My Lords, before the debate gets under way, I want to highlight the four-minute advisory time for Back-Bench contributions. This is designed to ensure that the debate can finish within two hours, in line with the usual timings for Thursday debates, and that the House can rise at a reasonable time. I therefore urge noble Lords to keep their remarks within four minutes to meet these ends—of course, with the exception of the mover, the noble Lord, Lord Alton.
My Lords, it is an honour to open today’s debate on the Joint Committee on Human Rights report Transnational Repressionin the United Kingdom. As chair of the JCHR, I pay tribute to my committee colleagues from both Houses and thank the terrific JCHR team, headed by our clerks Rhiannon Hollis, Moriyo Aiyeola and Lauren Marchant. I also thank the Library for its briefing note, the Minister and the officials who have briefed him for the work that has been done by him and his colleagues in the department, but especially the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, who will make his maiden speech today. We greatly look forward to hearing that.
Our report highlights the absence of a universally accepted definition of transnational repression—TNR. We recommend that the Government adopt a formal definition, systematically collect data, and develop monitoring mechanisms. We agree with James Lynch, the co-director of Fair Square, who told our committee that we are missing a
“big opportunity to properly monitor and analyse the trends and then develop a coherent strategy”.
We query the way in which TNR is treated in diplomacy with hostile states, and contend that failure to incorporate it as part of the UK’s diplomatic engagement with perpetrator countries
“risks … emboldening authoritarian regimes to escalate TNR activities”.
The report calls for international co-operation with other democracies—we mention the example of Canada—in combating TNR, and we make some specific recommendations about the use of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, and the misuse of Interpol red notices. Closer to home, we call for a national hotline for victims, and more systematic, specialised training for police officers to identify the early warning signs of TNR.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his warm welcome and for introducing this important debate: one that is fundamental to protecting freedoms and human rights in this country, and one that I believe highlights the important work of his committee. I rise for my maiden speech with a real sense of responsibility and duty that comes from joining this august body.
I begin by thanking Black Rod, Garter, the Clerk, the doorkeepers and all the staff of this House for the kindness that they have shown me since joining. I thank noble Lords from every side for the very warm welcome without exception they have given to me. I especially thank my supporters, my noble friends Lady Royall and Lord Collins, for their encouragement, wisdom and support, as well as my noble friend Lord Faulkner of Worcester, an alumnus of my college in Oxford and someone who has been a great supporter and friend of my work, in and beyond Oxford.
I grew up in a small village called Llanfoist, outside Abergavenny in South Wales, where many of my family for many generations had lived. I attended the village primary school and I went on to the local secondary school, where I was privileged to receive an excellent state education—something that we Welsh are rightly proud of and that should be the right of every child, not a privilege. That education enabled me to go to Cambridge, the first member of my family to go to university, and ultimately to establish a successful career as a lawyer in the City. Education transformed my life and life chances. It gave me important skills, it widened my horizons and it taught me about the importance of music, art and culture and how they enhance the world.
My commitment to education has led me to the most recent phase of my career as provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and chair of the University of the Arts in London. These roles have enabled me to give something back to current students, but they have also given me an opportunity to argue for a number of things, such as improved funding for students and universities, the need to continue to support initiatives to widen participation and, last but not least, the importance of creative education. Let us not forget that the creative industries contributed £125 billion to the UK economy in 2022. Improved support for students and educational institutions, including creative educational institutions, is, in my view, essential if this country and future generations are to flourish.
My Lords, it is my duty and pleasure to welcome the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, to his place and congratulate him on an outstanding maiden speech. The rest of us will have to look to our laurels in the next few years, I suspect. The noble Lord, Lord Isaac, CBE, is, as noble Lords have heard, provost of Worcester College, Oxford, and chair of the governors of the University of the Arts London and of the Henry Moore Foundation. Throughout his career, he has consistently been involved in the arts, education and human rights; we heard some of that a few minutes ago. He is also a former chair, as we have heard, of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, of Stonewall and of Modern Art Oxford.
On a personal note, I thank the noble Lord for the delivery of the report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. He was not chair when the report was delivered but he oversaw and initiated it. That, for me, was a major turning point in Labour Party history and probably more widely in British political history. He was also a trustee of Cumberland Lodge, and a director of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, of the Human Dignity Trust, of the Big Lottery Fund and of 14-18 NOW. He was also for many years, as noble Lords have heard, a partner at Pinsent Masons and made a CBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. I do not know where he found the time for all that, but there we are.
I turn to the debate. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has an exemplary track record on issues of human rights around the world, and to the JCHR and the report that it has produced, which clearly demonstrates that a lot of regimes are using physical and digital means to target individuals across borders. The key passage from the report, from my point of view, states that testimonies point to a continuing gap between policy commitments and lived experience, including delayed police responses, subpar case management and persistent intimidation faced by diaspora communities. That is very clear about where we are. The report points to a number of countries but, in the short time I have, I will focus on two, China and Iran, which both use force against expats—we have heard a lot about that from the noble Lord, Lord Alton—and at times against British citizens.
My Lords, it was a delight to listen to the noble Lord, and a pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, give his maiden speech. Some of us may have been sceptical about the achievements of some new Peers in their past local government or party-political careers, but today we have a new Peer who has done things and achieved a tremendous lot, as a provost of Worcester College and as the chair of Stonewall and of the EHRC. I read that he was concerned a few years ago about interference in the work of the commission by Boris Johnson, so I hope he will express concern that the current Government are also messing around with the commission’s report on implementing the Supreme Court decision. However, he is a very able man and a great addition to this House, and we look forward to hearing from him. Having been so nice about his new noble friend, I hope that the Whip, the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, will allow me an extra 30 seconds.
Once again, I congratulate my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on yet another frightening masterpiece. The United Kingdom must confront a stark reality: transnational repression is not an abstract threat but a deliberate, systematic campaign by authoritarian states to silence dissent, intimidate communities, and export coercion into our streets and institutions. The main threat comes from China once again.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that transnational repression
“risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect the human rights of its citizens and those who have sought safety within its borders”.
We have seen the tactics these oppressive states use: surveillance, online harassment, threats to family members abroad, the operation of unofficial police outposts, bounties on activists, misuse of international law enforcement tools and even attempts to enforce foreign judgments in our own courts. Beijing has deliberately built an extraterritorial legal architecture—a long-arm jurisdiction that is being used to suppress free speech, coerce return, and weaponise ordinary legal and commercial processes against exiles and critics.
My Lords, I am delighted to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, on his maiden contribution.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and highlighting the work of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on transnational repression. For the purpose of declaring my interest, I should mention that I was a member of that committee when this unanimous report was produced. It has been a great delight to work under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He has been responsible for highlighting human rights issues in your Lordships’ Chamber on frequent occasions, and this report is no exception. We all owe him a debt of gratitude for his contribution.
Today, we live in an uncertain world. A few years ago, we would not have heard the phrase “transnational repression”. It still requires a great deal of explanation in many parts of the world as to what meaning we attach to it. I am pleased that clarity on a common definition now exists. This leave us in doubt where the civilised world stands. But we need to ensure that the FCDO and other agencies are involved in educating the rest of the world about transnational repression. This will not happen unless a common definition is agreed. Can the Minister give some indication of when this is likely to happen? Regrettably, this recommendation has not been accepted by the Government.
I said earlier in my speech that we live in an uncertain world. Human rights are frequently in confrontation with authorities and Governments. Acts or threats against individual groups and communities across territorial borders are carried out by Governments or their proxies. This violates human rights. The examples that are cited include Hong Kong, China, Iran and some countries in the Horn of Africa. Many of these are anonymised in the report to protect their identities, for obvious reasons.
I shall ignore China and Hong Kong and instead concentrate on Iran, because my time is fairly limited. The principal Iranian actors are the Supreme Leader and senior regime leadership, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and diplomatic missions and proxies. Hundreds of people have been killed simply to protect regime survival, fragment the opposition, prevent unity and prevent any form of independent, organised resistance through intimidation, infiltration, smear campaigns and manipulations. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s report on Iran concluded that Iran poses a wide-ranging threat to UK national security which should not be underestimated, as it is
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Isaac, on his maiden speech. I think we all remember what a daunting prospect that was, so many congratulations to him. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on securing this debate and introducing it, as he always does, with compelling evidence, incisive analysis, practical recommendations, and his typical passion and principle. I congratulate the JCHR, which the noble Lord chairs, on producing this powerful report on transnational repression in the United Kingdom, the subject we are talking about.
It is a very real threat. Hong Kong exiles who have quite rightly been welcomed into the United Kingdom now feel afraid that they are being watched by the Chinese Communist Party from which they fled. Several have received arrest warrants from the Hong Kong authorities, accompanied by bounties placed on their heads. Some, such as Carmen Lau, as reported in the media, have faced an appalling campaign of harassment, with anonymous letters sent to neighbours telling them to hand over Hong Kong activists to the Chinese embassy or report their whereabouts and activities to the Chinese embassy. In Carmen Lau’s case, it was even worse, involving sexually explicit images created by artificial intelligence, amounting to a campaign of sexual harassment. A young former Hong Kong district councillor who fled repression in Hong Kong in search of freedom in this country should not have to endure such obscene and grave abuse in the United Kingdom.
Of course, China is not the only perpetrator of transnational repression, though it is one of the most active and significant. Several Members of this House and the other place have been sanctioned by China and other regimes, and subject to various threats of harassment and espionage. Further, several British citizens, including the co-founder of Hong Kong Watch, Benedict Rogers, have faced sustained harassment as a result of their activism on human rights cases. In his case, for several years he received anonymous threatening letters at his home address. His neighbours in a London suburb received letters urging them to monitor him. Even his mother received letters, stamped and postmarked in Hong Kong, urging her to tell her son to shut up. He also received an official threat of a jail sentence from the Hong Kong Police Force if he did not cease his activism and advocacy for Hong Kong.
My Lords, I want to start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Isaac on his excellent maiden speech, and particularly on what he had to say about education, creative industries and the arts.
I also want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his committee members for their excellent report on this issue. It has had all too little attention. Indeed, many people probably have absolutely no idea what transnational repression actually means. In fact, the committee noted that there is no widely agreed definition, but that it amounts to
“certain foreign state-directed crimes against individuals”.
The best-known example is probably the Salisbury poisoning of the Skripals by agents of the Russian Government. Besides Russia, other countries which have been cited for intimidating and harassing—sometimes very violently—their subjects in the UK include Iran, China and Eritrea, all of which have been mentioned.
Also on the list, though less frequently cited, is Pakistan. I want to devote my speech largely to a current case concerning a Pakistani human rights lawyer who is living in exile in the UK. Shahzad Akbar was called to the Bar in the UK and subsequently had a distinguished career in Pakistan, working on human rights issues such as forced disappearances and the death penalty. He then became a Minister in Imran Khan’s Government and was responsible in particular for anti-corruption. When Khan was removed from office, Akbar fled to the UK in 2022, fearing what would happen to him if he stayed in Pakistan.
I am grateful to Reprieve for briefing me on the appalling attacks to which Akbar has been subjected since coming to this country. Unknown assailants have thrown acid at his face outside his home, assaulted him physically, and tried to set fire to his house, forcing him and his wife and children to go into hiding after gunshots were fired through the windows of his house. Counterterrorism police consider the attacks to be highly targeted and have arrested several people. It appears to be a recent example of a sophisticated plot to intimidate him and to assault him.
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the Joint Committee for this excellent and important report. It refers to concern about transnational oppression by China and Russia, as have many noble Lords in this debate—and you do not get much more extreme than attempted and actual assassination by Iran and other states. Speaking as the founding, now former, co-chair of the All-Party Group on Hong Kong, and having often spoken about concern for Hong Kong and other Chinese students at UK universities, these are very grave concerns.
Today, I am going to talk about another state—a rising threat. At the moment, most of this is in the form not of physical threat, obviously, but intimidation. We know that intimidation and physical threats are often closely linked, and that intimidation can have very serious effects on people’s lives.
I start with what is really a quite mild case, involving the head of a British public relations company about whom that state’s embassy—the official representatives of its Government—complained to the companies for which his firm worked. They complained not about the quality of his work or his representations but about private social media posts, which were critical, in very mild terms, of the leader of the state that the embassy represents. The individual has now left the company. It is called Hanover, and one of its key clients is the American Pharmaceutical Group. Yes, the state is the United States of America.
The Financial Times reports that the embassy refused to continue to support the US pharma firms unless the executive was fired. These, of course, are the same pharmaceutical companies which, with embassy help, have considerably raised the costs of drugs for our NHS.
Some might say that that is just the rough and tumble of capitalism, the unequal and all too often subsidiary position the UK finds itself in in relation to the US—“it is only that individual’s economic rights that are affected”. But, of course, what about his successor, and what about his and others’ free speech rights?
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In paragraph 96 of the report, we say:
“The UK’s response to TNR would benefit significantly from more structured and consistent coordination across government departments”.
Andrew Scurry, the director of the homeland security group at the Home Office, told us that:
“We are looking still with the police … at how best to gather data and more information, and indeed intelligence”.
It would be good for the House to hear how that is going.
During a discussion this morning with academics from Bristol and Oxford Universities, facilitated by the international affairs parliamentary hub, I was struck by their finding that TNR is profoundly on the rise in the UK. This chimed entirely with our own committee’s view that TNR is not a peripheral or minor issue. MI5 says that, in 2024, the number of its state-threat investigations jumped by some 48%, with more than 20 threat-to-life cases relating to Iran alone, since the start of 2022. The true scale, though, is likely to be far greater still, given the significant underreporting and the often covert nature of TNR criminality.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights commends the National Security Act 2023, which created new offences relating to foreign interference in the UK, and did not identify any significant gaps in criminal law related to TNR. We do, however, want the existing laws to be better used and more effectively enforced. It is essential that the legal framework remains agile and responsive to evolving threats. We recognise the rapidly evolving nature of digital technologies, and the increasing sophistication of methods used to conduct TNR. We call for the Government to keep relevant legislation under regular review, and have asked for an annual update to the JCHR on the effectiveness of current legislation in addressing evolving digital forms of TNR.
Our country has a long history of giving protection to courageous dissidents being hunted down by dictatorships. During my early days as a young Member of Parliament in the 1980s, I met extraordinary heroes who had escaped the Soviet bloc and continued to work for the liberties that would ultimately come with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Back then, and today too, dictatorial regimes had a long reach.
Let me draw on the evidence given to our inquiry to illustrate the nature of the threats that people resident in the United Kingdom now face. A number of noble Lords have experienced a small dose of transnational repression themselves: in my case, collecting sanctions from Russia, North Korea, Iran and China. But this is small beer in comparison with some of the appalling intimidation experienced by others. Perhaps the Minister could tell us whether China has lifted sanctions on parliamentarians’ families, and on others, including Sir Geoffrey Nice KC, who chaired the Uyghur Tribunal, Dr Jo Smith Finley, Essex Court Chambers, and the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission.
Will the Minister also comment on the 1 million Hong Kong dollar bounty placed by the CCP on the head of Chloe Cheung, a 19 year-old young woman, and others in the United Kingdom? Read Chloe’s courageous testimony to our inquiry, waiving her anonymity, in which she described the profound effect that this CCP targeting has had on her. She spoke recently against the proposed CCP mega-embassy in London, fearful that, if it is built and she is snatched, she will, to use her words, “never come out”.
Read the evidence of the brave Uyghur activist Rahima Mahmut, whose relatives in China have been subjected to intimidation and coercion, forced to publicly condemn her in order to safeguard themselves from reprisals. She movingly described to the committee what she called the “human cost” of speaking out. Read the evidence of the disgraceful treatment of Professor Michelle Shipworth by University College London, and the shameful mistreatment of Sheffield Hallam’s Professor Laura Murphy following her brilliant work on Uyghur slave labour in Xinjiang.
Their treatment is an affront to British sovereignty, to academic freedom and to free speech. It is transnational repression driven by overreliance on Chinese money. Let us note too that, earlier this month, MI5’s Ken McCallum identified threats to universities, students and academics at a meeting he convened with 70 vice-chancellors. How will the Government implement a direct reporting route on foreign interference, implement the complaints scheme in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act and strengthen overseas transparency regulatory powers?
Unsurprisingly, the JCHR received a large amount of evidence recommending the designation of China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme—FIRS. It was an issue raised by Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC the lawyer of British citizen Jimmy Lai, incarcerated in Hong Kong for five years and in solitary confinement. She told our inquiry that, as his lawyer, she had been subjected to threats and harassment. She criticised the feeble response to bounties and sanctions against parliamentarians and described how peaceful protestors in Manchester had been assaulted by CCP diplomats. She said:
“We send such a terrible message if we have a situation where a diplomat can drag an activist by the hair into the Manchester consulate … and the use of language such as calling individuals rats who need to be hunted down worldwide, and yet … China is not in the enhanced tier”.
The JCHR concluded:
“Decisions on which countries to specify under the enhanced tier of FIRS must be guided by objective assessments of threat, not influenced by broader foreign policy considerations. We recommend that the Government specify China under the enhanced tier of FIRS”;
and that
“The Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 do not capture the full range of TNR tactics”;
and that China’s omission from the enhanced tier
“risks undermining the credibility and coherence of FIRS”.
The JCHR found:
“China conducts the most comprehensive TNR campaign of any foreign state operating in the UK”.
I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to my previously voiced proposal—which appears at paragraph 90 on page 37 as a JCHR recommendation—that the Intelligence and Security Committee, on which the noble Lord himself served with great distinction, should have confidential oversight of FIRS and sanctions and which, like appointments of high-level British ambassadors, or the expulsion of diplomats connected to TNR, should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Such scrutiny should also extend to issues of proscriptions. Let us consider Iran and the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We heard shocking evidence of the lethality of Iranian transnational repression. We heard about an Iranian journalist left seriously wounded on the streets of London and about intimidation of BBC Persian journalists and their families. One witness, Hossein Abedini, deputy director of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, almost lost his life in a vicious brutal attack by Iranian operatives. He told the JCHR that “cultural centres” in the UK are used as fronts for surveillance operations targeting members of the Iranian diaspora. Reporters without Borders told us:
“Iranian women journalists have been subjected to gendered and sexualised abuse, including explicit threats of rape or sexual violence towards them or their families (including children), the circulation of fake stories designed to ruin their reputations and photoshopped pornographic images”.
In this week marking the fourth anniversary of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, we should consider also how Putin’s regime has engaged in the most terrible war crimes and egregious forms of transnational repression. We can recall the Salisbury nerve agent attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal. But Russian TNR comes in other form too. The JCHR received evidence relating to the misuse of SLAPPs to intimidate and silence journalists, activists, and other critics.
Although SLAPPs are typically initiated by private individuals rather than states, we heard that they are often used as a TNR tactic. Susan Coughtrie, the director of the Foreign Policy Centre, told us that individuals “closely aligned” with the state are utilised to carry out TNR through legal harassment. She cited the case of Catherine Belton, the journalist and author of the book Putin’s People:
“She was pursued originally by five oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, but also Rosneft, which is the Russian state gas company, so there was a very direct link there … to the Russian state”.
The inquiry found that SLAPPs are increasingly used to silence and intimidate people who expose or criticise the actions of authoritarian regimes.
The committee would also like the Government to look at the cost and stress of lengthy legal action, provide a clear timeline for a review of the effectiveness of the SLAPPs provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 and ensure that future legislation deals with SLAPPs that are not related to economic crime.
Our inquiry also found that Interpol red notices had been issued without the knowledge of those targeted, leaving people uncertain about whether they can travel without risk of detention. We concluded that red notices are being systematically exploited to pursue political opponents, human rights defenders and journalists beyond national borders.
Beyond Russia, Iran and China, the committee received credible evidence that a number of states had engaged in acts of transnational repression on UK soil. The evidence included allegations concerning Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
I draw particular attention to the evidence and testimony given to our inquiry concerning Eritrea by Martin Plaut, the accomplished former BBC journalist, author and academic. The UN special rapporteur on Eritrea told the inquiry that those who refuse to contribute a tax that is levied on the diaspora are
“considered government opponents and face harassment, intimidation and ultimately social isolation”.
I welcome an update on what the Government are doing about this.
In the last few days, I have received additional disturbing depositions, one of which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, will refer to in her remarks. I received evidence also about a Burmese artist who has been targeted, and I will send the depositions to the Minister, because they are outside the scope of the inquiry.
Let me end. With our national security interests and way of life threatened on a scale unparalleled since the 1930s and 1940s, democracies must act together in strong alliances to combat multipolar threats to our way of life. We are fools to take for granted our privileges and freedoms, including the right to think, to speak and to believe—even to live. All over the world, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are under concerted attack. We have been far too complacent and dependent on the states which threaten us, and insufficiently focused on resilience. Transnational repression is a harbinger of far worse to come.
Our committee concluded that transnational repression risks undermining the UK’s ability to protect people who have sought safety within our borders, such as the witnesses to whom I have referred. But we also found that a failure to deal robustly with TNR and the malign activities of hostile states will also increasingly put the UK’s indigenous population at risk today. Debates such as this will bring the JCHR report to a wider audience and I hope that noble Lords who have participated—and I am grateful to them all—will circulate its findings far and wide. I beg to move.
I am very conscious that this debate is about transnational repression of freedoms and human rights. Human rights have played a key role in my life. I grew up in the 1980s during the AIDS pandemic and later lived through the chilling effect of Section 28. Working with others, I realised that we could use our legal and advocacy skills to work to end discrimination against the gay community in this country. Progress in delivering legal and cultural change has succeeded in no small part because of our focus on human rights. Later, as the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, it was a privilege not only to lead a national organisation committed to promoting equality and human rights, but to work with international organisations promoting greater understanding, particularly in countries where human rights are not yet as well embedded in law as they are in the UK.
At the same time as protecting the rights of our own citizens, and, dare I say, resisting culture-war attacks on the very notion of human rights, we must stop foreign state-directed crimes against individuals deemed by their Governments to be a security threat. The noble Lord has provided ample evidence of those threats. I am particularly grateful to the Minister, my noble friend Lord Hanson, for meeting me to discuss his department’s response to this important report. I thank him for his work, which I am confident is in line with the ambitions of the JCHR report. The freedoms and human rights of journalists, lawyers and political opponents in this country are, as we have heard, being undermined. I also know that anxieties about such threats can and do have a chilling effect in our universities. We must work hard to ensure that human rights and freedom of speech are protected in our universities more generally. It is for that reason that I am committed to support the work of the JCHR in this important area.
I should like to end by making it clear that it would have been beyond the imagination of my teenage self to think that today I would be a Member of this House. It is thanks to the support of my parents, and particularly to the confidence that my teachers had in me while I was growing up, that I hope to play a role in this Chamber in promoting not only human rights but the importance of education and culture.
The recent events in Iran should not need any repetition but, unfortunately, they do. We have seen, night after night, the persecution during the recent demonstrations by Iranian citizens. The recent crackdown probably involved the murder of 36,000 Iranian citizens. The figure is likely much higher than that, but that figure can be readily attributable to the Iranian regime. Agents of the Iranian state, as we have heard, have attacked peaceful demonstrators in central London on a number of occasions. I welcome the fact that the Government—I have engaged in Questions with my noble friend the Minister about this—have recently introduced new criminal charges that have been put on to the statute book, whereby if you have undeclared links to the Tehran regime, you can be prosecuted. That was not the case before and is to be welcomed.
However, as has been mentioned many times, the IRGC—the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—remains unproscribed. Individuals may be prosecuted and they have been proscribed, but we have failed to proscribe it as a collective unit. We are talking about an enormous organisation that employs some 140,000 to 150,000 people globally and uses proxies in many countries, including in this country and across Europe. In the other place and here, I have seen Ministers—from both Governments—come to the Dispatch Box who are clearly sympathetic to proscribing the IRGC, then it does not happen. That points to a culture at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office that clearly militates against proscribing the IRGC.
That brings me on to China, which I also want to focus on. We all read regularly and see the reports about the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. That is well known. I remind your Lordships and those who may not have been aware of it at the time that, extraordinarily—it sounds like a work of fiction—three or four years ago, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office officials invited the governor of Xinjiang province, the butcher of Xinjiang, to a meeting in London. The reason why that the meeting did not happen is that my former parliamentary neighbour found out about it and tabled a UQ.
I see that I have run out of time, so I will quickly mention a couple of points. We need to stop the construction of the embassy; that permission has to be revoked. We need to see the proscription of the IRGC. Finally and more widely, we need to see greater capacity in Britain’s military abilities, because the best protection against war is preparing for it.
Let me be plain: this is an assault on the rule of law in our United Kingdom. When foreign states use bogus Interpol red notices as political instruments, seek to enforce civil judgments abroad to punish dissidents, or cultivate networks that monitor and intimidate diaspora communities on our soil, they are attacking the fundamental freedoms that it is our duty to protect.
The UK’s response under all Governments has been feeble. We have failed to use the National Security Act, the foreign influence registration scheme or sanctions regimes with the urgency, coherence and transparency that this threat demands. Worse still, we have put trade and access to cheap Chinese goods ahead of the defence of the freedoms of our people. China is a real threat to our fundamental freedoms and way of life, yet our Governments call it a strategic partner and we kowtow to it. That must change. I therefore propose five immediate, practical steps out of the 37 recommendations in the report that we should adopt without delay.
First, we should adopt a formal UK definition of transnational repression and mandate routine data collection across police forces and relevant agencies so that we can measure scale, patterns and perpetrators. Secondly, we should designate China under the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme where objective threat assessments support it, and publish clear guidance on how FIRS data will be used to investigate TNR. Thirdly, we should create a dedicated national TNR reporting and support hotline—one that is multilingual and staffed by trained specialists—and require anonymised data from that service to feed threat analysis. Fourthly, we should reform judicial comity and foreign judgment enforcement rules so that our courts do not blindly accept that Chinese courts have similar integrity to ours. They do not, as we have seen in the appalling case of Jimmy Lai. Fifthly, we should lead an international push to reform Interpol procedures, working with Five Eyes, the G7 and other like-minded partners to stop the abuse of red notices being used to punish political critics.
These are essential measures to defend our citizens, our institutions and the open society that we cherish. The United Kingdom is a refuge for those fleeing persecution. If we allow foreign states to turn our streets, campuses and courts into extensions of their coercive apparatus, we betray that duty. Let us act now—decisively, coherently and in concert with our allies—to protect those who look to Britain for safety and to defend the rule of law at home and abroad.
“persistent and—crucially—unpredictable”.
Since 2022, there has been a sharp rise in physical attacks, kidnappings and assassination attempts. The report further stressed that our security services and police have stopped at least 15 murder or kidnap arrests against British nationals.
In conclusion, we must introduce immediate legislation to proscribe the IRGC as a terror organisation and to constrain its transnational repression. We should expel identified diplomats linked to the IRGC where evidence of abusive and illegal activities exists. We should strengthen our investigatory and prosecution capacity, funding specialist policing and legal resources to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals and networks facilitating transnational repression. This is the best outcome of this report.
Transnational repression frequently targets dissidents living abroad, the family members of political prisoners and individuals who engage with the UN mechanism. Just last week, I was made aware of an example of a young Myanmar artist called Sai. He was trying to put on an exhibition in Bangkok of artists in exile from Hong Kong, Tibet, Iran, Russia and Syria, and Uyghur artists. The exhibition, which was scheduled to open for almost three months, was shut down by officials in Bangkok because of diplomatic pressure from the Chinese regime.
Finally, I want to talk about one of the most important aspects of the report: the foreign influence registration scheme, which was introduced under the National Security Act in 2023. The Joint Committee’s report welcomes the introduction of FIRS and the designation of Iran and Russia on the enhanced tier, and so do I. However, the report expresses concerns about the evidence it received regarding TNR by China, and therefore the absence of China from the enhanced tier. In concluding, can the Minister advise the House on whether TNR is a high priority consideration when deciding which countries should be specified under the enhanced tier of FIRS, and whether the Government will designate China on that enhanced tier in compliance with what the report has said?
Once again, I commend the noble Lord, his committee and this report, and look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
The response by the police is of course very welcome, but the committee report rightly contends that treating each case of this kind individually is not enough. Law enforcement can pursue the perpetrators, but what is needed is a commitment to address the behaviour of foreign Governments who are determined to destroy opposition to them by truly vicious means, and who are certainly denying those targeted their right to freedom of expression.
In the specific case of Shahzad Akbar, first, can the Minister tell the House what action the Government have taken to put pressure on the Pakistani Government? Does he agree that addressing the root causes in a political and diplomatic response is needed in cases of this kind? Secondly, what reassurance is Mr Akbar being given from a senior level in the Government that his safety is a matter of concern and that everything possible will be done to protect him and his family?
A number of dissident communities are at high risk of transnational repression, such as the critics of the Iranian regime, as has been mentioned by other speakers. They have escaped from the likelihood of imprisonment without trial in Iran, but can the Minister elaborate on what special measures have been taken to protect them?
When the Minister replies, I hope he will be able to give a positive response on a number of the issues the committee report identified, including better data collection, the co-ordination of interagency responses to TNR, and the possibility of specific sanctions against it. We need to address these questions to maintain our reputation as a country which does not tolerate the denial of free speech through violent intimidation.
Let us look at the other end of the scale: the top of society. The US Vice-President JD Vance last year shocked Europe at the Munich security conference by attacking democratically agreed laws, debated in this very Chamber, to protect women’s healthcare rights. JD Vance suggested that the US might not live up to treaty obligations unless we changed our laws. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, spoke about Chinese assault on the rule of law here; we are seeing an assault from the US on our rule of law.
This year, of course, the speech from Secretary of State Marco Rubio was much better received. The tone was much more conciliatory, but the content was no different. It attacked the obstructions of international law, the very human rights we are talking about, and suggested that this hamstrings future western colonialism. He asked—you might say demanded—that Europe join again with the US to expand with missionaries and soldiers to build vast empires extending across the globe, which is definitely not in line with human rights.
What does this mean practically? I spoke earlier today in the EU debate about the precautionary principle. Whether we are talking about Chinese technology or other forms of transnational repression, we might wish that we acted earlier. Perhaps we should apply the precautionary principle, particularly when it comes to US tech firms and their hold over our society and individuals, and to protecting not just British individuals or the US diaspora, but our whole rule of law and human rights, against a new threat of transnational repression.