Peter Swallow
Main Page: Peter Swallow (Labour - Bracknell)Department Debates - View all Peter Swallow's debates with the Cabinet Office
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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John Slinger
I do not have any other information on that point, but I do believe that Conservative Members ought to look in the mirror and acknowledge the decisions taken by the previous Government. Let me turn to myth No.2—
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
On that point, it is really important to clarify why such tight definitions were important in the first place. That is because the case was brought under a 1911 Act of Parliament, not a modern, up-to-date Act of Parliament. Is that not why we are in this situation?
John Slinger
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is absolutely, deeply regrettable that the Conservative party, when in government, did not reform legislation sufficiently well.
Myth No. 2, another myth that the Tories will continue to spread, is that the Labour Government interfered with the delivering of evidence. The shadow Home Secretary has made the accusation that
“the government chose to deliberately submit inadequate evidence that led to two alleged spies getting off scot-free.”
This accusation simply has no real substance, as the Prime Minister has confirmed that no Labour Ministers or special advisers were involved with the provision of evidence for this case.
I shall move on to what I believe all Members across this House know to be true—truism No. 1. It is dangerous to undermine public confidence in the Government on matters of national security for party political advantage. Truism No. 2 is the more important one. It is perfectly possible to hold two thoughts in your mind at the same time: one is that China is clearly a strategic rival to the UK in certain areas, and another is that it is a vital partner, whether on the Security Council, in tackling global challenges or, of course, for trade and investment.
I will conclude, taking the advice of Madam Deputy Speaker, by saying that the Conservatives really do need to look in the mirror on this issue. This Government are acting with integrity.
Sir Geoffrey Cox (Torridge and Tavistock) (Con)
This has been an interesting experience, almost revisiting ancient times with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) leading for the Government on this debate. While I have a great deal of sympathy with his position, I cannot sympathise with his rather bland, anodyne account of the events to date. What is clear, and it is an apophthegm often imbibed with one’s mother’s milk, is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, it is almost certainly a duck.
The problem in this case is that the Government were never prepared to describe that animal as a duck. They must have known from a very early period; indeed, the first senior Treasury counsel said yesterday that, even in August, he had made the point abundantly plain to the Government that unless they reconsidered their approach and described the blasted animal as a duck, the case would go down the pan. There was nothing to prevent the Government, through their expert witness, from saying, “In our view, China was a national security threat in 2021”—nothing at all to prevent that.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
Respect for democracy is fundamental to our British values, and to who we are as a country, but the world is increasingly an unstable place, and we can no longer be complacent about the multiple threats that our democratic norms and values face. Threats are coming from China, as we see from this espionage case, but also from other malign states, such as Russia and Iran. It is the job of all of us in the House to stand up to those threats and work in the interests of national security.
When I held a roundtable with my local Hong Kong community earlier this year to discuss proposed changes to immigration, I was saddened, but unfortunately not surprised, to hear that many members of the community chose not to attend a meeting with their local MP because they were worried about the long arm of the Chinese state, and the repercussions of the Hong Kong national security law on them and their family. Transnational repression is being used by hostile states to directly prosecute those whom they see as their enemies overseas, but it also has a wider, chilling effect, leaving whole communities afraid to engage with their basic democratic rights.
Meanwhile, I grow increasingly concerned about the influence of foreign actors on misinformation and disinformation online. In recent months, I have seen how anonymous posting on local social media groups in my community can have a pervasive effect on community cohesion and our democracy. Social media companies need to step up and do more on that. I am not suggesting that every anonymous social media post is from a Russian bot, but we all know that Russia and other states are using social media against us.
There have been direct attacks on our democracy, too, such as those from these Chinese spies. Last month, Reform UK’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, pled guilty to eight counts of bribery; he was bribed to make statements in favour of Russia while he was a Member of the European Parliament.
I turn to the China spy case. Part of the reason why the case did not proceed to trial and the two gentlemen could not be prosecuted was prevarication over reforming the Official Secrets Act. The Act was introduced in 1911 —it predates the first world war—and despite unanimous recognition for at least eight years that it was completely out of date and not fit for purpose, the previous Government failed to act to fix the holes in our national security laws and left our country ill defended.
Sir Julian Lewis
Of course, the previous Government did subsequently introduce new legislation. However, under the 1911 Act, if the Government had been prepared to state that China was a threat, the case could have gone forward and would likely have been won. The hon. Member cannot blame that Act.
Peter Swallow
The case collapsed because under that Act neither Government provided enough evidence. The witness statements issued by the previous Government are a matter of record, and they do not state anywhere unequivocally that China is a threat. In fact, multiple Opposition Members have said on multiple occasions that it would not be possible to describe China unilaterally as a threat. That is a matter of record.
Chris Law
In 2023—we are going back a couple of years—Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee report on China warned
“that China’s view of an ideal future…would be antithetical to the UK’s interests”.
In its conclusion, China was detailed 11 times as a “threat”, an “acute threat” or a “grave threat”. Why can the UK Government today, based on a report from more than two years ago, not describe China as a threat?
Peter Swallow
The Minister quite clearly set out the range of threats posed by China. I am clear that China poses a threat. I also think that we have to be mature enough in this Chamber to accept that the way we deal with the second-largest economy in the world has to be to recognise the threats it poses to our democracy and our national security, but also all the ways in which we have to work with it.
I stood for election on a manifesto that committed to our co-operating with China where we can, challenging them where we must, and competing with them where we need to. I genuinely think that is a mature way of dealing with a state that does not share our values, and that poses a great threat to our democracy and to the way that citizens and residents of this country operate within a democracy, but that is also the second-largest economy in the world. As the former director of MI6 said on the “Today” show on the BBC this morning,
“we need to learn to walk and chew gum at the same time.”
We need a mature acceptance of the risks that China poses, and that means recognising that we cannot just walk off the pitch and not deal with the second-largest economy in the world. It is infantile and not realistic to suggest otherwise.
If the new Act had been in place sooner, it is possible that these men could have been prosecuted successfully under it. I therefore have a simple question for Conservative Front Benchers, and they need to be clear on this point: why did they wait so long to replace a vital piece of security legislation, and make sure that we had the appropriate tools to keep this country safe? I am happy to take interventions on that point.
Peter Swallow
As has already been set out, the threat from China has evolved over time. I would have loved it if the previous Labour Government had amended the Act, but it was the Conservative party that held a consultation, and then sat on the results for eight years and did nothing.
Dr Evans
I will not, because I have taken two interventions already. My worry is about what the public perceive, because it is a statement of fact that since the Chancellor went to China, decisions have been made about the Chagos islands, for example, or British Steel and £1 billion—what is going on there? A spy case has now been dropped, and there is the possibility of a super-embassy and even ID cards. My constituents are coming to me seeing a running theme.
Dr Evans
To repeat the quote we heard earlier, we need to walk and chew gum at the same time. It is easy to call China a threat, but still to engage. That is exactly what the Chinese Government do to us: they say, “We’re embarrassed. We’re upset. You promised us something”, and we just say, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry about that.” We could stand up for ourselves and say what we think. Let us not forget that we are in a trade deficit with China; it is economically in China’s interest to be working with us, as much as it is in our interest to be working with China.
My worry, though, is that the public are joining dots. The Government will say that there are no dots to be joined, but the longer this goes on and the more incidents come out, it becomes harder to make that argument. That brings us full circle to where I started, because this is about transparency and releasing the documentation.
Peter Swallow
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving way and for bringing us back to where he started. He started his speech by suggesting that the Government were intervening unduly in this case. He then went on to suggest that the Government did not intervene unduly enough. Can he be clear on this: is his position and that of the Opposition that the Government should have interfered in an independent prosecution, or not? It is unhelpful to be saying both things at the same time.
Dr Evans
I feel I am being misquoted, because I have simply asked for all this to be resolved by publishing the information. The Government could come out and say that China is a threat. I have also said that we can call it a threat and work economically with the Chinese. That is what I hope will happen. [Interruption.] I will finish at that point.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
My hon. and right hon. Friends have set out well how the Government’s account of how the case collapsed simply does not add up, so in the interests of time I will make just this one point. If, as many on the Opposition Benches and I suspect to be the case, the Prime Minister’s account of this situation is not factually correct, he has allowed this case to collapse to win favour in Beijing. That is a profound state of weakness.
Even if the Prime Minister’s account of the situation is true, that means he does not have control over his officials. Serious national security decisions are being made without his knowledge. That, too, is a profound state of weakness. It is important to establish the facts.
Katie Lam
I regret that I cannot; I promised to speak briefly.
Whatever the facts may be, this is not how serious countries behave. Regardless of our politics, we should all want our country to be respected by our friends and our adversaries. Under this Government, our friends see us as unreliable and our adversaries see us as a pushover. It is time for the Government to tell the truth and undo some of the harm that they have done to this country’s standing in the world.