Israel and Palestine

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

I thank the Foreign Secretary for advance sight of his statement.

As we meet today, let me start with what we agree on. We agree that illegal settlements are wrong. We all agree that groups of settlers have been guilty of outrageous abuses of ordinary Palestinians and crimes against innocent civilians. We agree that some Israeli Ministers have indulged in hateful propaganda and incitement. We agree that the current path is leading Israelis and Palestinians towards a darker, more dangerous future. We agree that Hamas’s terrorist atrocity of 7 October left many Jews in Israel and around the world afraid and vulnerable. We agree that the suffering in Gaza is horrific. But we also agree that those who praise Hamas and other terror groups or see them as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people are wrong, that payments to those who are killed while attacking Israeli civilians are wrong, and that those who call for the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state and the murder of its citizens with cries of, “From the river to the sea,” are wrong. Ignoring the victims on all sides and putting at risk the viability of the two-state solution is wrong.

This is not about Israel alone, and it certainly is not about reducing the complexity of the region to a single sentence. Sadly, the Government are in the process of doing just that. When they recognised the state of Palestine, only recently, they did so against the laws we ourselves have defended since 1933, in contravention of the Montevideo convention and of the principles we have set out. When they sanctioned Israeli Ministers, they failed to make the case to many others, including the European Union, and today they are enacting a policy that the Foreign Office knows will not work.

The Government also know that this policy will harm innocents. Just 13 weeks ago, two Ministers of this Government—the right hon. Members for Lincoln (Mr Falconer) and for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant)—wrote to the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), rejecting this very policy as the economies of Palestine and Israel are too interconnected—innocent Palestinians and Israelis will suffer. Still this Government are pressing on in haste, despite warnings from the Labour Benches from the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Dr Prinsley) and from the Government’s own reviewer of terrorism legislation that turning Israel into a pariah risks sectarian division in our own country and a further rise in antisemitic violence on our streets.

As the Foreign Secretary knows, others are waiting. The Israeli election is in just seven weeks, and many have correctly argued that this action will help the extreme candidates’ campaigns, not those who are making the moderate argument for a united Israel. In the week before Rosh Hashanah and the high holy days, the Government are acting without prudence, introducing sanctions that are both light and serious. They are light because they will not actually target settlers—as the Minister for Intergovernmental Relations has said—but will be stretched to include all Israeli and Palestinian businesses, leaving many without opportunity, including those who make the pharmaceuticals that keep many British patients alive. They are serious because they risk what the Foreign Secretary has himself condemned: encouraging sectarianism and antisemitism at home, and discouraging co-operation abroad.

As such, I have six questions for the Foreign Secretary. First, on the coherence of the policy, can he confirm that the advice from his Department on the practicality of sanctions has changed so dramatically that these sanctions will in reality be targeted, not area as previously stated? Secondly, what conversations has he had with wider partners and allies to co-ordinate a full international action that might actually work, and why will he not wait for the result? Thirdly, what assessment has he made of the impact on domestic security and community cohesion in the United Kingdom, barely a year since the first antisemitic murder in our country in generations? Fourthly, what assessment has he made of the impact on our security partnerships with both Israel and the United States, which have kept Iranian regime-backed murderers off our streets for the past few years? Fifthly, what instructions has he given to the enforcement bodies to ensure that Parkinson’s, myeloma and multiple sclerosis patients will still get the drugs that keep them alive? Finally, will he let us know now what instructions he has given to the Foreign Office for the accreditation of diplomats to the Palestinian embassy should Hamas win the elections in November and send their own envoys here under diplomatic immunity?

We have seen growing antisemitism in the United Kingdom, and we have seen increasing violence against Jewish targets. The Conservative party will always reject the hate-filled sectarianism that we have seen on our streets. We can—and where appropriate, should—criticise the Israeli Government, and still defend the right of the Jewish people to a home. I place on record my and my party’s deep sadness at the violence we have seen in recent months and years, our commitment to the right of Palestinians and Israelis to live in dignity and peace, and our recognition of those who have been victims over generations. None of us here rejects the Government’s stated aim that we must do everything we can to end the cycle of violence, and we welcome the sanctions against Al-Qard Al-Hassan and the condemnation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. However, I am sorry to say that this Government are wrong. As the Foreign Office has previously stated, this policy will damage the interests of innocent Palestinians, Israelis who condemn settlements, and the British people. What we reject is not the intent, but the performative politics and acting without wide support that leaves our envoys weaker and their voices irrelevant. We know, from our own history, that we do not make peace from just one side, and nor do we make it alone.

[Ed Miliband]

I thank the shadow Foreign Secretary for his response. It is our first time opposite each other at the Dispatch Box, so let me congratulate him on his appointment—he has a proud record in Parliament as Security Minister and Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and brings great expertise to this House. However, I profoundly disagree with his conclusions. At the beginning of his speech, he mentioned a number of things that we agree on, and it is important to highlight those. I will answer his specific questions in a moment, but the underlying problem of his position is this. He supports the two-state solution with great vigour; he believes in the two-state solution; he sees the two-state solution being destroyed before our eyes; and I am afraid his prescription is to do nothing about it. There is a choice that we face in this. Do we stand by? Are we bystanders to the end of a long-established Government policy, and indeed the only hope for security and stability in the middle east, or do we act? We have chosen to act, and I think that the country—most of the country—will be with us, because we cannot simply stand by.

Let me now deal with the points made by the right hon. Gentleman. I say this with the greatest respect to him, but the voices that I listen to more than his on the Palestinian people are those of the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and Palestine’s ambassador to the UK. Both of them have been urging us to act, and have been urging us to act for a long time. I think that this is a profound point: their voices are incredibly important in this debate.

I utterly reject the idea that we want to make Israel a pariah state. I could not have been clearer in my statement about our friendship with the Israeli people, and indeed our wish to have trade with Green Line Israel, but, in a sense, we have to take a view about the occupation. If the occupation is illegal, do we want to maintain, at the level of principle, normal economic relationships? We say no. The right hon. Gentleman apparently says yes, which I think is a mistake.

Is this a coherent policy? Absolutely. As I said, it will take six to nine months to come into place, and we will have discussions with Members of the House and others, but it is a SAMLA—Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018—based sanctions regime. There are sanctions regimes involving a number of other countries. Will it be geographic? It will be in relation to the import ban. It will be focused on the settlements in the occupied territories, and we will absolutely ensure that it does not hit green-line Israel.

The right hon. Gentleman says that we should act with others. We have assembled a very wide international coalition precisely to act with others. As for community cohesion, it is incredibly important, but the point—the absolute core—is that surely we must all accept what I said in my statement. We can disagree with the Government of Israel. We can take action with the Government of Israel, and at the same time be absolutely steadfast in protecting Jews across Britain and across the world. We cannot let these debates be confused. I am confident about our intelligence and security partnerships, which I talked about in my statement. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about medical supplies, and so on; they will absolutely be protected.

Let me finally say—to all Members—that one fact that has been most apparent to me in my seven weeks or so in this job is that Britain is a highly respected partner across the world. Britain has influence. Britain has reach. We cannot take the view of Britain that we are powerless in the face of injustice, and today we say that we are not powerless; we can act.

Middle East

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I am happy to pursue further the cases that my hon. Friend raises. The work being done by the 24/7 crisis centre that the Foreign Office set up, by our rapid deployment teams and by our consular teams in the region has enabled an estimated 100,000 British citizens to return home since the conflict started. Some of that is through additional charter flights that we put on, particularly from Dubai and Muscat, and some through working closely with the airlines to ensure that there are flights to the UK and routes that British citizens can take. There have been some areas where airspace has been restricted again and there have been additional problems, but we continue to work with anyone who is finding it difficult to return home.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

I wonder whether the Foreign Secretary, in all her travels, has been considering the effects on the United Kingdom, and not just on energy prices but on fertilisers. Has she, by any chance, engaged in any conversations with countries that are some of the world’s biggest suppliers of fertilisers, such as Canada, whose Prime Minister was here, or indeed with the United States? While events continue in the middle east and there is absolutely no indication that her words are having any effect at all in opening up the strait of Hormuz, there may be something she can do to open up markets that British people can benefit from.

[Yvette Cooper]

I can confirm that I am seeing the Canadian Foreign Minister later this week. There are many international discussions under way. One of the things that I discussed with the Saudi Energy and Transport Ministers, whom I met while in the Gulf, was some of the work that they are doing, for example, to look at re-routing on different commercial routes and so on to ensure that different supply chains can keep moving.

The right hon. Gentleman is right that fertiliser is one of the important issues here. Most people have been focusing on oil, but fertiliser is hugely significant for a lot of different areas, and we continue to work across Government and internationally on what routes there might be. Also, bluntly, we want this conflict to reach an end as swiftly as possible, so that these global arteries for trade and transport get moving again.

Jimmy Lai: Prison Sentence

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for the work that he has done to support the family. Let me be clear that we see this as a politically motivated prosecution, and we believe and continue to state that Jimmy Lai should be released immediately. We will continue to work directly with the Chinese Government, raising our concerns and views in public and in private. We will continue to engage closely with the family and to work with our allies, as I have mentioned. My hon. Friend will know that the Foreign Secretary has discussed this case with Secretary Rubio, and officials are in regular contact on the matter with the US Government.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Many of us in this House were sanctioned by China, and the Prime Minister went over and somehow managed to sell the partial un-sanctioning of a few of us as a victory. I would have welcomed a victory that was the release of Jimmy Lai, but sadly the Prime Minister conceded all his cards before getting on the plane, leaving himself nothing to negotiate with. Can the Minister find anything else that China wants that the Prime Minister could negotiate with? Maybe he could offer them the Isle of Wight or the Outer Hebrides—he is trying to give away everything else anyway. At least the job of the Prime Minister would then be to protect a British citizen—one who, as we all recognise, has been given a death sentence by the Chinese, not the Hong Kong authorities.

[Seema Malhotra]

Perhaps I can answer the substance of that question with a more serious response. It was important to see the progress that was made in lifting the ban on parliamentarians being free to travel to China, and what the Prime Minister said last week is absolutely right. There is more to do, and it is important to get clarity on how we move forward where those bans have not been lifted. It is very important that we continue to see that progress.

Middle East and North Africa

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. I do not want to prejudge the review, but we provide consular assistance to many thousands of British nationals every year. There is, of course, a debate, which the shadow Foreign Secretary alluded to, on whether or not Alaa Abd el-Fattah should have been made a citizen in 2021, but in 2024, when we came into government, he was undoubtedly a British citizen. We will continue, I am sure, to provide consular assistance on a non-judgmental basis if a British national is in considerable distress overseas. British nationals of all kinds can rely on the support of the United Kingdom if there are outstanding questions about their treatment.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

First, I welcome the Minister’s statement. I certainly agree with him on the strikes in Syria, and with the view that he has taken towards the Houthis in Yemen, who have murdered so many people over recent years. May I ask him about a separate aspect of the Iranian situation? We see extraordinarily courageous protestors on streets across Iran, in various cities and towns. We also see Russian cargo aircraft landing in Tehran, presumably carrying weapons and ammunition. We hear reports of large amounts of gold leaving Iran. Could he update the House on any of those reports, which suggest that the regime is preparing for life after the fall?

[Mr Falconer]

For reasons that I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will understand, I am not in a position to give a detailed update on the reports that he alludes to. I simply underline the point that I made in my statement, which is that the freedom of assembly and the right to protest are inalienable rights of the Iranian people, and we want to see the Iranian Government respect that.

Venezuela

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that the global rules-based order is under pressure from different directions, as I said in a speech just before Christmas; however, we believe that it remains important, and is in the interests and nature of our country and history, as well as forming a fundamental part of our values. We believe that international law and the rules-based order are fundamentally a foundation for peace and security across the world. We have to engage with the world as we find it, and not as we would like it to be, which means continuing to advocate for international law with people right across the world, including directly with our allies, and increasing our investment in defence. Fundamentally, protecting our national security has to be the most important priority for the Government.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Surely the real story coming out today and over the past few days is the revelation—one we should all have known—that this country has opted out of protecting the international rules-based system. We have not significantly invested in defence, and even the commitment the Foreign Secretary speaks of does not keep pace with defence inflation. As the Prime Minister revealed on Sunday, he has not even spoken to the American President. Does this not reveal the simple truth that the Americans did this without us because they do not give a damn what this House thinks?

[Yvette Cooper]

I guess I would just have to ask who it was who did not significantly invest in defence over the past 14 years. This Government are substantially increasing investment in defence, chairing the coalition of the willing, and showing leadership on the international stage. What has struck me since becoming Foreign Secretary, and having had discussions with Governments from across the world over the past few months, is how often those Governments say how welcome it is that Britain is back.

Jimmy Lai Conviction

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 15th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s championing of Jimmy Lai. She is right: this is about some of the most basic freedoms of all. It is about freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly—freedom to gather—and also the fundamental freedoms in relation to journalism that are so important and have been such an important part of Hong Kong’s identity and history for so long. They were embodied in the declaration to recognise that uniqueness about Hong Kong, which is why we will continue to maintain them. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Prime Minister has already raised this directly with his counterparts, as have many other Ministers, and we will continue to do so.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Let me start by saying that I greatly welcome the Foreign Secretary’s words about the horrific antisemitic murders in Australia. To those who died, let us all just say, “May their memories be a blessing.”

When we talk about Hong Kong and when we talk about Jimmy Lai, we should remember that the attack on Jimmy Lai—the arrest of Jimmy Lai—is not just a punishment against his family or against him, but part of the repression from the Chinese state. It is being used deliberately to threaten and intimidate Hongkongers here in the United Kingdom. When we talk about standing up for Jimmy Lai, we are actually talking about standing up for ourselves. We are talking about defending our own freedoms and defending the liberties that British people have the right to expect, both at home and abroad.

Will the Foreign Secretary forgive me—I recognise that she been in the role for only a matter of months—when I say that what we are hearing, again, is the bureaucratisation of process and not the leadership that politics is supposed to offer? When we do not hear that decisions about, for instance, the embassy or the visit are potentially on the line, Beijing hears that it can just continue as normal. Let us not pretend that a fundamentally strategic decision such as the siting of an embassy is the mere duty of a bureaucrat. It is not. It is the role of a Government to offer leadership and direction, and I am afraid that at the moment this Government are offering none.

[Yvette Cooper]

Having been Home Secretary before becoming Foreign Secretary, I am very clear about the nature of the security threats that China poses. The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that this is not simply about the threat to Jimmy Lai, and not simply about this particular prosecution. In itself it is used more widely as part of transnational repression, which is something I take immensely seriously, because this is not just about British citizens in Hong Kong but about residents here on UK soil. It is because we take that so seriously that we have strengthened our state threat response.

As the right hon. Gentleman will know, the sentencing is expected to take place in the new year. We are clear about the fact that we need the Chinese Government to hear the condemnation, not just from the UK but from partners around the world, of what has happened in respect of the politically motivated prosecution in this case, and to recognise the urgent humanitarian circumstances relating to Jimmy Lai. We will continue to make that a central issue in all our discussions with the Chinese Government. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that there are separate processes for different things, and, given his background and experience, he will also be aware of the importance of recognising independent processes.

Budget Resolutions

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2025 Commons Chamber

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). She caught my eye earlier when she was cheering the Chancellor with great enthusiasm, even more so than her colleagues who were making a pretty good fist of it. I recall cheering a Chancellor during a Budget speech—

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

Did you get a job?

[Sir Desmond Swayne]

Notwithstanding the misgivings that I had, I cheered with gusto. Somewhat later, I found myself on a train to Oxford to defend the Government in the annual Oxford Union debate of no confidence. While on the train, I received the news that the Chancellor who I had been cheering had been sacked—not a particularly good wicket to go out to bat on.

I am confident that those hon. Members who cheered today will fare no better, because the economy is still reeling from the last Budget that the Chancellor delivered, with her wholesale assault on enterprise, family undertakings, initiative and every employer in the land. In fact, business confidence had collapsed significantly before that Budget. It had collapsed in the summer, when the Government warned everyone that things were so bad that they were going to have to get very, very much worse. As a consequence, when the Budget was delivered, we discovered that things were even worse than we had imagined. The Government then announced after that Budget that they had stabilised the economy. It was over; they were not coming back for any more. They trumpeted throughout the past year the fact that we had the highest growth rate in the G7. That is what they inherited, but as their monstrous regiment has proceeded, that growth rate has become more and more anaemic. There is no getting away from the fact that last month the economy shrank.

This summer, the Government repeated the mistake. All we got throughout the summer was horror story after horror story and kites being flown about ghastly taxes that might be imposed on us. That was most unwelcome for businesses planning investment and for anyone planning to take on workers; these interventions move some markets and make others absolutely sclerotic. It is a disaster. When I challenged the Chief Secretary to the Treasury last week with the example of Hugh Dalton, who properly resigned over a Budget leak, I was astounded that he admitted at the Dispatch Box that he had no idea what I was talking about. That is extraordinary. Against that background, there is always the chilling presence of the huge increase in trade union power that is part of the Employment Rights Bill currently before Parliament.

However, the Government’s anti-growth agenda is only half the story. The other half of the problem was expounded excellently by the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). The Government’s bloated expenditure plans have overshot by 4%, and we have this enormous, growing benefits bill. The disaster was that the Government withdrew from their attempts to provide some mild or modest restraint to the growth of that bill, and as my right hon. Friend said, we now face a bill that is running annually at £300 billion—£212 billion of which is for the economic inactivity of 4.3 million people who are under no obligation to work. That number of people is growing at a rate of 130,000 per month. That is completely unsustainable, and it is to be paid for by increasing taxes that disproportionately attack those people who are already contributing the most—the entrepreneurs, the investors and the very people who can take their investment, vision, skills and employment to where the business environment is rather more friendly. They are doing that in droves and to such an extent that even the Business Secretary has remarked on and spotted it. We increasingly face a situation in which fewer and fewer people will be able to pay for the bills of the increasing burden of people who are economically inactive.

As we approach—

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Tice]

The good news is that when Reform wins more and more elections next May, we will be able to get better value for council tax across the whole country.

I will keep going. Over the next five years, welfare spending will increase by £70 billion per annum. That shows that this is not a Budget for workers; it is a Budget for those on welfare. It reduces the incentive to work, and it reduces the incentive to be an entrepreneur or a small business owner.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I am interested to hear the hon. Gentleman using the figure of £70 billion, and I agree with him. He knows that £30 billion of that results from the rise in the triple lock, so does he agree that the triple lock is simply not affordable?

[Richard Tice]

The truth is that if we carry on going this way, nothing will be affordable, because this Chancellor is heading us towards bankruptcy as a nation. The reality is that nothing becomes affordable if we go bust under the Minister’s and the Chancellor’s mismanagement of this economy, so we need to change course, because all the data is bad.

I cannot believe the borrowing numbers, Madam Deputy Speaker! The OBR is forecasting that borrowing in this year alone will be some £21 billion higher—

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

It is somewhat depressing to speak after this Budget, which has basically picked the pocket of anybody who is trying to earn any money in this country. It has sent a very clear message to everybody in our country—a message that many people are hearing—which is, “This Government are not on your side. This Government will do everything they can to keep you where you are. They will encourage you to leave the country, rather than invest in it.” We can see that in the numbers. There is £26 billion in extra taxes, and 800,000 people are paying more. This is a welfare Budget, not a work Budget.

Sadly, though, the issue is not just those bald figures; it is what they will do to so many citizens in our country. Among the most tragic bits of this Budget is the £7.5 billion extra tax on the young people who have got themselves a university degree—that is hidden nicely and quietly in the OBR report—but there are also the 1 million young people who will not end up in work. Let us just think about that. It is 1 million young people who will not end up in work for another year, or another year after that. Those 1 million young people, in a few years’ time, will not have a choice, because businesses will not hire them, and the world will not be one that they are adapted to. Worse than that, they will have become, quite literally, slaves of the state, waiting for the man or woman in Whitehall to decide what they get each month and year. They will have become totally dependent. It is a crime to leave our fellow citizens dependent on the state.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Tom Tugendhat]

Forgive me; I am going to make a little progress.

That is not all of it. This Budget looked hard at fixing the very real political problems faced by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister today, admittedly, but it also looked hard at how they can simply inflate the balloon today; there was nothing about tomorrow. We can see that in the way that farmers are being taxed; it is deliberately punishing investment. We can see it in the investment figures; despite the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) claiming that there has been investment in this country, the investment figures in the UK per capita show a 4% increase. Okay, that is an increase, but the figure is 22% in Canada and 79% in the United States. This is not real growth or serious investment. Sadly, we see the knock-on effects. The right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, said that there was investment in start-ups. Well, I wish there was, but all the decisions made by this Government have convinced anybody with any entrepreneurial spirit to go either to Abu Dhabi, where they are filming some new version of “Auf Wiedersehen, Pet” with British workers who have fled this country, or to the United States, which at least has the capital to invest in start-ups.

All we see is a continuation of the Blair-Brown model of increasing nationalisation of savings—that creeping control that we see spreading over pensions and the insurance market. It has left 60% of our savings in bonds, and only about 40% in equities, which contrasts remarkably with Australia, Canada and the United States, which have 20% in bonds and 80% in equities.

[Bill Esterson]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for quoting me, but when backing Liz Truss to be leader of the Tory party he said:

“I have no doubt that we will move with determination to make this country safer and more secure.”

Does that not rather undermine any claim of credibility he makes?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I will tell the hon. Member the honest truth: Liz Truss was wrong, and I made a mistake. That is the reality; that is what happened. But here is the difference: it is true that what she did put pressure on the economy, but this Chancellor has increased debt to the highest-ever levels and the cost of borrowing to the highest in the G7.

[Paul Waugh]

Will the right hon. Member give way?

[Tom Tugendhat]

There is no debate about that, so I will not give way on that point.

The reality is that we are looking at the politics of today and forgetting about tomorrow. We are seeing people left on welfare and not helped into work. We see a pretence at kindness that is actually long-term cruelty. We are failing to recognise that it is not the state, the Government or the civil servants, and certainly not the Minister, who employs people or creates any work, but free individuals freely associating and freely structuring their lives in order to create opportunity for themselves, their family and their community. But guess what? This Government do not believe in that. That is why we now see taxes at their highest-ever level at 38%—the highest since the second world war. This is a remarkable theft of liberty from the British people. Forget about digital ID, which is insane in its own right; this is a genuine theft of the liberty of free citizens to choose what to do with their resources. It is an appalling decision.

We need to look very hard at what the choices are. We can already see where the cost is going. Despite the Home Office estimates a few years ago that asylum seekers would cost £4.5 billion, this OBR report tells us that it will be £15.3 billion. That is a multiple of more than three. We are seeing any number of different areas where the costs are rising. All this would be bad enough in a normal situation where, with a bit of adjustment, we could get back to normal, but the truth is that this is not a normal situation. This is a situation that demands frank honesty.

Let me be honest and lay it on the line. The demographics of this country are going against us. We do not have enough young people for an ageing population. That means, I am afraid, that we do need to look at the triple lock. I know that those on my party’s Front Bench do not agree with me, but I have been clear that we simply cannot afford the level of welfare payments we are making. We need to be clear that health and pensions are now costing too much. We need to be clear that the security situation has changed.

I have heard that we are now raising more for defence—gosh, have I heard that?—but the reality is that it is all on the never-never. The Army is even now talking about cutting the number of soldiers, the Navy is talking about cutting the number of ships, and the Air Force is talking about cutting its numbers too. I have heard that from friends who are serving today, so I look forward to seeing what comes out of the Budget round for them. The reality is that while our enemies are arming, we are talking. It is simply not serious.

For all that I have said, there is one thing that is going so far against us that we are not even on the same field, and that is technology. Looking at the rise of AI across the world, there are only two countries that are serious players: the United States and China. The Unites States is heading for the exquisite, while China is heading for the quotidian. We are seeing a radical change in the way the economy is working, but here we are defending old jobs, punishing ideas and keeping back growth. We have a Government who simply do not understand that we have only a few years in which we can get back into the game. If we miss this chance, we will be like the old Chinese empire: we will have missed the boat, we will have burned our ships, and we will be replaced, as happened after European expansion to the Americas.

[Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)]

I thank the Chancellor of the Exchequer for her excellent Budget statement. I would take the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) and his colleagues more seriously on defence spending if the Conservatives had not wasted 14 years and cut back our defences to the bare minimum.

[Tom Tugendhat]

rose—

[Gurinder Singh Josan]

I will make my points.

I will focus on the benefits of the Budget and the choices made by the Chancellor for people in my constituency. It is worth first reminding ourselves of the disgraceful situation in which the Conservative party left the economy in July last year and the scale of the mess the Labour Government are having to deal with. The economy was broken, with high interest rates, high unemployment, borrowing and debt beyond our means, growth stagnating, and strikes across our public services in various sectors. The NHS was on its knees, with record waiting lists and a crisis in midwife services and mental health services—I could go on—and we had a debilitating cost of living crisis, with no plan to make things better for ordinary families in my constituency.

The Labour Government have already done so much to fix the mess, and the change is beginning to be felt in my constituency; I will go through some of those things. My constituents benefited from £20 million of plan for neighbourhoods funding in Smethwick. We have seen wage increases and growth upgraded to 1.5%. Rail fares and prescription charges have been frozen, the fuel duty freeze has been extended and pensions are increasing. We are seeing breakfast clubs and free school meals, along with more GPs and nurses. There is the 10-year NHS plan, and railways are coming back into public ownership—people said that could never be done, but it is happening. We are seeing local control over bus services, new protections for renters, and homes for heroes. We have launched the Border Security Command.

There is over £100 million in Government funding for five new research hubs, including one in Birmingham. We scrapped the ban on onshore wind and unblocked solar schemes—we have new solar schemes for schools in Smethwick. We are having lower business rates, along with the National Wealth Fund and the warm homes plan to deliver lower energy bills, with £150 off bills announced today. The child poverty taskforce was established, and 5,350 children in Smethwick will benefit from the lifting of the two-child limit. Change is happening, and my constituents are benefiting from it, but all that is in the face of a world that is changing around us.

Over the last year, global challenges have impacted the UK in an unprecedented way. We have seen the impact of President Trump’s tariffs, the Ukraine war, Russia and China, and the mess that the Tories made of Brexit. Many Labour Members have understood that the old way of doing things—leaving everything to free markets and global trade—is not working for families and workers in the UK. Essentially, we all want to buy things cheap, so they end up being made abroad, where labour costs and conditions are much lower. That in turn has meant that whole industries in the UK have shut down, with the loss of good quality jobs. Therefore, as well as the choices being made by the Chancellor and this Labour Government to cut NHS waiting lists, cut the debt and cut the cost of living, they are working to ensure that the UK becomes less reliant on other countries and more self-sufficient in defence, energy security and many other areas.

The recall of Parliament in April to save the Scunthorpe steelworks was a defining moment, with the realisation that we cannot be reliant on the US or China for steel and that we need to maintain our own capacity. I see the change delivered in last year’s Budget and this year’s Budget as being about a necessary reindustrialisation of our country to ensure that we are more self-sufficient. If we do that and get it right, we will bring good quality jobs back to our communities that allow people to buy a house and a car and to support their kids through university—the decent standard of living that people aspire to. If we get it right, we will also remove the opportunity for dog-whistle scaremongering by the nakedly populist opportunists in Reform and others who want to take advantage of economic uncertainty to peddle division.

A choice has been made by the Chancellor and this Labour Government to commit to increased defence spending, with an understanding that we will not just buy everything from America; we will make it here. There is also the investment in green energy, nuclear energy, the industrial strategy, semiconductors and AI. All those things will support and deliver growth in our economy.

It is interesting that Conservative Members have talked a lot about growth and business confidence. The Venture Capital Trust Association organised an open letter signed by 250 signatories, which included me and other Members of this and the other House, but the majority of signatories were from various start-ups and businesses, including the founders of Quantexa and Matillion, which are both billion-dollar-valued tech firms. They asked for changes to the VCT and EIS schemes, which have not been updated in more than 10 years. I would take the Opposition more seriously if they had not been asleep on their watch when in power.

The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association has just said:

“We are delighted to see the Government signalling that the important EIS and VCT incentives will be reformed to support businesses as they scale, as well as early stage investments”.

Business confidence is there. People want to see the change that we are making, which will support growth in our economy. If we get that right, that future will deliver for my constituents and for the UK, and I am proud to stand with the Government on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sammy Wilson]

Some of that redistributive impact is the result of taxes being taken off people who are on modest incomes for welfare increases. This is a figure that the Chancellor has quoted in the House time and again: one in seven under-25s is now fully reliant on benefits and is not in work. Where is that money coming from? It is coming from people who are working on a daily basis and, in many cases, for not a great deal of money, but who will be dragged into the tax system.

This is an unfair Budget, because it still relies on taking money from working people who are not mega-rich to pay for some of the Government’s grandiose schemes. Some people may argue that if it works, it is worth doing, but let us look at the record of the previous year. The OBR tells us that the outcome of the Chancellor trying the same tactic last year has been that investment is now predicted to fall as a percentage of GDP. Output growth is going to fall by a sixth, productivity is going to fall from 0.4% to -0.4%. Consumer expenditure is down by 0.5%. People are receiving less and profits for companies are going to fall from 12.5% to 10.75%, all of which will affect investment and economic growth, and undermine the very objective that the Chancellor says she is seeking to achieve.

Of course, many people will argue that that is fine, but we have levels of expenditure that we have to finance, so how do we pay for it? Let us look at some of the decisions that the Government have made over the last year. Welfare payments are going to go up quite substantially to £58 billion over the period of this Parliament. On net zero, environmental taxes are going up by 60%, affecting the profitability of companies, and the renewables obligation next year is going to cost us £3 billion. So net zero, the impact of which we are all experiencing on jobs, is going to lead to further costs. I think many people would question whether those are the kinds of things we should be spending money on at a time when we have an abundance of fossil energy in this country.

Tax avoidance has not been dealt with. I have heard tax avoidance being mentioned every time we have a Budget, including under the previous Government, but it is never dealt with. The Googles and Amazons of this world still sell goods here but do not pay taxes in this country. The budget for welfare in relation to immigration is now predicted to go up to £15 billion. Also, we have had debates in this House time and again about the bases in the Indian ocean that we had possession of. We gave them back to Mauritius and we are paying Mauritius for that. What is Mauritius going to do with the billions that we give them from taxpayers here? It is going to cut its own taxes. We are putting up our taxes in order to allow taxes to be reduced in another country when we did not even need to do it. So there are ways in which the money could have been achieved.

I welcome the announcement about the loan charge. As a vice-chairman of the loan charge and taxpayer fairness all-party parliamentary group, I trust that we will now see the Government treating the ordinary people who are affected by the loan charge in the way in which they treated big business. Businesses were given a concessionary payment of 15%, while some of the ordinary people who were affected were being charged nearly 100%. I hope that the McCann review leads to that being sorted out.

As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, I welcome the Barnett consequentials and I hope that the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Sinn Féin Finance Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly will spend the £370 million wisely—

[Tom Tugendhat]

That is unlikely.

Ukraine: Forcible Removal of Children

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Thursday 20th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Falconer]

My hon. Friend asks an incredibly important question. She is right to suggest that children are bearing the worst brunt of conflict. I was in Yemen this week, and I was appalled to see so many children with both moderate and severely acute malnutrition. That malnutrition is in very significant order created by the Houthis, who have restricted aid access into north Yemen and, indeed, detained UN aid workers and seized their offices. What the Russian forces do in Ukraine is seen elsewhere: it is seen by the Houthis and by militias in Nigeria. This country will stand up for an international rules-based order, which includes the protections that children are entitled to. We will continue to work to ensure the safe return of those 20,000 Ukrainian children. Six hundred of them have been identified by the mechanism that we co-fund and co-founded with the Ukrainians, and we will continue to work to ensure that all the remaining children are returned.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

I welcome the courage of the American people over many decades in standing up for our liberties and defending our freedoms, and I draw attention to the fact that this wonderful act of generosity has supported a US economy that has grown more powerfully, more capably and in more directions than any other economy in human history, making the United States the richest and most powerful country the world has ever known. Would the Minister agree with me that that stance on the side of truth and justice has genuinely been a great blessing for all free peoples, and that we should be standing up against people traffickers and child traffickers—by, for example, calling out folk like Jeffrey Epstein—but that seeing the world’s largest child trafficker almost getting away with it would be a betrayal of the great American values that have led to the happiness and prosperity of one of the wonderful countries of this world?

[Mr Falconer]

I thank the right hon. and gallant Member for his question. The US and UK have stood together on questions of European order ever since the second world war, and I am incredibly proud that it was a Labour Foreign Secretary who led on the creation of NATO. I know that our American friends continue to see questions of European security and order as being of the utmost importance, and that security and order cannot co-exist in a world in which territory is seized by force and children are abducted in exactly the way he describes.

China Audit

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lammy]

Prime Minister Johnson’s record on China is shocking. It led to the grave embarrassment of having to do a U-turn on Huawei, which would have been able to get into the most delicate of our telecommunications infrastructure. It is because of that that we undertook, while in opposition, to do a full audit. That audit is constantly ongoing, but I hope that my hon. Friend will see its results reflected in the industrial strategy, the national security strategy and, of course, the SDR, which was published recently.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

I enjoyed playing buzzword bingo when the right hon. Member presented his statement. I remind him that the rebellion on Huawei was actually led by Conservative Members, not Labour.

May I question the right hon. Gentleman about a meeting, which he referred to with a little more pride than I would have done? It was the meeting with Liu Jianchao, who is personally responsible for Operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, which, of course, concern transnational repression, the kidnapping of Chinese citizens and their repatriation by force to mainland China. He did not seem quite as ashamed of that as I would have been. Why has he still not made it clear that the first scheme, which the Conservatives left intact and ready to go, will not yet be introduced for the whole of the Chinese state, as it should be? That is what it was designed for. For all the words that we have heard, there is not a single practical outcome. It is all still waffle.

[Mr Lammy]

I recognise, and it is right to put on the record, that Conservative Members, the right hon. Gentleman among them, have raised significant issues over the past decade or so about the approach to China. That is why, in opposition, we said that we would do a full audit. He will recognise and welcome, I suspect, the extra investment in the intelligence services, and particularly in our national cyber capability. I see him nodding. Those are tangible outcomes. That cannot, on any analysis, be described as waffle.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Friday 16th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will remember that in the last Parliament we brought in the National Security Act 2023, which introduced huge controls on the nature of an individual’s liberty. The legislation passed through the House over a period of two years and required an entire Department to prepare it. There were considerations with the judiciary, foreign Governments and other services, including the police. The Bill before us allows the state to kill someone. Does he feel that this legislation is therefore somewhat more constrained than other legislation that would normally have been allowed to pass? And yes, it is correct to say that it allows the state—an actor on behalf of the state, at the request of an individual—to take a life. In the English language, that is called killing.

[Dr Mullan]

As I said, I recognise that the Bill is of greater significance than a typical private Member’s Bill, but it has been delivered through the normal procedures of the House, and it is for the House as a whole to make those changes.