Tom Tugendhat

First, I want to say that one of the proudest things I was able to achieve over the past few years was the BNO visa route, which was a correct correction of a mistake made by this House nearly 40 years ago. I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who was in her place as shadow Foreign Secretary a few moments ago, was able to introduce it when she was Home Secretary. The support I received from the Minister at the time was also gratefully received. Turning to the threat to activists, as someone who is sanctioned and who occasionally gets letters to my home and text messages from random Hong Kong and Beijing numbers, I can only imagine how much more threatening that activity would be if I had connections or relatives in Hong Kong and mainland China. Will the Minister assure me that he is advertising as widely as possible the role of the counter-terrorism police in fighting not just terrorism, but the state threats that are appearing before us? The reality is, we do not expect war today to take its old nature of massed armies or invasions. We are instead seeing a pernicious undermining of the confidence in the British state and the credibility of our ability to protect our citizens and friends, which, in turn, undermines not just our position, but our economy and the freedom of our citizens.