Contribution
My heart goes out to the missing crew member, their ship’s company, and their loved ones at home. Let us all hope for good news.
I thank the Minister for advance sight of this statement, and for his time last week, but the revelations today are no surprise. They are the latest in an ever-growing list of actions by the Chinese Communist party to interfere in our sovereign affairs and try to undermine our democracy and our country. The pernicious nature of this threat should not be underestimated. I welcome the Minister’s plans for a new proscription tool to counter foreign interference, and the fact that the Government have completed the work that we started of stripping surveillance equipment manufactured in China from sensitive sites. On education, however, the plans to discuss foreign interference with vice-chancellors are quite inadequate. I have had those discussions, and faced nothing but naivety and intransigence. They are also useless unless the Government are willing to use their teeth to defend those institutions that are under attack.
Earlier this month, Norway and Denmark alerted us to the existence of dual-use kill switches in Chinese-made electric buses. These switches allow China to switch off buses and bring chaos to transport systems. Can the Minister give an update on the investigation of our bus networks, and the chips that have been placed in Ministry of Defence vehicles, which require our members of the armed forces to be silent while travelling around our country in defence of our nation?
On academic freedom, Sheffield Hallam University was blackmailed by Chinese security services into cancelling research on state-sanctioned Uyghur slave labour. What update can the Minister give on the police investigation into that, and the coercive campaign? Will he admit that it was a mistake for his party to cancel our university free speech provisions, and will he convince the Government to reintroduce them, now that the threat is on the front pages of our newspapers? It is only by drawing a red line and taking action to establish some form of deterrence that we will see threats abate.
In the face of this hostility, the Government appear to be delegating difficult conversations to officials. On the collapse of the case against Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, the Government saw fit only to call in a senior official to have a conversation with a Chinese chargé d’affaires. Last week, Hongkonger Chloe Cheung said that the Government were not keeping her safe. The Government’s response to a bounty being put on her head, and to kidnap notes being delivered to her neighbours, asking them to take her to the Chinese embassy, was the same rhetorical tap on the knuckles. This is insufficient if the Government seriously want to deter further attacks on our country.
We Conservative Members recognise the threat from the Chinese Communist party, and we want to work with the Government, so we have a few suggestions. The Minister today stated that the Chinese Government are using proxy organisations to interfere in, and commit espionage against, our democracy. That is literally why we introduced the foreign influence registration scheme. Instead of carrying out their communications plan and holding the private, closed-door meetings announced today, we urge the Government to put China in the enhanced tier of the FIR scheme. In opposition, Labour supported our National Security Act 2023, yet in government, it refuses to use it as it was designed. That is perverse. Why vote for a defensive tool, only to leave it on the shelf when we are under threat?
The decision on the new Chinese embassy is expected shortly. We would refuse permission for that embassy. If the Government will not, will they at least require the Chinese Government to pay for sensitive underground cables to be re-routed away from the embassy? We hear that multiple Government visits to China are planned before Christmas and the new year. Will those now be cancelled? What message does it send when, despite an attack on this House and our Parliament, Ministers are happily jetting off to stride down red carpets with the Government responsible?
Finally, we need a comprehensive audit of our vulnerabilities across our society and our economy. The recent export controls on critical minerals demonstrate China’s willingness to weaponise its economic heft. We need to know where our vulnerabilities lie, and to increase our resilience accordingly. That means publishing the shelved China audit, because how can an entire civil service base its posture on a document that most will never be allowed to read? It needs to be published. Sensitive parts can be redacted. As for the possibility of the Chinese authorities taking any offence at its contents, the contents are down to their actions, not ours.
We face an acute threat to our democracy, and in the face of that threat, we have yet to see repercussions for the Chinese Communist party. To defend our nation, the Government must have a firm policy of deterrence. Justice was denied last month, but the Government have the tools and the ability to act. When will they take action to make it clear to the Chinese Communist party that it will not get away with attacks on our democracy?
The Government can cancel the Joint Economic and Trade Commission talks, impose sanctions, cancel propaganda visits to China and put the Chinese Communist party in the enhanced foreign influence registration scheme tier. When they do any of those things, the Opposition will be here, ready to help. Until that time, the Chinese Communist party will think that our country is unwilling to deter future acts of hostility and unwilling to defend our democracy or our country.