Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)

I thank the noble Lord. I am not sure I will be able to answer all his questions, but I will reflect on Hansard and come back to him. He may appreciate which ones I might not want to answer. With regard to the fundamental question, which is about totalitarianism—that is, authoritarian versus democratic systems—which is at the heart of this, the national security strategy sets out the intent of: “Authoritarian states … to out-compete liberal democracies”, including “competition from China” and its “assertion of state power that encompasses economic, industrial, science and technology policy”. We firmly recognise that the UK and China have significant differences, including on economic values and freedoms, Hong Kong, support for Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine and matters of national security. We engage confidently and pragmatically with China, including robustly raising these differences. The noble Lord highlighted my language earlier. We are clear that we will co-operate with China where we can but will challenge where we must. That will continue to be the case, including on transnational repression. I want to be very clear. The UK Government will not tolerate any attempts by foreign Governments to coerce, intimidate, harass or harm their critics overseas, especially in the UK. We continually assess potential threats in the UK and take protection of individual rights, freedoms and safety very seriously. Counter- terrorism police will continue to offer training to all police forces where they believe that this will be happening. On the other points, I revert to the noble Lord.