FIRS, which of course is being looked at, but he will have heard the words of the Deputy Prime Minister in this Chamber only a few weeks ago and how clearly he made himself heard.