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Lord Beamish (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 18 November 2025

Debate

China Espionage: Government Security Response

Contribution

My Lords, as chair of the ISC, I welcome the Statement. As the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, most of it, if not more, was covered in our 2023 report on China. The reason China has got a foothold here has to be looked back on very clearly, including whether the golden era for UK-China relations during the coalition Government allowed it to get a foothold in a whole host of areas. Obviously, my main concern is academia, where universities—because of the decisions on the funding of universities—have now become dependent on the drug that is Chinese student finance. I urge the Minister that, if we are going to tackle that—not just the reliance of individual university institutions on Chinese finance but the intimidation of individuals who attend them—we need to take a very robust approach to it.

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