Contribution
My Lords, it was a delight to listen to the noble Lord, and a pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, give his maiden speech. Some of us may have been sceptical about the achievements of some new Peers in their past local government or party-political careers, but today we have a new Peer who has done things and achieved a tremendous lot, as a provost of Worcester College and as the chair of Stonewall and of the EHRC. I read that he was concerned a few years ago about interference in the work of the commission by Boris Johnson, so I hope he will express concern that the current Government are also messing around with the commission’s report on implementing the Supreme Court decision. However, he is a very able man and a great addition to this House, and we look forward to hearing from him. Having been so nice about his new noble friend, I hope that the Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, will allow me an extra 30 seconds.
Once again, I congratulate my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on yet another frightening masterpiece. The United Kingdom must confront a stark reality: transnational repression is not an abstract threat but a deliberate, systematic campaign by authoritarian states to silence dissent, intimidate communities, and export coercion into our streets and institutions. The main threat comes from China once again.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that transnational repression
“risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those who have sought safety within its borders”.
We have seen the tactics these oppressive states use: surveillance, online harassment, threats to family members abroad, the operation of unofficial police outposts, bounties on activists, misuse of international law enforcement tools and even attempts to enforce foreign judgments in our own courts. Beijing has deliberately built an extraterritorial legal architecture—a long-arm jurisdiction that is being used to suppress free speech, coerce return, and weaponise ordinary legal and commercial processes against exiles and critics.
Let me be plain: this is an assault on the rule of law in our United Kingdom. When foreign states use bogus Interpol red notices as political instruments, seek to enforce civil judgments abroad to punish dissidents, or cultivate networks that monitor and intimidate diaspora communities on our soil, they are attacking the fundamental freedoms that it is our duty to protect.
The UK’s response under all Governments has been feeble. We have failed to use the National Security Act, the foreign influence registration scheme or sanctions regimes with the urgency, coherence and transparency that this threat demands. Worse still, we have put trade and access to cheap Chinese goods ahead of the defence of the freedoms of our people. China is a real threat to our fundamental freedoms and way of life, yet our Governments call it a strategic partner and we kowtow to it. That must change. I therefore propose five immediate, practical steps out of the 37 recommendations in the report that we should adopt without delay.
First, we should adopt a formal UK definition of transnational repression and mandate routine data collection across police forces and relevant agencies so that we can measure scale, patterns and perpetrators. Secondly, we should designate China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme where objective threat assessments support it, and publish clear guidance on how FIRS data will be used to investigate TNR. Thirdly, we should create a dedicated national TNR reporting and support hotline—one that is multilingual and staffed by trained specialists—and require anonymised data from that service to feed threat analysis. Fourthly, we should reform judicial comity and foreign judgment enforcement rules so that our courts do not blindly accept that Chinese courts have similar integrity to ours. They do not, as we have seen in the appalling case of Jimmy Lai. Fifthly, we should lead an international push to reform Interpol procedures, working with Five Eyes, the G7 and other like-minded partners to stop the abuse of red notices being used to punish political critics.
These are essential measures to defend our citizens, our institutions and the open society that we cherish. The United Kingdom is a refuge for those fleeing persecution. If we allow foreign states to turn our streets, campuses and courts into extensions of their coercive apparatus, we betray that duty. Let us act now—decisively, coherently and in concert with our allies—to protect those who look to Britain for safety and to defend the rule of law at home and abroad.