Tom Tugendhat
Main Page: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)Department Debates - View all Tom Tugendhat's debates with the Home Office
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Dan Jarvis
I agree. This Government’s approach will always be to work constructively across the House on matters relating to national security, but given the record of certain right hon. and hon. Opposition Members, I suggest that humility might be the order of the day for some of them.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I do not want to go over the readiness of FIRS again and again. I will leave it at this: I was assured by the same officials who sit in the Box advising the Minister that it would be ready to go by the end of the year. Clearly the advice has changed. Only one thing in the Department has changed, which is the party leading it, so I can only assume that there has been a change of intent, but I am delighted that it will be ready to go by the summer—better late than never. The real question, of course, is whether it will be worth having. The advice from MI5 was very clear: if China is not in the enhanced tier, it will not be worth having. Will China be in that tier?
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Gentleman knows that I take these matters incredibly seriously. He and I have known each other for a very long time. I therefore know that he will take on trust my assertion to him and to the House that the scheme was not ready to go when we arrived in government in July this year. We are working at pace. I have today given the House a timeframe and said that we are looking very closely, working with colleagues across Government, at how we can best structure the scheme. We will make announcements in the normal way in due course.