Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the Joint Committee for this excellent and important report. It refers to concern about transnational oppression by China and Russia, as have many noble Lords in this debate—and you do not get much more extreme than attempted and actual assassination by Iran and other states. Speaking as the founding, now former, co-chair of the All-Party Group on Hong Kong, and having often spoken about concern for Hong Kong and other Chinese students at UK universities, these are very grave concerns.

Today, I am going to talk about another state—a rising threat. At the moment, most of this is in the form not of physical threat, obviously, but intimidation. We know that intimidation and physical threats are often closely linked, and that intimidation can have very serious effects on people’s lives.

I start with what is really a quite mild case, involving the head of a British public relations company about whom that state’s embassy—the official representatives of its Government—complained to the companies for which his firm worked. They complained not about the quality of his work or his representations but about private social media posts, which were critical, in very mild terms, of the leader of the state that the embassy represents. The individual has now left the company. It is called Hanover, and one of its key clients is the American Pharmaceutical Group. Yes, the state is the United States of America.

The Financial Times reports that the embassy refused to continue to support the US pharma firms unless the executive was fired. These, of course, are the same pharmaceutical companies which, with embassy help, have considerably raised the costs of drugs for our NHS.

Some might say that that is just the rough and tumble of capitalism, the unequal and all too often subsidiary position the UK finds itself in in relation to the US—“it is only that individual’s economic rights that are affected”. But, of course, what about his successor, and what about his and others’ free speech rights?

Let us look at the other end of the scale: the top of society. The US Vice-President JD Vance last year shocked Europe at the Munich security conference by attacking democratically agreed laws, debated in this very Chamber, to protect women’s healthcare rights. JD Vance suggested that the US might not live up to treaty obligations unless we changed our laws. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, spoke about Chinese assault on the rule of law here; we are seeing an assault from the US on our rule of law.

This year, of course, the speech from Secretary of State Marco Rubio was much better received. The tone was much more conciliatory, but the content was no different. It attacked the obstructions of international law, the very human rights we are talking about, and suggested that this hamstrings future western colonialism. He asked—you might say demanded—that Europe join again with the US to expand with missionaries and soldiers to build vast empires extending across the globe, which is definitely not in line with human rights.

What does this mean practically? I spoke earlier today in the EU debate about the precautionary principle. Whether we are talking about Chinese technology or other forms of transnational repression, we might wish that we acted earlier. Perhaps we should apply the precautionary principle, particularly when it comes to US tech firms and their hold over our society and individuals, and to protecting not just British individuals or the US diaspora, but our whole rule of law and human rights, against a new threat of transnational repression.