Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Monday 15th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[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.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am sorry, but I am not convinced by the Government’s attitude on this. When the Deputy Prime Minister came to see us a few weeks ago, he did not say anything new; he announced things about events that happened two years ago. The Security Minister himself knows of attempts by the Chinese Government to undermine the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee of this House. Why are we only ever told about things that happened years ago? If we are to take these issues seriously, we surely have to have an up-to-date and present account of the activities of the Chinese state.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member will well know that, when there is a reason to act quickly and draw something to the attention of the House, we do, as was the case with Christine Lee, which he will remember involved the payment of money to a certain Member of this House. The reason we took that action was because we needed to expose it fast.

National Security Bill

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Consideration of Lords amendments
Wednesday 3rd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

But earlier the Minister was praying in aid Lord Carlile, saying what a wonderful job he had done in helping the Government to bring forward wonderful amendments. This is one of his amendments, so it seems a bit odd to turn against this one.

On the point the Minister just made about permissible donors, all that has to be checked is whether the person is on the electoral register. The Elections Act 2022 has added to the register 3.5 million people who do not even live in this country. All that political parties presently have to do is check whether somebody is on the electoral register. I do not think that safeguards our elections from interference from those who would wish us ill.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member has formerly been very kind about the work that we have done together, such as on the Foreign Affairs Committee and on other appointments. He has agreed with me on some areas and disagreed on others. It cannot be an enormous surprise to him that I agree with Lord Carlile on some areas and disagree with him on others. Frankly, that is the nature of parliamentary work, as the hon. Gentleman knows better than anyone.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s point about foreign registrations, those are of British citizens living abroad. Those are the only terms on which people are registered to vote on our electoral register. It is not right to say that those are a random 3.5 million people; that is certainly not true. They are British citizens and therefore their donations are as valid as their votes.

The Government recognise that there are risks. That is why it is already an offence to attempt to make a donation by concealing information, giving false information or knowingly facilitating the making of an impermissible donation. Where the foreign power condition is met in relation to a relevant electoral offence, as set out in schedule 1 to the Bill, clause 16 provides for a substantially increased maximum penalty: where a one-year sentence previously applied, that has been increased to four years; and two-year sentences have been increased to seven years. These relevant electoral offences include offences of undue influence, for which the maximum sentence has been increased to seven years, and making a false declaration about the source of a donation, for which the maximum sentence has been increased to four years.

Indeed, the Government have already taken action. The Elections Act 2022 tightened the law to close loopholes on foreign spending. The Electoral Commission is also being given more powers to access Companies House information, through measures under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill. That will allow the Electoral Commission to undertake the proper targeted and proportionate checks.

For absolute clarity, donations to political parties from foreign powers, made directly or indirectly, are not permissible. The amendment places new requirements on minor parties, who are not subject to any other financial reporting requirements at this time, as they can contest only local and parish elections. The amendment would therefore place huge administrative burdens on small, grassroots political campaigning and would punish grassroots democracy.

It is not clear how the proposals would work in practice. Political parties are not banks; rightly, they do not have access to individuals’ financial records. They are not His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs; they do not have access to tax records. They do have access to the electoral roll and to Companies House, which they are already obliged to check. The Electoral Commission already publishes guidance on these legal duties. Indeed, political parties must already report all larger donations to the Electoral Commission, which are then published online for public scrutiny.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I start where my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) finished. I am completely perplexed about why the Minister is holding out against Lords amendment 22, not least because he told Insider last year that it was “perfectly legitimate” to criticise political parties for accepting donations “that are not clear”. He made it absolutely clear at the time that he supported the idea of legislation to require political parties to be clear about where their funding was coming from. To be fair to him, that was obviously not when he was a Government Minister, and he has now fallen among thieves. I preferred the old version of the Minister, and I hope that, in our discussions over the next few minutes, we can manage to persuade him to return to proper form.

The pedigree for Lords amendment 22 is phenomenally strong, as has been said. Not only have Lord Carlile and Lord Evans—the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and a former head of MI5—called directly for such provisions, but as I understand from her comments, Baroness Manningham-Buller also supported Lords amendment 22, as did Lord West, all the members of the ISC, Spotlight on Corruption, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and, of course, the Electoral Commission.

The Electoral Commission wrote directly to the Minister last year to say that it would surely be wrong not to change the law so that political parties can accept donations from companies that have made enough money in the UK to fund the amount of their donation. One would think that that stands to reason. One would also think that it stands to reason, as the commission also argued, that political parties should be required to check not just whether someone is a permissible donor in the sense of being on the electoral register, but whether they have enough money of their own to be able to fund the political party to the extent proposed. That is just due diligence, but there are phenomenal loopholes in the law.

The Minister is normally a very polite and generous man, but I understand that he has still not replied to the Electoral Commission on this matter, and the commission has complained about this. In this area, as he knows perfectly well from our work on the Foreign Affairs Committee, complacency serves us ill. One need only look at the sad trajectory of the tier 1 visa system—the golden visa. When the report was finally produced it showed that we had given visas to live in the UK and make their permanent residence here to people we ended up sanctioning because they were so closely related to the Putin regime. The 2020 Russia report from the ISC—it should have been the 2019 Russia report, but the then Prime Minister did not allow it to be published before the general election—made it very clear that Russia and perhaps other state actors had been intent on affecting elections and referendums in this country, and urged us not to be complacent.

There are authoritarian state actors who wish us ill. They rely on the openness of our political system, on our open system of governance in the City, on the fact that contracts can be enforced, and on our open judicial system. They rely on all of that and, I would argue, on our complacency to be able to do their nefarious work in the UK. There is a flaw in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000: the concept of “permissible donor” is too tightly drawn. Surely any political party and any person trying to secure donations from a third party would want to ensure that the money they received was not tainted by human rights abuses in another country, by authoritarian acts from another country or, frankly, by malign influence by a third party state actor.

The position is made worse by the Elections Act 2022 adding to the registers 3.5 million overseas voters who pay, or who may pay, no tax in the UK, and who may have next to no relationship with the authorities in this country—it is necessarily very difficult to track that information down. What should a party do if it is offered a donation of, let us say, £50,000 by somebody who lives and works in Moscow today? The law says the party need not do anything, as long as the individual is on the electoral register. Surely, though, we do not think that that is right or appropriate. I want further checks to be in place. The provisions in the amendment are so minimal—absolutely the minimum that we have to do to make sure that political parties in this country do the basics.

I said there is a flaw—perhaps a fissure—in PPERA, but I am starting to worry that the Government want that loophole to exist. If they do not, I simply do not understand why the Minister is holding out on this point. I hope the Minister will change his mind on this minimal requirement and support Lords amendment 22. If we end up voting it down, I hope their lordships will throw it back to us. For more than a decade now, we have left the door wide open to political interference in our system in this country. It is time we slammed it shut.

[Tom Tugendhat]

First, I thank the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for the contribution she made and the spirit in which she has approached these debates. She is absolutely right to talk about Caoilfhionn Gallagher and Jimmy Lai and to highlight the many issues that she did. Such matters unite us; another is the fact that this Government, like every Member of this House, I am sure, remain absolutely committed to the UN convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. There is absolutely nothing in this Bill, or in any other Bill that this Government are bringing forward, that would in any way undermine our obligations or the seriousness with which we treat torture as it is practised, sadly too frequently, around the world. Although I hear what the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and the hon. and gallant Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) say, there is quite literally nothing in the Bill that would give rise to the need for amendment (c) to Lords amendment.

The point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland about Lord Pannick, however, was entirely fair. A letter should have gone back to him. In fact, the point was made and the answer given in the form of amendments to clause 3 that address his concern about the carve-out for lawyers. Although I agree that I should have written, the reality is that I addressed the points Lord Pannick raised in the Bill itself.

The matter of foreign donations has been raised again. The reality is that we have to treat British citizens like British citizens. The idea that we can treat British citizens differently depending on how we feel about them seems to me to be rather a bad way of making law, but that does not mean that political parties have to treat British citizens exactly alike. Surely the rule here is: just because you can does not mean you should. There are many donations, and perhaps many individuals making them, that many of us would not wish to accept. The point about politics is that it is about decisions, judgment and choices, and while the law has to apply to everyone equally, we as politicians and as political parties are not so obliged. We have to make judgments and decisions, and we have to carry our reputations and the reputations of our organisations with us when we make those calls.

On the changes to the MOU that the ISC suggested, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) had the opportunity to give me the power to make those changes, but I am not the Prime Minister, so I cannot do so. The Prime Minister will have to make that decision, but I will raise the matter again with his office, because my right hon. Friend’s points were well made.

I have heard many comments about the Official Secrets Act 1989. The nature of this reform is complex and there are many and various arguments because this piece of legislation ties into so many others. I will not give my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) a commitment to act in this Parliament—he will understand that more work is required. As for my ability to make commitments into the next Session, he tempts me too far.

I am glad to hear that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) has achieved the great honour of being treasurer of the Scottish National party. I hope it comes with a caravan and that he is enjoying the touring that that affords him.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) raises many good points. The reality is that these challenges must be addressed as a whole and require further discussion, so I am very grateful for his time.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Monday 6th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The biggest criminal in Europe, with the most blood on his hands, is Vladimir Putin. We have frozen his Russian state assets in the UK; will the Home Secretary support my Bill tomorrow to allow us to seize those assets and give them to the Ukrainian people, so that they can rebuild their country?

[Tom Tugendhat]

Going from freezing to seizing, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is a slightly difficult procedure under our laws, due to the rights that people have. We have looked at that matter with partners, particularly in common law jurisdictions, and I hope to have further conversations on the subject with the United States when I go there tomorrow.

National Security Bill

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Report stage
Wednesday 16th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

It is a pleasure to stand before the House today to introduce not just new clause 9, but many other new clauses that I and many others in this House have argued for at different times and in different places.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Plus a few others.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Plus a few others. So it is a great pleasure to be here today.

May I also place on record my enormous thanks to two right hon. Members—the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) will smile as I say this—who have done so much to get us to this position today? I refer to my right hon. Friends the Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland), who have been extremely generous with their time and thoughts, including in private with me as well, in making sure that I am able to answer as many of her questions as I can, although somehow she has exceeded even their magisterial intellect. I am grateful that they have got us to this place, because this Bill is essential for the future defence of our nation.

The reason for that is because, of course, the world has changed. The reality is that national security in this country has changed and evolved in recent years, and the Darwinian challenge between the hunter and the hunted has led us to a position where we need to update not just our techniques, which can be done in private, but sadly our laws, which rightly must be debated in public.

I think we all agree with the core aims of the Bill. The first is to give our law enforcement and intelligence agencies the tools they need to tackle harmful activities in the United Kingdom carried out by, or on behalf of, foreign powers. However, to do that we also need to increase the transparency around those who seek to influence the politics and institutions of the United Kingdom through the foreign influence registration scheme. That is a very welcome addition. I know that many Members here, including those who have been on the Foreign Affairs Committee for the past five years, have called for it at various different points. The Bill has, at its heart, the protection of the national security of this great country that we all serve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The Minister said that once somebody has registered on a website, we will all be able to see it. That may be true if we knew that that was where we had to look to check whether somebody coming in through the door, sending us a letter or inviting us to dinner as an MP was actually somebody who was working for a foreign power. Would it not be far more sensible, once somebody has registered, to require them to declare to any Minister, MP or Member of the House of Lords that that is what they were doing, so that there is a degree of protection for this House?

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Member makes a very good point: there are many areas in which the individual concerned should certainly be doing the responsible thing and advertising it. The basis of this has to be a balance, so requiring people to register is, I think, a very good start. We need to take forward some of the recommendations that the hon. Member has made and the thoughts he has expressed, because he is absolutely right that transparency in all things is important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

I think the hon. Lady knows me well enough to know that, having been sanctioned by three countries now, it is unlikely that I will be reticent in identifying those that I think are threats to the United Kingdom.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman might not be in the job.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am very confident that others will also be bold on His Majesty’s behalf. Whoever is fortunate enough to be representing His Majesty in the Home Office will be able to conduct those offices in the good fashion that people expect. [Interruption.] I will move on.

The core of the Bill is, of course, national security and our intelligence services, building on the work they have done to enable us to grow in confidence and prosperity. They have provided the security apparatus that allows freedom beneath and around it. That is an extraordinary luxury and a blessing that this country has been able to enjoy for many years and generations because of the courage and intellect of so many people. They require tools to conduct those tasks, and I am delighted that the Bill will sharpen some of those tools.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat]

This has been a very full discussion involving many people. Although I sympathise with those who have quite rightly made the point that we could always have more time for these debates, the truth is that we had a lot of time in the Bill Committee and we are going to have to do much more work on this subject as its various elements evolve with the technology and the challenge. The truth is that if we had had this debate five, 10 or 15 years ago, we would have been debating different subjects, different nations and different elements of technology that have evolved into the threat that we sadly face today. Although I recognise that many hon. Members have understandably raised the number of hours and days that we have had today and in the past few weeks, the Government have listened and adapted the Bill to many aspects that have been raised in different ways.

[Chris Bryant]

One thing that the Government have certainly had plenty of time to get ready is the tier 1 visa report, as promised by five Home Secretaries. When will the Minister publish it?

[Tom Tugendhat]

It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that one of the first things I did on arrival at the Home Office was to ask for it to be prepared for publication. I will come back to him with it, I hope, urgently—I will let him know.

Many different points have been raised. I pay enormous tribute to my many right hon. and hon. Friends who have spoken and to those who have approached the Bill with the diligence and seriousness that the subject demands, particularly the hon. Members for Halifax (Holly Lynch) and for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald), who have been extremely supportive critics and have been challenging in the right spirit. I am glad to say that those discussions have resulted in most of the Bill going through in the way that was intended, and that those challenges and changes have improved it.

I accept that there are some differences of opinion. On areas such as the Serious Crime Act and the changes to statutory requirements, I believe that the Government are right because the exercise of the functions of an officer of the state are exactly what should be the limiting functions of their powers. That is why this reform makes sense, although my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) raised some important points and challenges that we will have to look at.

My right hon. and learned Friend also asked about damages and whether they followed in the way that he described, and I agree that they do. The point is that we should neither make it harder or more applicable to have damages, nor prevent it where judges seek the discretion to do so. Where they have that discretion, they may continue to do it, but we are asking them to look and consider the situation in which those damages arose to make sure that they are truly applicable. It is merely a review policy, rather than a block. That is an important element of the Bill; judges may already have that power but this measure merely puts it on the statute book.

Much of the debate has focused on whistleblowers and the public interest defence, and the way in which various people could argue that they are acting in the interests of the wider polity in raising different objections. This is a hugely important area and I understand that many hon. Members have raised different points. The head of MI5, the heads of various agencies and many others who have engaged on it have been absolutely clear on this point, however, because we need to make sure that we are not introducing any defence that forces the Government to reveal the damage that has been done in order to provide a defence.

The reality is that forcing the publication of damages may indeed be further damaging to the initial offence. That is why although I take the point about the public interest defence, which is a wider question for the whole of Government and the whole country, and I take the point about whistleblowers, which is again a wider question and not specific to the Bill, I am afraid that I hold with the head of MI5 and others who have been extremely clear on this point.

Sanctions

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I associate myself with everything that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has just said; I completely agree with him. Democracy is a very tender flower. We thought it was very robust and it would survive all weathers, but the truth is that it needs watering, care and tenderness. All too often, it is very easy for authoritarian regimes to trample on it and kill it.

I associate myself, too, with the comments of the hon. Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith). We have no beef with the people of Russia. The people of Russia are fine people with not only a strong culture and history, but many strong democratic traditions and understandings of what it is to be a human being and to work in solidarity with others. Our beef is with the regime; it is with Putin.

I agree that we have been recklessly naive for far too long in relation to our relationship with Vladimir Putin. It pains me—I understand why Tony Blair was doing it—that we gave him a state visit so early in his time. We wanted to press the reset button, as did Obama, and it gained us absolutely nothing; it just showed us to be weak. We have been pitiful. We have been puny. We have vacillated. We have been spineless. Quite often we have looked craven because we just want Russian money to prop up our banks, pay our lawyers and keep our consultancy firms going.

Maybe we could forgive the fact that Putin is a thieving kleptocrat—after all, most off the theft is done against his own people. It leaves his own people poorer than they were when he came to power, though. It is maybe just a matter for the Russian people that he has enriched himself beyond the wildest dreams of Imelda Marcos and Muammar al-Gaddafi put together. But three things make him truly dangerous: his territorial ambitions, his excessive use of force, and his lies and misinformation.

Just look at Beslan, where 334 hostages were killed in the end by Russian state actors, including 176 children. Just look at the Moscow theatre siege, where 130 hostages were killed by Russian state actors. Look at Chechnya—I could go on for ages—and look at Georgia. They compare the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk with the situation in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Of course, it is exactly the same playbook: “Set up a pretext and then move in.” Look at the downing of Flight MH17. Look at the murders of Boris Nemtsov, Sasha Litvinenko, Dawn Burgess, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Magnitsky and so many others.

Yes, I am angered by the naivete that I sometimes see in this country. I have seen it often in this Chamber, and I have seen it also from the left. Stop the War said:

“We oppose the deployment of British forces to the borders of Russia as a pointless provocation.”

What utterly stupid naivete. Where on earth is the condemnation of the 190,000 Russian troops on the border, the annexation of Crimea, or the snipers shooting at Ukrainian forces now? This is not just naivete; it is monumental and dangerous stupidity, and we should call it out.

I confess that I was absolutely sickened by Putin’s speech last night. The Minister cannot say it, but I can: the man is deranged, unhinged and a danger to his own people, as well as to the people of Ukraine. I said in this House in March 2014:

“A Russian friend of mine says that Putin is not yet mad. That may be true, but what will our surrendering and our appeasement do for his sanity?”—[Official Report, 18 March 2014; Vol. 577, c. 679.]

We can now see what his madness has done. I am reluctant to use the word “appeasement” too often, but sometimes what has been done has felt like appeasement.

Putin’s argument about Russians and Ukrainians being one people—again, I understand that the Minister cannot say this, but I can—is the same as Hitler’s about the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1938. Hitler said then that he only wanted to protect the Sudeten Germans. It was a lie. Some people said so in this Chamber in 1938. Some of them laid down their life in the ensuing slaughter, and they have their shields up here. However, Chamberlain bought the lie, and the following spring Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia without so much as a by-your-leave. Be in no doubt: this is not a Russian peacekeeping mission; it is an annexation, an invasion and a declaration of war. Putin knows that it will lead to significant bloodshed on a massive scale because the Ukrainians are more determined to fight now than they ever have been. If anything, Putin’s behaviour over these years has reinforced the Ukrainians’ sense of solidarity.

Putin is not just interested in the parts of Luhansk and Donetsk already in separatists’ hands; of course he is not. He wants Avdiivka, which is metres across the demarcation line, where the Foreign Affairs Committee saw Russian snipers pointing at Ukrainian troops just three weeks ago. He wants Kramatorsk, where we met community leaders, including the local priest. He wants Mariupol, and of course he wants Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv, Odessa—the whole of Ukraine. He wants to reshape the contours of Europe by force because he thinks that that is to be his legacy.

Of course, I support the statutory instrument and I am glad we are doing this, but today’s sanctions—the ones that have been announced today, which rely on this instrument—are wholly inadequate. I think that is the message from the whole House, and I hope the Government are hearing it loud and clear. They do not match the rhetoric of what the Government are saying, and when actions do not match rhetoric, we undermine that rhetoric and put ourselves in a worse position, not in a better one.

The banks are the small change of the Russian economy, they really are: they are shrapnel down the back of the sofa. The individuals have already been sanctioned for four years by the Americans. This really is netting in the minnows while letting the basking sharks swim freely. As somebody else said, it is taking a peashooter to a gunfight. Putin, frankly, will beat this feather duster away. He will just laugh at us. In effect, Medvedev was laughing at us yesterday, even before we announced anything, because he said that the Russians will be able to wear whatever we throw at them. It is a beautiful irony, is it not, that one of the people who will be sanctioned, when the Government are able to bring their measure in relation to Members of the Duma, is Andrey Lugavoy, who was one of the murderers of Alexander Litvinenko? Incidentally, can I just say that, if anybody has not met Marina Litvinenko, she is one of the most wonderful people who have ever walked the face of this earth?

I think a sanctions regime in this context has to go hand in hand with, first, a proper public register of beneficial ownership of property. I do not understand from the Prime Minister whether it is his intention now to introduce that, because it keeps on being conflated with various other forms. I hope that is the plan, but it has been promised for a long time, so some of us are beginning to get a little bit cynical.

Secondly, there has to be complete reform of Companies House, so that it actually has some powers to interrogate the information given to it. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee has said, at the moment anybody could say that they are Tom Tugendhat, or Mickey Mouse—or Vladimir Putin, no doubt—with impunity.

Thirdly, there has to be real openness about the review of the tier 1 visa scheme. The Home Secretary has cited “security concerns” about

“corrupt elites who threaten our national security and push dirty money around our cities.”

That is about people who already have tier 1 visas. As I understand it, this review is complete—it was completed some time ago—and it must be published soon. We need to understand what these tier 1 visas did, and where the vulnerabilities are in the British economy. I really hope that the Home Secretary will come to the House to do that very soon.

We need a foreign agents Act, as has been mentioned, and of course we need to reform the Official Secrets Act. We have no means of tackling spies in this country. It is almost impossible to send somebody to prison for spying in this country for the Russian Government.

[Tom Tugendhat]

Do we not need an update of the Treason Act? A treason charge can be laid only in relation to the person of the monarch, and this Act from 1351 really does need updating.

[Chris Bryant]

I agree, and on all these promises of legislation, which I think it is being suggested will come in the next Session of Parliament, frankly, we need to get a bit of a bloody—sorry, we need to get a bit of a move on, because all of this should have been in place years ago. Our report came out in 2018, the Intelligence and Security Committee report came out in 2019, and we still have not done any of this. I say to the Minister that we all stand ready to help in that process. We do feel a bit as though we are dragging him to be chased, so do not run away from us, but be chased and help us to bring in the legislation that will put us in a better place.

My final point is that I do not understand the Government’s ratchet decision at the moment. It is a complete mystery to me. There has already been an invasion and incursion, and we said prior to the incursion that we would hit Russia hard with sanctions. That is not what is on offer today. When the Prime Minister resigned as Foreign Secretary, he said that his greatest failure—his biggest mistake as Foreign Secretary—was his relationship with Russia. I think he has a long way to go to rescue what has happened today. We want tougher action and we beg the Government to introduce it.

Foreign Affairs Committee

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Thursday 22nd October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Tom Tugendhat]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The one brief response I will make is that one of the big changes William Hague made when he was Foreign Secretary was to reopen the language academy. Bringing together understanding, as well as leadership, is fundamental if we are to have the delivery that my hon. Friend rightly emphasises, and bringing that together with the military elements of leadership and co-ordination makes a huge difference.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I confess that when I listened to the witnesses, I kept remembering those words of the Victorian poet:

“We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven”.

However, the truth is that much still abides for this country. The BBC is the most respected newscaster around the world; English is still becoming the world’s language; we are often the penholder in all the major international institutions; and many people want to do their legal business in this country because we respect the rule of law. Do we not need to find that new niche where we are still special?

Covid-19

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Monday 28th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

I want to immediately pick up on the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) about mothers. This is not just about mothers; it is also about fathers. I am sure that many Members were there for their child’s first scan and the birth of their child and cannot imagine what it would have been like to miss it. Indeed, my son was very ill when he was born, and the inability to hold him that early on, when it was not immediately clear what the outcome was going to be, would have been extremely painful. I echo strongly my right hon. Friend’s words: this is about families, not just women.

This is a very difficult period for everybody in this country. In fact, it is a very difficult period for everybody around the world, but some people have done well. I do not mean that they have done perfectly, but they have done well because they have sought to do their best in extremely difficult circumstances. Those people are, of course, our healthcare professionals, who time and again have pushed themselves further than they knew they would have to. They have done better than anybody imagined they could and improved circumstances and situations that many thought lost or futile. They have taken us from a situation early on where we thought coronavirus was fatal to one where, for many people, it is survivable. They have changed the nature of the treatment, innovated and transformed the life chances of those who are suffering from this disease and those who will catch it. They have done so with extraordinary good grace, courage and professionalism.

Others have also done well. I pay huge tribute to the civil servants in the Department of Health and Social Care and the Treasury, who have been innovative, thoughtful and creative, and to Ministers, who have listened, encouraged and no doubt innovated themselves. This debate is part of a process that is our responsibility—not that of the Department of Health and Social Care or the Treasury, but ours. That responsibility is to listen to the people who sent us here—the people we represent—and to enter into what is, I am afraid, a fundamentally political argument.

[Chris Bryant]

I would argue that one of the most dangerous innovations has been the ability of Ministers to switch on and off regulations without any say-so from Parliament. Does the hon. Member agree?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I do agree, and that is exactly what I am coming on to. We are sent here because the decisions we are taking are, as the hon. Member recognises, political. Those decisions are about where to allocate resources, about people’s liberties and about care and treatment. They are fundamentally not party political, but political. They depend on an understanding of what is going on in this country, what people’s priorities are, where they wish to see investment, how our country wishes to be governed and what risks we are willing to take.

Because it was an emergency, many of us gave the Government the space to take those emergency decisions under the Coronavirus Act 2020. Sadly, this is less of an emergency now and more of a chronic condition. It has lasted for the best part of nine months. Although I hope I am wrong, there is a serious possibility that the vaccines being tested may not be successful and that the supplies may not be ready as quickly as we hope.

As a country, we must have the conversations that allow us to sustain the protections that we need, because the Government are right: we must protect people. We must protect the economy and education because we must protect people not just today but tomorrow. We must deter this disease. We must find the vaccines that will fix it, that will stop it, and we must rebuild because the damage that is being done to our country is serious and severe, and the damage that is being done to our world and to our friends is equally severe. The Government are right: we must protect, we must deter and we must rebuild. I absolutely agree with that, but we must do so together. As the Minister for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar), knows, democracy is not just about elections, but about how we deal with each other as citizens. It is about how we talk to each other in this country. We practise democracy every day in this place, of course, but actually we practise it every day in this country, because it is not this place that is the mother of Parliaments, it is our country that is the mother of Parliaments. It is so because we believe in the freedom to discuss, to debate and to challenge.

For six months or more, we have had emergency laws because we needed them. The time is coming, I am afraid, when we need to have debated laws, because liberty matters, too.

A& E Departments: Staffing

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Monday 23rd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Two things are vital in this key moment when the NHS is fearing a tsunami coming down the road, if that is not a mixed metaphor. The first is personal protective equipment. My view is that, frankly, every single fashion brand in this country should be devoting every minute it has to trying to deliver enough PPE for all the doctors in our A&Es. Secondly, we should be straining every sinew to ensure that testing is available for every staff member in our health service, because apart from anything else, it will mean that they can get back to the frontline faster.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

The hon. Member made a good point about PPE—does he welcome the fact that O’Reillys in Northern Ireland is turning its production to just that? A&E is not a static body or just a building. It is a collection of people who are giving their heart and soul to our community. Will he welcome with me the birth today of Grace Louise Elliott, born at home because her mother could not quite make it to the A&E in time, and yet the staff managed to get the A&E to her home?

[Chris Bryant]

That is a brilliant moment, and of course I celebrate it. When I was a vicar, I used to be there for quite a lot of births, giving blessings for babies in the special care baby unit. That is a vital part of the business, as it were, of accident and emergency departments.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Thursday 4th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Gapes. Your contribution to the Foreign Affairs Committee over the past 20 years has been truly exemplary, and indeed, your contribution to this report is one of the reasons why it was such a success. I am very glad that you are chairing this hearing.

Today, the Foreign Affairs Committee published its report on China and the rules-based international system. We worked on this inquiry for more than a year, including a trip to China to understand how the UK was seen from a Chinese perspective. As ever, we are very grateful to many people who submitted evidence to us, and especially to those who gave oral evidence, including the former Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd.

China is seeking a role in the world commensurate with its growing economic power, and the UK should welcome its desire to take part in global governance. We do not believe that China wants to jeopardise the benefits that it has reaped from a stable, rules-based international system. However, it has consolidated power in the hands of the Communist party under President Xi, and the UK’s China strategy needs to reflect that. On many issues, China is a viable partner for the United Kingdom. The threat that environmental degradation, for example, poses to the Communist party’s legitimacy has led China to join international efforts on climate change and sustainability.

However, on other issues that China perceives as challenging its domestic control, such as global initiatives on human rights and free societies, it has opposed international approaches. It is appropriate that this statement follows one from the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, given how many of the concerns we considered overlap with that Committee’s work.

Indeed, in the area of human rights, the evidence suggests that China does not intend to reform the rules-based international system. Rather, it intends to subvert it by promoting an alternative version of human rights that stresses economic development at the cost of the universality of individual civil and political freedoms. In our report, we urge the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to increase its efforts to hold China to account for its human rights violations by using UN mechanisms, public statements and private diplomacy.

During the inquiry, we also heard troubling allegations of Chinese attempts to interfere in the UK’s domestic affairs. The openness of the UK’s political system and society is a fundamental source of our strength. However, in the face of an autocratic state seeking to increase its influence abroad, that openness can also be a source of vulnerability. The UK needs to decide how to draw the line between legitimate attempts to exercise influence and illegitimate attempts at interference. It is a topic that we on the Foreign Affairs Committee will be looking at further in our new inquiry into autocracies and UK foreign policy.

The Committee also noted its concern about the Chinese Government’s approach to Hong Kong. The Sino-British joint declaration on Hong Kong is a legally binding international treaty registered at the UN. It is of great importance to UK national interests and the health of the rules-based international system. China’s adherence to the letter and spirit of the declaration is a key test of the sincerity of its commitment to global governance. We were therefore deeply concerned by evidence that Hong Kong’s autonomy is at risk, especially in the area of the rule of law. We are concerned that the Chinese Government are moving away from an approach of “one country, two systems” towards “one country, one system”. We therefore urge the UK Government to continue to raise concerns about Hong Kong publicly and privately with the Hong Kong authorities.

We support the Government’s efforts to increase the UK’s presence in the Indo-Pacific—including its military presence—in line with its capacity and other defence commitments. The region is vital for global trade and home to a number of UK partners and allies. Communication about those efforts is crucial. Poorly communicated military deployments in the Indo-Pacific could be perceived or depicted by China as a crude attempt to contain the expansion of its influence.

The UK should focus instead on core principles, including freedom of navigation, the rights of states—including China’s neighbours—to form and maintain alliances of their choosing, and the importance of a balanced and consensual regional security order. We urge the Government to ensure that initiatives to expand the UK’s military presence in the Indo-Pacific are explained with reference to those principles.

China’s belt and road initiative—perhaps the most famous and well-known aspect of its foreign policy—is likely to have geopolitical effects that are as important as, and potentially more important than its economic impact. That Chinese-led investment in foreign countries, and in developing countries in particular, need not conflict with British interests. Asia’s infrastructure gap is real, and exporting the fruits of China’s spectacular growth could be a way to close that gap while addressing China’s own economic needs. The UK should help China with that. It can gain economic benefits from doing so, including by focusing on areas in which the UK has particular value to offer, such as legal and financial services.

However, in its current form, the belt and road initiative raises concerns in relation to UK interests. There is a risk that Chinese investment could encourage countries to strike deals that undermine international standards or that leave countries with unsustainable debt that undermines their political stability. The Government should take a strictly case-by-case approach to assessing belt and road projects and refrain from expressing a view on the initiative as a whole.

For the UK to come up with a comprehensive strategy to guide its relationship with China, it will need to answer some key questions. What are the drivers of Chinese foreign policy? What are the major goals of UK policy towards China? What is the bottom line of UK interests, values and national security considerations on which we are not prepared to compromise?

The UK’s approach to China reflects an unwillingness to face the reality of China’s strategic direction. Building a deeper partnership with China is still desirable, but we must recognise that there are hard limits to what co-operation can achieve and that the values and interests of the Chinese Communist party, and therefore the Chinese state, are often very different from those of the United Kingdom. In the report, we call for the Government to produce a single public document that defines its China strategy, crafted through a cross-Government process directed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. That chimes with findings emerging from all the substantial inquiries we have undertaken.

The FCO has a diminished grip on our Government’s international strategy. It needs to reassert itself as the focal point for that strategy and regain some of its self-confidence and authority. Without a comprehensive approach, the UK risks prioritising economic considerations over its other interests, its values and national security. A constructive, positive UK relationship with China is possible and desirable, but it will require strategy, rigour and unity in place of hope and muddling through.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, think it is a delight that you are in the Chair, Mr Gapes, although in a way it would be better if you were sitting down here, because I think your contribution would be useful. I commend the Committee on which I sit on our wonderful report. I think the Chairman has outlined the issues very well. How concerned is he that the British Government are a bit mealy mouthed sometimes when it comes to issues such as the Uighurs? More than 1 million people are in probably the largest concentration camp in the world, effectively being reschooled or re-educated—whatever we want to call it. Also, how worried is he by Italy’s recent deal with China? With that, we are beginning to see all the possible dangers of the belt and road initiative that he pointed to coming into the European Union.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points. His contribution to the report was extremely important, as he knows. He raises two points that we looked at in various different ways. The Italian question came up at the end of the report process. On the question of the Uighurs, one of the things that came out strongly is that it is not simply a Chinese domestic issue. The repression of Muslim communities in western China will almost certainly have repercussions on other areas, including the UK and our allies in the region, as radicalism is likely to increase and further violence may follow from that.

As the hon. Gentleman will have heard, this is one of those moments when one must remember that one is looking at various forms of China. We are seeing the Chinese security state experimenting with its powers, particularly in Xinjiang. In some ways, one could say that modern China is an experiment. The challenge to which we do not know the answer is whether old men with tech can beat young people with ideas. So far, we do not know.

Italy’s deal with China is part of a long pattern that we have seen in Chinese foreign policy, which is to divide alliances and seek to break up groups. In this case, that is to split Italy from the rest of the European Union. It is interesting that when President Macron met President Xi only a few days after that deal was signed, he insisted on having Chancellor Merkel and President Tusk in the room at the same time to make the point that the European Union was still a united entity when dealing with Chinese trade. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the Italian decision to go on its own poses some important questions, not only for the European Union but for the United Kingdom.

Restoration and Renewal (Report of the Joint Committee)

Debate between Tom Tugendhat and Chris Bryant

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

Well, we disagree, because I know what has happened over the last 10 years. Governments have repeatedly fought shy of bringing motions to the House. I have enormous respect for the Leader of the House. She has worked very hard on this, but as she said to me last week, it may be that somebody else is Leader of the House in future and that person might not be so keen on bringing anything to the House. My guess is that when we get closer to a general election, no Government will want to bring the matter back to the House. Therefore, much as I admire and respect her, I just do not think that her solution is the answer.

I want to say just a few other things. The first is about trying to stay in the building while the work is being done. I appeal to colleagues to think hard about that. We are talking about 10 times as much work happening on a daily basis as is happening now. That is 10 times as many people hammering, drilling, sanding down buildings, moving cabling, bringing in vast amounts of material and all the rest, and 10 times as many portakabins. Earlier today I was on the roof of Westminster Hall, looking at the work being done there. Because people have complained about the noise, the people there are only able to work at night, and guess what that has done to the budget? It has tripled it. When work was being done on the Royal Gallery, the House of Lords said, “We can’t hear ourselves think,” and so decided that the work could be done only at weekends and at night, and guess what? That added £1 million to the work. The truth of the matter is that if we try to stay, we will dramatically increase the cost of the work, and we will be going bananas.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Talking of which.

[Tom Tugendhat]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. Does he agree that an emergency decant, should for example we discover something horrible in the woodshed—or rather, in the basement—or should something go wrong with clearing the asbestos, would massively increase the costs of us having to find alternative accommodation?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, which is why, incidentally, to those who say, “If we ever move out, they’ll never let us back,” I say, “Who is this magical ‘they’ who’s going to prevent us from coming back in?” The truth is that whether we choose to come back will always be a decision for Parliament. If future generations decide that things should be done differently, good luck to them, but we should not make a decision now that makes it impossible for us to protect this building, because—this is precisely the point that the hon. Gentleman made—the most certain way for us to be permanently excluded is to have a catastrophic failure in the building, such as a fire or a flood.