Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I was reminded that it was only in 2015 that the then Chancellor George Osborne declared the creation of a “golden decade”. I wonder how long it lasted. At the very least, this decision will relocate China’s comprehensive security and surveillance efforts on to one huge 21st-century site. We believe it will amplify the threat and potentially endanger the security of vital financial data. It seems a clear indication of political weakness that the Government have taken this decision in the hope of furthering our relationship with China. This concession, along with issues such as the Government’s consistent failure to place China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and their total failure to invoke sufficient legal protection against transnational repression of Hong Kongers, reinforced this message of weakness. The Statement talks about the Government’s desire for a relationship with China and it says that the Government do not trade security for economic access. I agree, because given the scale of the trade deficit we have with China, we are actually increasing our security risks while continuing to give China virtually unfettered economic access. It is a win-win situation for China. There seems very little on the plus side of this relationship for us, except perhaps allowing Chinese Government-controlled firms to take large financial stakes in our critical national infrastructure. Having made this announcement, what, if anything, does the Prime Minister hope to bring back from his visit? It is a transactional world. If the Prime Minister was to negotiate the freedom of Jimmy Lai, secure the removal of the bounties from the heads of Hong Kongers and close the university-based Chinese police operations then perhaps the extra risk that our security services describe flowing from this super-embassy might be worth taking. However, if all he gets is a handshake with President Xi, then he will have conceded—we will have conceded—a lot for absolutely nothing. I will say a final word on the scale of this embassy. The plans for the super-embassy include the provision of 232 flats. I believe there are currently 146 embassy employees, which means that there will be accommodation for nearly 90 extra people—an expansion of at least 60% in the number of embassy staff. So what realistically does the Minister expect all those extra people to be doing?