Football Index Collapse

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Due to the huge interest in the debate, the Minister’s time will be reduced to five minutes; the Opposition spokespersons’ time will be reduced to three minutes; and Back Benchers will have two minutes. My apologies, but that is the only way I can get you all in.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, however brutal the time limit may be. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this important debate and setting out the case so clearly—I will not do so again, given the time limits. I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and let people know that I worked for Bet365 for 15 years before I came to this place. I have long experience of the Gambling Commission, and while I was in that role, it was frequently behind the curve and asleep at the wheel, which is one of the accusations levied at them regarding Football Index. In a period during which the gambling landscape was incredibly innovative, too many firms went bust with ante-post liabilities, too many punters lost money, and there was too little redress for people. Sadly, that is again the case today.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Order. Mr Bell, because some people have left the room, we have now increased the time limit to three minutes for you.

[Aaron Bell]

That is incredibly kind, Ms Ghani. Thank you very much.

This is a particularly egregious case. Five constituents have written to me about it; I will not name them, because I do not have their permission to do so, but a number of them have lost thousands of pounds. In this case, the Gambling Commission failed to identify the key features of the product, which then changed while Football Index was running it, and the Gambling Commission did not seem to notice. Andrew Rhodes, who I believe is a good man—I will come to that in a bit—said in his response that the Gambling Commission does not believe it licensed a Ponzi scheme. That may not be the case, but he also said,

“BetIndex was not recruiting enough customers to compensate for depleting its financial position”—

as it did by increasing the dividends—

“and ultimately collapsed as a result.”

If such a company is not recruiting enough customers to pay out the ones it already has, that looks like a Ponzi scheme to me.

It is clear that the ultimate blame lies with the operator. We have already heard a call for the directors be held to account, which I absolutely support, but we must be better at protecting people, as a Government and as a state. As I said, I have five constituents involved. I support what the hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said about people wanting restitution and justice as well as compensation.

I am also very concerned that these people are vulnerable in other ways now. Football Index is finished, but there are other online products out there that, in my opinion, share some of the same characteristics. They are attractive to young men, in particular, because they look like get-rich-quick schemes. I am thinking of the crypto space and the various coins that are designed to be pumped and dumped. If people get in at the right moment they can make a profit, but if they get in too late they might lose their life savings.

Similarly, there is this ridiculous craze for non-fungible tokens, which, to their eternal shame, many football clubs and sports stars have endorsed. This is completely deplorable. I do not think those are regulated at all. Perhaps we can do something about that through the Online Safety Bill. I know that the Gambling Minister is busy with the Online Safety Bill Committee today, and I welcome his substitute, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who used to be my Whip.

This situation mostly affects young men. I believe we owe them a duty of care. My five constituents—all young men—believed, because they saw the kitemark, that the Gambling Commission understood, and almost endorsed, the product. Obviously it did not. If we license these sorts of products, then we ought to be standing behind them. We are not standing behind them now, as they are struggling to get any sort of compensation at all, although there is obviously an administration process going on.

I am sure that everyone here will have constituents who have suffered as mine have. We owe it to them to get to the bottom of this and give them some restitution. I will yield my final 20 seconds.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Beautifully done, Mr Bell.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I have a number of constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran who have lost significant sums of money as a result of the collapse of Football Index. Football Index customers were not properly protected, as we have heard today. We know that the Gambling Commission ignored warnings about the business model of the platform, and that the Financial Conduct Authority identified areas for improvement for the company.

The whole shameful episode underlines exactly why we urgently need gambling reform. Gambling must be better regulated. The Gambling Commission, which failed Football Index customers, must be more effective. Customers must have confidence that they will have better protection in future. It is very disappointing that there seems to be no route for redress for those who have suffered significant losses following the collapse of Football Index. In total, about £90 million was lost.

That platform was approved and its licence authorised by the Gambling Commission. The Gambling Commission failed to carry out due diligence, and consumers have paid very heavily for that failure. How is that fair? Why should unsuspecting customers pay for that failure? Clearly, the Gambling Commission’s conduct and competence was not what it needed to be, and its regulation and effectiveness of enforcement was not fit for purpose. One of the many lessons to learn from that is that we must have a gambling ombudsman, to ensure that consumers have a clear avenue for redress.

Those who were caught up in the Football Index scandal and lost a lot of money have been failed at every turn by the very regulation that is supposed to protect them. I urge the Minister to put that right and to not fail them again by turning his back on them. I urge him to compensate the victims and ensure a full review of the Gambling Act 2005, informed by the independent report on the regulation of Football Index. This cannot be allowed to happen again. The whole gambling industry, as well as consumers, will benefit if there is legislation and protection in which everyone can have confidence.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Before I call Ben Lake, I want to say that, because everyone’s contributions have been remarkably in time and so powerful, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson will have four minutes and the Minister will have eight. I have no doubt that he will take many interventions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston]

With regard to compensation, as I have said, there are procedures that we cannot move from. It is also very clear that we strongly sympathise—everybody strongly sympathises. As a constituency MP, I also have constituents who have been impacted by the collapse and who have lost money. We have heard today anger and frustration about the genuine hardship—both financial and, of course, mental—caused by the collapse. However, we do not think it would be appropriate for the Government to use public funds to cover losses to individuals resulting from the collapse of a gambling company. Consumers staking money on gambling is not the same as their placing money into other things, such as savings products. Furthermore, the Gambling Commission does not have any statutory powers that would enable it to offer redress for losses suffered as the result of a gambling operator collapsing.

I know that I need to leave time for the hon. Member for Blaydon to respond to the debate, so I will briefly refer to a couple of other points that hon. Members have made. On the Insolvency Service investigation, BetIndex entered into administration on 26 March 2021 and administrators are required to report to the Insolvency Service on company directors’ conduct. Following information received from the administrators and the Gambling Commission, the Insolvency Service has confirmed that it is investigating the conduct of BetIndex’s directors.

The hon. Member for Blaydon asked for a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South. I will pass that request on, rather than make a promise on his behalf, but I am sure that he will receive that request with respect. I will also ask him to respond to a couple of other items that she asked about. Please be in no doubt of the seriousness with which the Government take all the matters that have been highlighted today, and the gambling review will indeed be announced in the coming weeks.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

Ms Twist, you have about a minute in which to wind up.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

Secondly, on the position of the Five Eyes partners, those of us who have seen up close in Government just how hard the National Cyber Security Centre and the agencies work with our Five Eyes partners all know that the position that both Select Committees have come to is the right one, not only because it gilds the lily but because it acknowledges that our agencies do not look solely to the Five Eyes and that they look around the world in a way that is enviable, deep and broad. That gives us the benefit of huge expertise across the piece. In the case of both these amendments, at the risk of sounding as though I am still taking the role of a Minister, I do not believe that either of them is required. This is because I have faith in this place and in our agencies. I hope that the Bill will bolster our national security, and that it will do so without the benefit of these amendments.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I rise to speak in favour of Lords amendment 5, which was championed in the other place by my Friend, Lord Alton and which focuses on the Five Eyes partnership. The Minister said that the amendment was unnecessary, but I would argue that if she were to accept it, it would provide a safety net. Last year, the Government were forced into committing to removing Huawei equipment from the UK’s 5G network, which followed on from a ban by the US and Australian Governments. We had even found ourselves in a situation in which one of our closest allies publicly threatened to stop intelligence sharing with us for the first time in our 75-year partnership. I would argue that this amendment would ensure that we did not find ourselves in a similar place again.

Let me give the House an example. Despite being blacklisted by our closest ally for its ongoing links to the ongoing genocide in the Xinjiang, and a Chinese intelligence law which means that the company can not only harvest data but provide data back to the Chinese state, the surveillance company Hikvision continues to be embedded in councils, hospitals and city infrastructure up and down this country. Earlier this year, I led a Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee report, “Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang and UK value chains”, which also looked at data harvesting. I was deeply unimpressed with Hikvision’s response, and I want to put on record that I thoroughly support the Foreign Affairs Committee’s recent recommendation that the Government should forbid Hikvision from operating in the UK. My Select Committee continues its work on Xinjiang, and I look forward to meeting TikTok in the near future.

The amendment would provide a fantastic safety net to ensure that we do not find ourselves in a difficult relationship with our Five Eyes partners again. Why would we want to risk that? I urge the Minister to recognise the motivation behind the amendment, which would enable trust and deepen our intelligence sharing alliances with our closest partners as well as ensuring security at home. I also urge the Minister, if she has the time, to read the “Uyghur forced labour in Xinjiang and UK value chains” report, and in particular to focus on article 7 of China’s national intelligence law, which states that any company that is registered in China has to provide data to the Chinese Communist party on demand, and also to deny to any other state that it is doing so.

[Julia Lopez]

With the leave of the House, I close this debate by thanking hon. Members for their contributions to the debate and for making a number of extremely important points about national security. I am keen to address those not only now, in this legislation, but in the future, through horizon scanning for some of the challenges that are coming up.

I appreciate that some of the trust in the system has been undermined by the Huawei situation, and I am sympathetic to concerns raised about reporting, diversification and resilience. My hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) is absolutely right that this legislation is just one part of a wider security framework. The development of 5G and full-fibre networks brings new security challenges, which we must be prepared for.

This legislation sets up a strong regime for handling and removing high-risk vendors from our public networks, but it is just the start. Specific security measures will be set out in secondary legislation; there will be a lot of work to do in the next stage as we draw up that legislation, and we will be publishing a code of practice explaining the technical guidance that providers can follow to comply with legal duties.

The final secondary legislation and code will be agreed through public consultation, which I hope will provide another opportunity for hon. Members who have concerns in this area to provide adequate scrutiny. I am alive to some of those concerns, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) has outlined, MPs and Peers have had multiple chances to scrutinise and feed back on our diversification strategy, and we will continue to report on developments.

Legacy of Jo Cox

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I was not sure if I was going to be speaking today, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is why I am not dressed appropriately, so forgive me for my attire—I would have worn far more appropriate trousers—but I felt that I just had to contribute.

The hon. Member for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) gave a splendid speech. I am incredibly anxious that she wants us all to get fit. She will realise that in this place fitness, whether physical or mental, is not promoted in any way whatsoever. I must put on record that she is already doing wonderful work. She has already reached out to me and asked what support she can provide all Members in this House in helping Afghan men, women and children to be extracted out of Afghanistan. She is already considering what she can do within the capacity and the power that she has to support the most marginalised.

I am not sure what more I can add in reference to Jo that has not already been said so far, because I agree with everything, but I think that two things should be put on the record. Perhaps they have not been mentioned because these two skillsets are normally promoted by the men in the House, not the women. Jo was a natural born leader. She had the ability to deal with the smallest problem in her constituency and also, on the same day, to deal with the biggest problem on the international stage. That is incredibly rare for a person to be able to do, but she could do it. Jo did not mind who she worked with if she could achieve her endgame, which was always giving a voice to the voiceless and ensuring that those who are overlooked are represented in this place and internationally as well.

The other thing we do not talk about often when it comes to women is how clever they are, but Jo was just intelligent—she really was. She could speak on so many issues that mattered so much. Her voice would have been so relevant over the past two months in this place. She was just clever, on the local stuff, the transport stuff, the potholes stuff, the foodbank stuff, the international stuff, the terrorism stuff, the humanitarian stuff—issues around China, Russia and the middle east. She just knew so much. Quite often it is very difficult as a woman to come across as clever and also to ensure that people will still work with you, and Jo had the skill to do that.

Jo and I had a few difficult run-ins. We often did media together. I was obviously on the other side of the TV screen or next to the presenter, but we always came off in a positive way, had a hug and talked about what we were going to work on next. Just as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) has done so much tremendous work on Afghanistan—I believe that Jo would have been proud—we worked together on the genocide amendment to the Trade Bill, and no doubt she would have been one of the strongest voices on that too.

Jo had a huge impact on both sides of the House. Although she is gone, she will never, never be forgotten. On the rare occasions when Jo has pulled us all together it is important to note that it just takes one strong individual to achieve so much in a short period of time. I hope that we can remember that as we deal with far more difficult issues going forward. I want to put on record my thanks. Her family must be and should always remain incredibly proud.

Events Research Programme

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady is correct in highlighting the difference between professional and non-professional choirs. In accordance with performing arts guidance, non-professional groups of up to six people can now sing indoors. They can also perform or rehearse in groups of up to 30 outdoors, or in multiple groups of 30 outdoors, provided that the groups are kept separate. Those limits do not apply to commercial activities. We all know from our mail bags that this is an area of importance to our constituents, and we want to get choirs up and running again in all formats as soon as possible.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

I fear there is a two-tier system when it comes to data. The data tends to exist for football, motor racing, tennis and horse racing, yet there is no data to support outdoor events in my constituency. The Black Deer festival takes place in Eridge park. It is a music event. It is completely covid-safe, with track and trace and a covid manager in an outdoor area, yet it had to cancel, which has knocked our local economy and is undermining local jobs. What advice and support can the Minister give to Gill, who has unfortunately had to cancel the Black Deer festival, which was hoping to host around 10,000 people in an arena fit for 40,000?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I was very sorry to hear that the Black Deer festival has been unable to take place this year. I know that is enormously disappointing to many of my hon. Friend’s constituents and indeed to her, because I have spoken to her about this. She has lobbied very effectively on behalf of the festival and all the stakeholders, including Gill, who has also been in contact with the Department. I am afraid we have not been able to make every event, including many incredibly worthy events, ERP events, even in phase 3. But I must say to my hon. Friend that it is not true they are all sporting events; a wide variety of events—indoor, outdoor events, music events, business events and so on—are all part of the events research programme, because we want to get learnings across multiple sectors.

World Press Freedom Day

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Members participating physically and virtually must arrive for the start of Westminster Hall debates and are expected to remain for the entire debate. I also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at their email address, which is [e-mail]. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members who are here with me physically that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall debates, unless the Member is contributing.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered World Press Freedom Day 2021.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. World Press Freedom Day, which falls on 3 May, is a reminder to Governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom; a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics; and a day of support for media workers who are targets for the restraint or abolition of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for having granted time for this debate today, which has been the first opportunity to hold it since the start of the new parliamentary Session. I also declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom, which is supported by Reporters Without Borders.

This debate comes in the wake of last Sunday’s hijacking of a civilian aircraft by the Belarusian Government in order to kidnap the journalist Roman Protasevich, an outspoken critic of President Lukashenko’s illegitimate and oppressive regime. This is one of the most audacious attacks on press freedom we have seen, but it is just another example of the increasingly brazen way in which Governments seek to oppress legitimate journalism with increasing impunity.

In 2018, we saw the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi Arabian Government in the grounds of their own consulate in Istanbul. In 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a campaigning journalist who investigated corruption and organised crime and delved into visa-for-sale schemes, energy deals and Caribbean offshore companies set up for Maltese politicians, was assassinated by a car bomb planted by a professional hitman.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 50 journalists were killed around the world last year, and a further 13 have already been killed in 2021. These include Sadida Sadat and Shahnaz Roufi in Afghanistan, who worked for Enikass TV’s dubbing service and were gunned down in an alley in Jalalabad as they were walking home at around 4.30 pm. Their colleague Mursal Waheedi was shot in the rickshaw she had taken to go home. All three women were aged 20 or 21. Furthermore, in 2020, 387 journalists and media workers were held in detention: 117 of those were in China, and 34 were in the next highest country, Saudi Arabia. In the Philippines, in the five years since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power, 16 journalists have been killed in connection with their work, the latest of whom was beaten to death in May 2020.

Media freedom is being threatened not just by violent physical attack, but by the use of dubious legal procedures to intimidate or close down journalists. In the Philippines, Maria Ressa, a journalist and the chief executive of the digital news service Rappler, has been under repeated legal attack since the election of Duterte. Rappler has tirelessly investigated human rights violations and the country’s increasingly authoritarian Government, and Ressa, whom I am proud to serve alongside on the Real Facebook Oversight Board, currently faces 10 open charges against her, relating to nine separate cases. Some of those have been brought retrospectively through new laws created since the alleged offences occurred.

In this country, too, our legal system is being used to intimidate legitimate journalism through lawfare—the misuse of legal systems and principles against an opponent by seeking to damage or delegitimise them, wasting their time and money—and what is known as SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Such actions are intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of legal defence until they abandon their criticism of the opponent. The initiator of such a lawsuit does not usually expect to win, but to wear down the defendant until they succumb to fear, intimidation and mounting legal costs or exhaustion, and cease their otherwise legitimate criticism. A current example is the journalist Catherine Belton, author of “Putin’s People”, which was published last year by HarperCollins, who is facing lawsuits, along with her publisher, filed in London by four Russian businessmen, including Roman Abramovich.

Mr Abramovich has also recently forced apologies from British newspapers—The Times and The Daily Mail—for stating that he gave a yacht, Le Grand Bleu, to Eugene Shvidler, a Russian-American oil billionaire, despite the fact that Mr Shvidler had stated this himself in English court proceedings on 14 November, 2011, during the hearing of the Berezovsky v. Abramovich case. I also understand that in 2019, Mr Abramovich’s lawyers were also successful in preventing the broadcast of a BBC “Panorama” investigation. It is interesting that Mr Abramovich, who is not a resident of the UK, has not visited the country since 2018 and has not been granted a new UK visa, can nevertheless retain the services of the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis and has full access to the English courts.

Data protection legislation is also being routinely abused to make multiple requests against investigative journalists and corporate research and intelligence companies, for any information that they hold on any individual or organisation. In Australia, the Protection of Public Participation Act 2008 seeks to

“protect public participation, and discourage certain civil proceedings that a reasonable person would consider interfere with engagement in public participation.”

In the USA, high-profile public figures are also limited in their access to the courts to pursue such cases. It is time we looked at whether such reforms are required in the UK, and also to review the GDPR legislation to prevent it from being used to intimidate those engaged in legitimate investigations acting in the public interest.

We also have to consider the commercial pressures faced by the news industry today, which pose perhaps one of the greatest threats to the freedom of the press. In 2019, the Cairncross review, commissioned by the Government, highlighted that the sales of both national and locally printed papers have plunged. They fell by roughly half between 2007 and 2017, and are still dropping. In addition, print advertising revenues, which used to carry much of the cost of producing news, have fallen even faster, declining in that decade by 69%. To cut costs there have been mergers, as well as heavy cuts in staffing numbers of frontline journalists in the UK, and in that period those numbers have dropped from 23,000 to 17,000, and the numbers are still falling.

These pressures came to light recently in Australia, where an investigation by its competition authority has highlighted that for every $100 of online advertising spend, $53 goes to Google, $28 to Facebook, and $19 to everybody else. This creates enormous pressure on other organisations, particularly news companies and publishers that have in the past relied on advertising revenue to pay their journalists and investigations. The decline in ad revenue for publishers is a direct challenge to the news industry itself, which has already led to the closures of a great number of publications, and many of those that have survived have had to make significant cuts and reductions.

In order to preserve the future of public interest journalism, the Australian Government presented the news media bargaining code to oblige companies such as Facebook and Google to enter into commercial arrangements with the news industry to ensure fair renumeration for their content. It was only because they legislated to require this, and to give a regulator the power to mediate and set the term of renumeration if no deal was done, that Google and Facebook eventually did move. We have to consider what the role of journalism is in the digital age, where people increasingly use the internet as their primary source of news and information. The most recent Ofcom “Media Nations” survey, published last summer, showed that around 35% of people now regularly get their news from Facebook.

News media and the freedom of the press face a constant assault every day. Direct challenges are issued, through social media, against “the mainstream media”, which is used as a derogatory term, seeking to persuade the public that they should not believe the so-called mainstream media on anything they write, whether critical or praiseworthy, and putting people in a position where they simply do not know what they should believe anymore. In the world of social media, where algorithms of engagement drive content through those platforms, often it is the misleading or the downright lies and conspiracy theories that gain a bigger audience, are more interesting and are actively promoted by those platforms. When Parliament considers the online safety Bill later this year—it is currently in draft form—we must take into account the impact of harmful disinformation, spread through and sometimes amplified by social media, which is undermining news and, through that, democracy itself.

We need to protect journalism and the freedom of the press if we are to remain an open and democratic society. We need to recognise that those values are increasingly under attack from authoritarian Governments around the world who actively and deliberately target journalists, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, sometimes economically, but always with intent to suppress their necessary work. We need to ensure that our modern media landscape, driven by social media platforms and their engagement, still works to provide fair remuneration for journalists creating content, because if journalists cannot be paid for what they do, few will do it. The people who will win in that situation will be those who fear legitimate investigation and questioning.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]]

I compliment the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing the debate and on the way in which he introduced the subject. It is absolutely crucial and essential to all our lives that we think seriously about what press freedom actually means. In any free society, the right to know, the right to speak and the right to assemble are important and precious, and indeed are encapsulated in the 1948 universal declaration of human rights.

In considering press freedom, we should also look at media ownership and control, and the concentration of media ownership into a small number of global companies that impose news values on their outlets, which are not necessarily very open and which are often not interested in many of the poorest parts of the world but only in celebrity and the goings on in the wealthiest parts of the world. It is important that we recognise the importance of the right to know, and therefore the importance of diversity of ownership and diversity of access to the media.

As the hon. Gentleman quite correctly pointed out, many people now get most of their information from online sources, through social media and associated outlets. Many people simply do not buy newspapers and do not access newspaper websites or anything else. They rely completely on news that they believe they select themselves from various websites around the world, but they are often unaware of the complex, complicated and very efficient algorithms used to drive people in certain directions on certain stories and news issues.

We must look not only at the freedom of journalists and the importance of independent ownership of all media outlets, but at making social media accessible to everyone. Social media companies have shown themselves to be very happy to operate with authoritarian and oppressive regimes and close down access altogether to certain individuals. For example, in the middle of their strike action in Delhi, Indian farmers suddenly found that they had no access whatsoever to social media, which was a crucial outlet for them. Social media is restricted in a number of countries, and Google and others are quite happy to do deals with national Governments in order to restrict access to information. These things have to be looked at seriously and carefully. We need international agreement on this, which I will come on to in a moment.

I have in front of me the “White Paper on Global Journalism”, produced by the International Federation of Journalists, of which I am a member, in the sense that I am a member of the National Union of Journalists in Britain. This report makes for chilling reading. Since 1990, as the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, 2,650 journalists have been killed around the world. Those are the ones we know of—there may well be more. A good friend of mine, Anabel Hernández, a Mexican journalist, launched a book called “The Sorrows of Mexico” with Lydia Cacho and others at the Edinburgh international book festival three years ago. I was there. She described what she had gone through in preparing the book and in writing about the power of drug cartels, corrupt police forces and the role of the military. She described the threats made to her:

“Ever since, I have lived with 24 hour protection, if you can call that living.”

The threat never goes away. On 21 December 2014, a dozen men, armed with AK47 rifles and handguns, closed off the street where Hernández lived, and started asking her neighbours in which house the journalist lived. They deactivated the security cameras in the immediate area, including those installed in her house. She was lucky that day, because she was not at home; she was away. That is the kind of life that she and other very brave journalists live in Mexico, in Colombia, in Egypt and in other countries where journalists are consistently under threat.

We mourn those who have been killed, but there are many others in jail and the threat of jailing journalists is a form of censorship. Many of the world’s Governments know that by consistently threatening journalists, they will either tone down their reporting or simply not report what is going on where corruption, drug cartels and so on are involved. There is a kind of league table of journalists who are in prison. Globally, there are 235 of them in prison—those are the ones we know of —including 67 in Turkey, 21 in Egypt and 20 in China. They are all people who have been imprisoned because they were trying to report the truth.

The hon. Gentleman quite rightly pointed out what happened to Roman Protasevich. Obviously, it is appalling that the plane was effectively hijacked and he was taken to Belarus because he had been writing stories that were critical of its regime. Obviously, action should be taken. I am a member of the Council of Europe and my fellow members and I will make our views very well known at subsequent meetings. Unfortunately, Belarus is not a member of the Council of Europe; it is the only European country that is not a member.

Our complaints and objections about the way in which Roman Protasevich is being treated would be far more credible if the London Stock Exchange was not at the same time hosting financial servicing arrangements and opportunities to raise cash for the Belarussian Government. If we are serious about press freedom and freedoms in general, we must think very carefully about what financial institutions and others are doing.

The terrible events in Gaza and the west bank over the last few weeks and the loss of life of people both in Israel and in Palestine are obviously shocking and appalling. It is also very clear that the bombing was very effectively and efficiently targeted in Gaza. Two towers were taken out completely; they were demolished by targeted bombing. They included the offices of al-Jazeera and a number of other journalistic outlets in the region, so they could no longer effectively report what was happening in Gaza. Some brave journalists managed to use satellite phones and so on to keep in communication, but they were reporting while under fire from Israel that was quite clearly targeting those places where journalists were trying to report the reality of what is going on. And Yousef Abu Hussein, a young journalist, was killed during that whole process.

In this debate I hope that we can reflect on the bravery of journalists around the world—those who seek to speak truth to power and who try to tell us the truth about what is happening around the world. We all love newspapers; we all love news and information. However, we need to make sure that those who collect and gather that information—irritating as they often are to politicians; that is the world in which we live—are a crucial part of any democratic society.

The work done by the International Federation of Journalists and others in trying to get global agreement on the protection of journalists is very important. It is also important that the United Nations Human Rights Council continues its work on protecting journalists, and that we have an effective protection mechanism for journalists all around the world. Too many have died, too many are in prison and too many are frightened to report the news they ought to be reporting, because they are scared of what will happen to them if they do so.

We should not be complacent about our own society, either, because often in Parliament we have this sense of complacency that bad things—

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

May I ask the right hon. Member for Islington North to bring his speech to a conclusion, please? Thank you.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I apologise, Ms Ghani. I was not aware that there was a time limit. I will briefly say this. In our complacency, let us not forget brave people who have blown the whistle on the truth around the world. I think of Julian Assange and the work he has done in exposing what has happened around the world in preparation for war and other things. In some countries, he would be called a hero for being a whistleblower; here, he is called something very different. We should think of what news values and freedom of speech values are actually all about. Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Ms Ghani.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kenny MacAskill (East Lothian) (Alba)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) for securing this debate. It is appropriate that we celebrate World Press Freedom Day, because press freedom is fundamental to our democracy. It is a basic right. We all know that knowledge is power and that, equally, its absence endangers us. Press freedom allows us to expose totalitarianism, often in the face of danger, as other Members have said.

I was privileged to know James Pringle, who returned to my old constituency to vote in the Scottish referendum back in 2014. He regaled me with tales about, first, having served in the Dominican coup and then having been the first western journalist into Cambodia under Pol Pot, after the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. I pay tribute to his courage.

Press freedom is vital to democracy. I remember reading Professor Henry Milner’s book, “Civic Literacy”. It is a study of what motivates turnout in elections. A critical factor is not whether it is as easy to vote as to buy a tin of beans in a supermarket; what matters in particular is understanding, and a quality media is fundamental to that. If people do not understand the issues, they will not participate and vote. That factor is normally shown in this country in turnouts being higher in referendums, when there is a clear understanding of the issues, than in wider elections, where turnout can be significantly lower.

As other Members have said, there are obviously ongoing issues—in Saudi Arabia and Belarus, and indeed closer to home, with Julian Assange. I sympathise and agree with the points made by others across the political divide that these people require protection.

I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who was correct to point out the changes that have happened in the media. I have been writing for the Scottish media for several years now. The decline is significant. There are actions we have to take to address that and to protect the valuable newspapers that are undermined by other platforms. We should also remember that in many instances now, social media is just as important as the mainstream media.

We have looked in this country at what happened in the Arab spring. It was not the mainstream media that was the outlet letting people know, both within the countries that were part of the Arab spring, and in the wider world. It was not the papers, held by the regimes. It was social media bloggers and just people tweeting, or writing on their Facebook pages or whatever else. The hon. Gentleman was right to warn about dangerous disinformation and the challenges that we face as a society to protect our democracy. Equally, we also have to remember that it is important that we support that.

That brings me to my own situation within my own jurisdiction of Scotland. It is many years since I first studied law. I have had 20 years practising as a lawyer and seven and a half years as Justice Secretary. I never thought I would face a situation where I was condemnatory of actions that have been happening against the press in my own country.

Since the days of learning about the Gordon Airs case, HM Advocate v. Airs, I always assumed that those who were seeking to put forward information that was appropriate and fair would be protected. Yet in Scotland, in the fallout from the Alex Salmond affair, we have seen Mark Hirst, a journalist, prosecuted. The case, in which he was supported by the NUJ, was rightly rejected by the presiding sheriff in the borders. We have seen Craig Murray, a blogger and former British senior civil servant, now facing a prison sentence of eight months. That is not only shocking, but drives a coach and horses through a position brought in by the Scottish Government that there be a presumption against a sentence of imprisonment for less than a year. Their absence of criticism and their failure to comment has been quite shocking.

It is not simply cases brought by the Crown. It is the cases that have been pursued by the police, where people so much as tweeting anything that might be seen as possibly identifying a witness have faced a knock on the door from the police. That is fundamentally damaging to Scottish democracy. It is not what I expect and it has not come about by happenchance. It has been deliberate. It has been targeted. It is being driven by the Crown Office. If we are to have a free press, there has to be free reporting. That has to apply to bloggers as much as it applies to the mainstream press.

That people have been charged in Scottish courts and have faced possible terms of imprisonment for simply doing exactly the same as the mainstream press has done but not faced prosecution is simply unacceptable. There is also a reason that I am required to raise it here: it is that the position of the Lord Advocate of Scotland is no longer tenable. There has to be a separation of powers of having one individual who is both a legal adviser to the Scottish Government and also the head of the prosecution service in Scotland. That is no longer appropriate and I am disappointed that the First Minister did not seek to make it faster. It is something that has to come back to this Chamber because as a result of the Scotland Act 1998, the Lord Advocate is enshrined in statute by this Parliament. Action must be taken here as well as in Holyrood.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

I must remind Members not to comment on any live cases.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

Although that it now the case, we are but stepping tentatively in the direction of understanding these issues. I think the Trade Minister in the other place said that this Government were still determined to pursue deeper bilateral trade with China, while sanctions against many of our parliamentarians—myself included, but there are others here now—are in place. We kind of put that to one side and think that we can go ahead with trying to make these deeper relations with China, notwithstanding the fact that we also recognise that it is a remarkable threat. I simply do not understand how we square those two things and get on with it. [Interruption.] Does my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) wish to intervene?

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

No, but I will never waste an opportunity, as it is obviously a joy to intervene on my right hon. Friend, who was asking how much deeper our relationship can go with a country that has sanctioned parliamentarians in this House for basically raising human rights abuses and security concerns.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am getting so used to just doing what I am told by my hon. Friend when it is necessary that she only has to look in this direction and I give way to her—my apologies.

What I was really trying to get to the bottom of is that I do not think that this is feasible any longer. The Bill illustrates the dichotomy that lies at the heart of the Government’s position. We are trying constantly to talk about these trade relationships, but at the same time we recognise that the country that we are discussing them with is a totalitarian state that is guilty of what many, including myself, believe is a genocide of a whole ethnic group—more than one ethnic group. It is a state that is intolerant, that is suppressing democracy and free speech in Hong Kong, that is threatening Taiwan and India, and that has said that it is in possession of the South China sea. I could go on with that list. We can recognise the compilation of all those things and that there is a security risk, and yet at the same time in the other place we are told, “Don’t worry. We are still trying to do trade deals.”

It is quite interesting that we have reopened an economic and financial dialogue under a JETCO—a joint economic and trade committee—which was originally paused because of the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong. The discussions have now restarted, although we did not hear much fanfare. We sort of discovered that they had restarted, but there was no announcement from the Dispatch Box that we were restarting them. There are no dates involved, but the discussions are restarting, despite the sanctions against individuals and so on, and despite our sanctions against Chinese officials—although I still wish that we could do more.

I note also that the European Union was heading in the same direction with its agreement, only now, because of the sanctions on its MEPs and so on, it has decided that it is not going to do that. I simply raise the question: if we think that this country and this Government —the Chinese Communist party, the Government of China—are such a potential threat, should we really be trying to reopen those doors, despite the sanctions that we have in place, the sanctions that they have put in place, and the very clear threat that they now pose to our security?

I simply say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I was going to move my amendment, which would have said that the Government should immediately declare many of these companies high-risk vendors by the very nature of the security law that exists in China. However, I would also say, in support of what has been said already, that the Government need to use the internal possibilities in our Parliament. We have a Committee that is cleared to the highest level of security in these areas, and it is important that we use that Committee. If the Government get private advice from the Committee about what it thinks is going wrong with their position, I think that will benefit and improve them.

I therefore ask my hon. Friend to take my amendment into consideration and to answer that point, to think seriously about how we can strengthen the Bill further and, if he can, to make the reservations of this place felt to his colleagues in Government. We are deeply concerned about trying to ride two bicycles at the same time: recognising a deep and growing threat to democracy not just here but around the world from the Chinese Communist party, while trying to beg China to do trade deals with us, notwithstanding the fact that it behaves so badly.

--- Later in debate ---

I will end with a point that the shadow Minister made. I very much agree with the notion that Ofcom will face considerable strain. This is about confronting the known hostile nations, but this is a changing world—it is changing ever more rapidly—and new threats and new challenges will emerge. Ofcom will have to be very nimble on its feet to deal with that, and that will require the necessary resources, so we look forward to seeing what the Government’s reply will be on that front. Essentially, this debate has been an example of Parliament changing the mind of a Government. The point that has been made about the Intelligence and Security Committee is absolutely correct. Parliament does have a role to play and I very much hope that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and his Committee will have a role to play in future.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is an honour to contribute to this measured debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am fearful of lowering the tone, but I have been speaking to the Minister—I congratulate him on the amount of communication he has had with us Back Benchers about our concerns—and when I was thinking about how best I could sum up our dialogue, I recalled that Ronald Reagan once said:

“The…most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”

I think that, for a Minister, the most terrifying words are: “I’m a Back Bencher and I really am just here to help”. So without our removing the momentum, we really are here to help.

First, I need to put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for tabling the amendment, which, unfortunately, was not selected today. I also put on record my support for what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) has proposed, with the support and expertise that he can bring to the debate and legislation, and I hope that the Minister can reflect on both those opportunities down the line. There is much to welcome in the Bill, but I fear that technology can sometimes move faster than we can legislate in this country. I want to touch on two issues: one is national security and the other is resilience and diversifying our supply chain.

I will start by being very helpful as a Back Bencher. I know that the Minister may have cast his eyes on a report that I recently produced for NATO. I sit on the Science and Technology Committee and I was tasked to put together a report on science and technology threats, looking particularly at east Asia. In the report, there is a puff box that he may want to reflect on; it talks about South Korea and the amount of work that it has done in innovating and developing new technology so that it is truly resilient in its national 5G infrastructure. I believe that 85 cities will have coverage by the end of 2021, and they are not reliant on any external Government to provide them with that service, so I urge him to go away and look at what South Korea is doing and possibly see how we can become more resilient in this country.

I want to raise the subject of resilience and security because I sit on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee and we have been undertaking a report on links back to Xinjiang. However, companies also gave evidence to us that should cause some concern for the Minister, and with regard to this piece of legislation. This is basically about companies headquartered in China that have access to data we are using or manipulating, and to algorithms we are creating here in the UK.

In particular, I want to reflect on the evidence given to the Select Committee from TikTok. We invited TikTok to come in and give evidence about its algorithms and whether it is distorting them to stop information about Xinjiang and Uyghur being out on the platform. Unfortunately, the more we dug into TikTok, the more complex and concerning it got for us.

TikTok is a media company and a platform. Most kids will have access to it, and most people here may have access to it as well. However, it has a very complex ownership structure, which is why it is important that it is reflected somewhere in the Telecommunications (Security) Bill. It is important because TikTok is a subsidiary of a global parent company, ByteDance Ltd, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, but there is a China-based subsidiary of the same global parent company called ByteDance (HK) Ltd.

The reason why this should be of some concern is that when we took evidence from TikTok UK’s branch, we were told that ByteDance could in no way have access to UK data and that the two things were completely separate. However, the problem is that we can legislate in this country for what we want to do to keep our country and our people’s data safe, but when a company we are working with has headquarters in China, it has to abide by completely separate sets of rules and regulations, so we end up in a two-tier system.

Let me just reflect on what a company such as ByteDance has to adhere to. I am talking about China’s National Intelligence Law 2017. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green spoke about article 9, and I want to reflect on article 7. It states, and this has been translated into English so it may not be perfect:

“Any organization or citizen shall, in accordance with the law”—

the Chinese National Intelligence Law 2017—

“support, provide assistance and cooperate in national intelligence work, and guard the secrecy of any national intelligence work they are aware of.”

Fundamentally, companies have to hand over data when they are asked, but when they are asked by another Government—say, our Government—they have to deny that they are doing it. I am concerned about how robust our legislation is today or how robust our legislation will be going forward if companies are abiding by separate sets of intelligence laws based in China.

On a similar theme, let us take a closer look at Hikvision in particular. There was a very good recent report by Reuters, which basically states that half of London councils are using Hikvision, even though Hikvision is banned in the United States. Last week, Italian media reported that Hikvision equipment in the country was “communicating with servers” in China despite being on a supposedly closed network. I am not quite sure what “communicating with servers” means, but for me alarm bells are ringing.

The points I want to land with the Minister are: how robust is the legislation we have in place for today, let alone tomorrow, and how can we ensure that the processes to legislate in this country keep pace with the threats we are facing? I suppose the fundamental point is that China has its own National Intelligence Law, which completely contradicts what we are trying to do here in the UK. Does the Minister have any thoughts about how we can ensure that our security is not undermined by China’s National Intelligence Law? What guarantees can the Government give to constantly look at, review and update this, and also to hold to account the companies we may be anxious about?

We seem to be setting up a two-tier system: one for us in the west with the countries we work with, and a completely separate system for China and the companies it wishes to work with. I fear that, unless we put down a marker, we are going to lose out to a country such as China, and I hope that the Minister can comment on that when he comes to the Dispatch Box at the end of the debate.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow all the right hon. and hon. Members who have made contributions.

First, new clause 1 is designed to ensure that there is an obligation on Ofcom, in legislation, to report on the adequacy of its resources and assess the adequacy of the measures taken annually by telecommunications providers to comply with their duty to take the necessary security measures. The hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) referred to security, and I will speak briefly about that shortly. It also requires Ofcom to assess future areas of security risk based on its interrogation of network providers’ asset registries. That does seem to me to be standard, but it is essential that there is regulation and control of these providers, on which so many of us—indeed, probably all of us—rely so heavily. The Minister may well believe that this obligation is already included in the Government’s Bill, and if that is the case, perhaps he will confirm that that is the position. If that is the case, I am sure that that will highlighted subsequently.

I have seen, during the privatisation of water services and other public bodies, that private companies have little desire to provide any more information than is legally required. They just give us the basics of what they want us to know. I believe that there is an obligation for Ofcom to actively regulate, and to do this we must provide adequate funding. To make this happen, is it a funding issue or can we legislate to ensure that they tell us all we need to know? I will consider the words of the Minister on this imperative regulatory function.

I want to echo the concerns of the hon. Member for Wealden, who comprehensively addressed the issues that concern us all. She referred to companies that have their headquarters in China and how that impacts on us here in the United Kingdom. Our duty in this House is to our citizens: to the citizens of Strangford, to the citizens of Wealden and to everyone across the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and we probably all seek assurances on these matters. Again I look to the Minister to do that in his summing up.

New clause 2 relates to the provision of information to the Intelligence and Security Committee. Does the Minister agree that it is imperative that the appropriate Committees have the right information on security matters? I am a firm believer in the need for information share. It has always been my policy to ensure that those around me in my political life, my social life and my personal life are aware of all the issues that concern them. It is also important that MPs have all the information on board. I am also a firm believer in the chain of command. This may well be due to years of part-time service in uniform; I spent 14 years as a part-time soldier. It is really important that the chain of command is in place. However, there are also times when it is in the interests of the nation that not all is revealed, and there will be a reason for some things being classified as top level only. I understand that; I often ask the police about things that have happened back home, and I say, “Don’t tell me anything I don’t need to know, but if you can tell me, and I can tell others, let me know that.”

Our job as parliamentarians is to scrutinise the Government, to hold Ministers to account and to strive for the good of the nation, and I ask the Minister to clarify why the Government do not feel that new clause 2 is necessary. Does he, for instance, believe that this is already accounted for? If it is, perhaps he could tell us the position on that. I would like to understand the rationale behind withholding information from a regulated Committee and what constitutes high-level information that should be withheld. Again I look to the Minister, as I often do in debates in this House, for a response to satisfy me that new clause 2 is not needed.

My final point relates to amendment 1 to clause 14, which proposes:

“The Secretary of State must, in the process of carrying out reviews and drafting subsequent reports, consult the appropriate ministers from the devolved governments.”

As a Member of Parliament, I have always wished to know what the devolved Administrations are doing. In my case, that relates to the Northern Ireland Assembly. When I saw the amendments and new clauses, I assumed that this provision would have been included as a matter of course. Surely it is a matter of the greatest importance—especially in Northern Ireland, which is fast becoming the capital of Europe’s cyber- security—that the devolved Administrations, and in this case the Northern Ireland Assembly, should have a full understanding of any emerging cases. I say with great respect to everyone else in this Chamber that the cyber sector in Northern Ireland is leaps and bounds ahead of other parts of the United Kingdom. Maybe only the south-east of England can match our level of advancement. We have incredible skills and staff available in Northern Ireland, and the cyber-security sector has grown greatly. So can the Minister reference the mechanism by which this information share can take place without any amendment? Can the Minister confirm that the Northern Ireland Assembly will have a key role to play in this, and tell us how that will work within the legislation before us today?

Covid-19: Restrictions on Gyms and Sport

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Monday 23rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing the debate. We are hearing today that we will exit a national lockdown and move to a tiered approach. I am anxious how that will be prescribed. As a member of the Covid Recovery Group, I am pleased that some of our concerns seem to have been met: looking at the 10 pm curfew, opening up outdoor sports, opening up covid-safe gyms, and opening up covid-safe retail.

Covid-19 is a deadly disease—many in this room will have lost family and friends to it—but, just as we want to limit the spread of the infection, we need a long-term strategy for living with the virus that goes beyond Christmas. Our sports and gyms sector needs that certainty.

I will raise four cases with the Minister. First, on gyms, Daniel Sanger, who lives in Uckfield, wrote to me asking how we can justify that a takeaway such as McDonalds, which serves fast food, can be open, whereas he has had to close his business. Of course, he is grateful for the furlough scheme, but people have been limiting their subscriptions and a business like his may have to face further financial damage and lay off people in the future. Of course, the Minister knows that Wealden is stunning, and we have lots of golf courses. Mr Robert Hessey wants to know how he can walk down the street with one of his golfing friends but cannot play golf with them at one of our stunning golf sites in Wealden. Hopefully the Minister can explain that away.

We have a couple of local football clubs, which I want to talk about. They are low-key, local football clubs doing great work for our community. Uckfield, Crowborough and Hailsham football clubs have been put under extreme hardship with the uncertainty of lockdown. Perhaps the Minister will explain how the £550 million that was going to go to local football clubs and associations will be spent in an area such as mine.

I want to move on to the bigger picture. I hope the Minister will answer these questions, which I will try to put in the most constructive way possible. It is not rare that when large organisations face huge risk, the managers, our Ministers, tend to go native—that is, they start to become deal-makers rather than deal-questioners. Deal-makers ask what should and should not stay open, but deal-questioners ask what the real scientific evidence is behind the decisions we are taking.

Given that, I would like the Minister to address three key things. Will he work with us Back Benchers on the evidence that shows us the real impact on people’s livelihoods of every restriction that is put in place? Will he work with the Government to show us the full cost-benefit analysis of every proposed restriction? Those affect not only people’s livelihoods, but their mental and physical health. The lockdowns have been particularly harsh in East Sussex and for my Wealden constituents: we have had a very low infection rate and few beds have been taken up, but people’s livelihoods have been lost.

Finally, I ask the Minister to work with the Government to publish the models that inform the policies that they are taking forward. We, as Back Benchers, should be able to review the data that is made available to Ministers and the Government, so that we can make the best judgment on behalf of our constituents.

The cure of endless lockdowns, which we are prescribing, runs the real risk of being worse than the disease itself. It is time to start removing these restrictions. It is fantastic news that our vaccine is coming down the line. We need to ensure that people can live their lives to the fullest. Every restriction needs evidence. Surely that is the basis of good democracy.

UK Telecommunications

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I think the hon. Lady knows that we have appropriate export controls in relation to all the things that she mentioned.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concerns after recent coverage of Huawei and security apparatus in the province of Xinjiang, where human rights abuses are taking place against the Uyghur? What strategies or incentives are in place to support domestic telecoms equipment supply capabilities, to ensure that we have home-grown alternatives to Huawei?

[Oliver Dowden]

My hon. Friend is right to raise the appalling human rights abuses against the Uyghur in Xinjiang province. The United Kingdom has led in the condemnation of that, working with other countries. She talked about the importance of diversification, which several Members have raised. I am happy to report regularly to the House—indeed, I appear before the House for DCMS questions every month—and update it on the progress of all these measures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 21st December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

That is an excellent idea. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to write to colleagues across the House to explain how he set that up in his constituency and how they can benefit from doing the same.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

Happy Christmas to you, Mr Speaker, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who does not seem to have any Christmas spirit.

[Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

Humbug!

[Ms Ghani]

Does the Minister agree that national lottery funding should also be made available to smaller charities? Although they may help fewer people, in my constituency of Wealden there are very few options for vulnerable young and old people. In particular, clued-up.info in Crowborough helps teenagers; Sussex Oakleaf in Hailsham helps people with mental health issues; and the Now! Charity Group provides furniture for unemployed people and those on low income across East Sussex.

[Tracey Crouch]

I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the small charities in her constituency. Small charities provide a huge benefit in their locations. We celebrated the work of small charities on Local Charities Day last Friday, and we will continue to do all we can to support them in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

The Attorney General was asked—

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

1. What plans the Government have to implement the agreement reached by the Council of Europe on prisoner voting in the UK.

[The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)]

On behalf of the Law Officers may I take this early opportunity to wish all Members and staff of the House a very merry and, of course, lawful Christmas?

I very much welcome the decision by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to support our proposals on prisoner voting. We hope to complete implementation of those proposals by the end of next year, and we have agreed to provide an update on progress to the Council of Europe on 1 September.

[Ms Ghani]

I thank the Minister for his response, and I am pleased that an agreement has finally been reached to settle what has been a long-running dispute between ourselves and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Will my right hon. and learned Friend confirm to me and my constituents that it remains Government policy that convicted offenders detained in prison should not be allowed to vote, and that the recent agreement will not start us off on a slippery slope?

[The Attorney General]

Yes, and it is important that the Government comply with the judgment of a Court whose jurisdiction we have accepted. As my hon. Friend says, however, it is equally important that we stick to the clear view of this House and those beyond it that convicted prisoners should not vote from their cells, and they will not do so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

The Government of which the hon. Gentleman was a supporter—and I think at times a member—were the Government who brought in the Gambling Act 2005. We are now conducting the triennial review of the Act and it is important that we look at all the available evidence. I note that he made a statement over the summer about the sponsorship of football shirts, saying that a future Labour Government, should there be one, would ban the sponsorship of football shirts by gambling companies. I see the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) in the Chamber. I think that the supporters of Stoke City would be quite concerned if they were to discover that their stadium could no longer be called the bet365 stadium and that the company could no longer be a shirt sponsor. They might wonder where they would be able to purchase players from. And I just wonder what West Brom is doing in terms of its sponsorship at the moment.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

T4. Many businesses in Wealden are forced by BT to depend on slow, unreliable broadband, and they get appalling service if they are ever unlucky enough to have to contact the company. Can the Minister update the House on progress to improve rural broadband, especially in Wealden?

[The Minister for Digital (Matt Hancock)]

Yes, I can. More than 90% of homes and businesses in Wealden now have access to superfast broadband, and 16,000 homes and businesses get that because of the Government’s support for the roll-out. We recognise that that leaves just under 10% without it, which can be incredibly frustrating, so we are bringing in a universal service obligation. At the weekend, we announced a further amount of just over £600 million for the roll-out of superfast broadband to make this country fit for the modern age.