Transnational Repression in the UK (JCHR Report)

Lord Lemos Excerpts

Thursday 26th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

That this House takes note of the Report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights Transnational repression in the UK (7th Report, HL Paper 160).

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Lemos) (Lab)]

My Lords, before the debate gets under way, I want to highlight the four-minute advisory time for Back-Bench contributions. This is designed to ensure that the debate can finish within two hours, in line with the usual timings for Thursday debates, and that the House can rise at a reasonable time. I therefore urge noble Lords to keep their remarks within four minutes to meet these ends—of course, with the exception of the mover, the noble Lord, Lord Alton.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to open today’s debate on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report Transnational Repression in the United Kingdom. As chair of the JCHR, I pay tribute to my committee colleagues from both Houses and thank the terrific JCHR team, headed by our clerks Rhiannon Hollis, Moriyo Aiyeola and Lauren Marchant. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, the Minister and the officials who have briefed him for the work that has been done by him and his colleagues in the department, but especially the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, who will make his maiden speech today. We greatly look forward to hearing that.

Our report highlights the absence of a universally accepted definition of transnational repression—TNR. We recommend that the Government adopt a formal definition, systematically collect data, and develop monitoring mechanisms. We agree with James Lynch, the co-director of Fair Square, who told our committee that we are missing a

“big opportunity to properly monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy”.

We query the way in which TNR is treated in diplomacy with hostile states, and contend that failure to incorporate it as part of the UK’s diplomatic engagement with perpetrator countries

“risks … emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate TNR activities”.

The report calls for international co-operation with other democracies—we mention the example of Canada—in combating TNR, and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, we call for a national hotline for victims, and more systematic, specialised training for police officers to identify the early warning signs of TNR.

In paragraph 96 of the report, we say:

“The UK’s response to TNR would benefit significantly from more structured and consistent coordination across government departments”.


Andrew Scurry, the director of the homeland security group at the Home Office, told us that:

“We are looking still with the police … at how best to gather data and more information, and indeed intelligence”.


It would be good for the House to hear how that is going.

During a discussion this morning with academics from Bristol and Oxford Universities, facilitated by the international affairs parliamentary hub, I was struck by their finding that TNR is profoundly on the rise in the UK. This chimed entirely with our own committee’s view that TNR is not a peripheral or minor issue. MI5 says that, in 2024, the number of its state-threat investigations jumped by some 48%, with more than 20 threat-to-life cases relating to Iran alone, since the start of 2022. The true scale, though, is likely to be far greater still, given the significant underreporting and the often covert nature of TNR criminality.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights commends the National Security Act 2023, which created new offences relating to foreign interference in the UK, and did not identify any significant gaps in criminal law related to TNR. We do, however, want the existing laws to be better used and more effectively enforced. It is essential that the legal framework remains agile and responsive to evolving threats. We recognise the rapidly evolving nature of digital technologies, and the increasing sophistication of methods used to conduct TNR. We call for the Government to keep relevant legislation under regular review, and have asked for an annual update to the JCHR on the effectiveness of current legislation in addressing evolving digital forms of TNR.

Our country has a long history of giving protection to courageous dissidents being hunted down by dictatorships. During my early days as a young Member of Parliament in the 1980s, I met extraordinary heroes who had escaped the Soviet bloc and continued to work for the liberties that would ultimately come with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back then, and today too, dictatorial regimes had a long reach.

Let me draw on the evidence given to our inquiry to illustrate the nature of the threats that people resident in the United Kingdom now face. A number of noble Lords have experienced a small dose of transnational repression themselves: in my case, collecting sanctions from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. But this is small beer in comparison with some of the appalling intimidation experienced by others. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether China has lifted sanctions on parliamentarians’ families, and on others, including Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who chaired the Uyghur Tribunal, Dr Jo Smith Finley, Essex Court Chambers, and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.

Will the Minister also comment on the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed by the CCP on the head of Chloe Cheung, a 19 year-old young woman, and others in the United Kingdom? Read Chloe’s courageous testimony to our inquiry, waiving her anonymity, in which she described the profound effect that this CCP targeting has had on her. She spoke recently against the proposed CCP mega-embassy in London, fearful that, if it is built and she is snatched, she will, to use her words, “never come out”.

Read the evidence of the brave Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut, whose relatives in China have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, forced to publicly condemn her in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals. She movingly described to the committee what she called the “human cost” of speaking out. Read the evidence of the disgraceful treatment of Professor Michelle Shipworth by University College London, and the shameful mistreatment of Sheffield Hallam’s Professor Laura Murphy following her brilliant work on Uyghur slave labour in Xinjiang.

Their treatment is an affront to British sovereignty, to academic freedom and to free speech. It is transnational repression driven by overreliance on Chinese money. Let us note too that, earlier this month, MI5’s Ken McCallum identified threats to universities, students and academics at a meeting he convened with 70 vice-chancellors. How will the Government implement a direct reporting route on foreign interference, implement the complaints scheme in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and strengthen overseas transparency regulatory powers?

Unsurprisingly, the JCHR received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme—FIRS. It was an issue raised by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC the lawyer of British citizen Jimmy Lai, incarcerated in Hong Kong for five years and in solitary confinement. She told our inquiry that, as his lawyer, she had been subjected to threats and harassment. She criticised the feeble response to bounties and sanctions against parliamentarians and described how peaceful protestors in Manchester had been assaulted by CCP diplomats. She said:

“We send such a terrible message if we have a situation where a diplomat can drag an activist by the hair into the Manchester consulate … and the use of language such as calling individuals rats who need to be hunted down worldwide, and yet … China is not in the enhanced tier”.


The JCHR concluded:

“Decisions on which countries to specify under the enhanced tier of FIRS must be guided by objective assessments of threat, not influenced by broader foreign policy considerations. We recommend that the Government specify China under the enhanced tier of FIRS”;


and that

“The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 do not capture the full range of TNR tactics”;


and that China’s omission from the enhanced tier

“risks undermining the credibility and coherence of FIRS”.

The JCHR found:

“China conducts the most comprehensive TNR campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK”.


I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to my previously voiced proposal—which appears at paragraph 90 on page 37 as a JCHR recommendation—that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Lord himself served with great distinction, should have confidential oversight of FIRS and sanctions and which, like appointments of high-level British ambassadors, or the expulsion of diplomats connected to TNR, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

Such scrutiny should also extend to issues of proscriptions. Let us consider Iran and the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We heard shocking evidence of the lethality of Iranian transnational repression. We heard about an Iranian journalist left seriously wounded on the streets of London and about intimidation of BBC Persian journalists and their families. One witness, Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, almost lost his life in a vicious brutal attack by Iranian operatives. He told the JCHR that “cultural centres” in the UK are used as fronts for surveillance operations targeting members of the Iranian diaspora. Reporters without Borders told us:

“Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualised abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families (including children), the circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images”.


In this week marking the fourth anniversary of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, we should consider also how Putin’s regime has engaged in the most terrible war crimes and egregious forms of transnational repression. We can recall the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. But Russian TNR comes in other form too. The JCHR received evidence relating to the misuse of SLAPPs to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other critics.

Although SLAPPs are typically initiated by private individuals rather than states, we heard that they are often used as a TNR tactic. Susan Coughtrie, the director of the Foreign Policy Centre, told us that individuals “closely aligned” with the state are utilised to carry out TNR through legal harassment. She cited the case of Catherine Belton, the journalist and author of the book Putin’s People:

“She was pursued originally by five oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, but also Rosneft, which is the Russian state gas company, so there was a very direct link there … to the Russian state”.


The inquiry found that SLAPPs are increasingly used to silence and intimidate people who expose or criticise the actions of authoritarian regimes.

The committee would also like the Government to look at the cost and stress of lengthy legal action, provide a clear timeline for a review of the effectiveness of the SLAPPs provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and ensure that future legislation deals with SLAPPs that are not related to economic crime.

Our inquiry also found that Interpol red notices had been issued without the knowledge of those targeted, leaving people uncertain about whether they can travel without risk of detention. We concluded that red notices are being systematically exploited to pursue political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists beyond national borders.

Beyond Russia, Iran and China, the committee received credible evidence that a number of states had engaged in acts of transnational repression on UK soil. The evidence included allegations concerning Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

I draw particular attention to the evidence and testimony given to our inquiry concerning Eritrea by Martin Plaut, the accomplished former BBC journalist, author and academic. The UN special rapporteur on Eritrea told the inquiry that those who refuse to contribute a tax that is levied on the diaspora are

“considered government opponents and face harassment, intimidation and ultimately social isolation”.

I welcome an update on what the Government are doing about this.

In the last few days, I have received additional disturbing depositions, one of which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, will refer to in her remarks. I received evidence also about a Burmese artist who has been targeted, and I will send the depositions to the Minister, because they are outside the scope of the inquiry.

Let me end. With our national security interests and way of life threatened on a scale unparalleled since the 1930s and 1940s, democracies must act together in strong alliances to combat multipolar threats to our way of life. We are fools to take for granted our privileges and freedoms, including the right to think, to speak and to believe—even to live. All over the world, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under concerted attack. We have been far too complacent and dependent on the states which threaten us, and insufficiently focused on resilience. Transnational repression is a harbinger of far worse to come.

Our committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect people who have sought safety within our borders, such as the witnesses to whom I have referred. But we also found that a failure to deal robustly with TNR and the malign activities of hostile states will also increasingly put the UK’s indigenous population at risk today. Debates such as this will bring the JCHR report to a wider audience and I hope that noble Lords who have participated—and I am grateful to them all—will circulate its findings far and wide. I beg to move.