Oral Answers to Questions

David Reed Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

In recent months, our European allies have become increasingly forthright in publicly naming hostile states responsible for attacks on their countries, yet Britain appears reluctant to do the same, even though the Foreign Secretary has spoken very clearly about hybrid war. Over the weekend, it was reported that the crippling cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover was state sponsored. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that failing to publicly attribute such attacks only emboldens our adversaries and, more importantly, will he now name the state believed to be responsible for this unprecedented attack on British industry?

[Ed Miliband]

I will not get into the details of that attack today, but we are absolutely happy to name those who are engaging in information warfare, and I have talked a lot in this session about Russia and what it is doing. The Prime Minister could not have been more eloquent at the UN General Assembly in talking about the more than £1 billion a year that Russia spends on information warfare. I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his place, but I think there is cross-party agreement on this issue. We all want to tackle the information warfare that we face, and I look forward to working with Members from across the House in doing so.