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National Security (State Threats) Bill

My Lords, I will speak to the amendments in group 1 in the name of various noble Lords, including, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool. I say “of course” in tribute to the noble Lord’s indefatigable illumination of the threat posed to this country by the odious Chinese Communist Party regime. I join with the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and the noble Lord, Lord Beamish, in thanking him for his enduring efforts to ensure that we are alive to the CCP’s deliberate, cynical and relentless attempts to undermine our democracy and the West as a whole.

4.15 pm

In relation specifically to Amendment 1, espionage is central to the attempt to undermine us, whether it is to enable transnational repression of Hong Kong dissidents in the UK and elsewhere, as we have just heard, to misrepresent and thereby minimise public awareness of the CCP regime’s genocide against the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, or simply for military and commercial gain. One could argue that all states, even allies, engage in a degree of espionage. The difference is that few embark on it with the same aggressive, menacing and malign intent as the CCP.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and other noble Lords, mentioned the recent case involving the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. I agree that it is clearly a front for nefarious activity against the interests of the UK and its citizens. Its raison d’être is clearly no longer justified, given that the CCP regime has

brutally quashed any vestige of Hong Kong as a separate entity. It is not: it has been swallowed up, and with it its reasons. There is no justification for an outdated institution whose true purpose was on full display recently at the Old Bailey to be allowed to remain. The fact that successive Governments have continued to mouth the mantra that the HKETO is about trade merely serves to underline the urgent case for the amendments in this group.

We must call out the CCP and show that we recognise, as my noble and learned friend Lord Garnier, said, that we are dealing with adversaries. To fail to do so is to passively perpetuate their lies and signal that we are content to acquiesce in their defeat of us. We can and should, through these amendments, signal our self-confidence, our fervent belief in the democratic system and our renewed determination to export it, so that one day the Chinese people themselves may taste the freedoms that we take for granted in the West.

Just because we cannot bring ourselves to accept that China is our enemy does not change the fact that China, Russia and Iran view us as exactly that and act accordingly. Taken together, the amendments in this group take the fight to our enemies, including non-state actors and media organs. These amendments strengthen the Bill by optimising its effect and, crucially, its message. Surely, at a time when the credibility of the free world has rarely been so undermined by its own leader in the White House, demonstrating to our enemies and our friends that we are determined to be on the front foot in addressing both state and non-state threats has never mattered more. That is why the amendments in this group deserve our support.