Contributions
1,620 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI will keep it basic as well. This Government will do everything that we can to keep the public safe, and the hon. Lady will have heard the response that I gave earlier with…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI always listen to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say, but that does not mean that I always agree with it. I do not agree with it today, and I am not sure it is especially…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that these matters require a cross-Government approach, and that is precisely the way in which this Government seek to proceed with them. I…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseAs the House knows well, the right hon. Gentleman is personally invested in this issue. Members will understand the history and the reasons for the concerns he has expressed, and…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI am grateful to my hon. Friend, not least for saying that facts matter—they really do. That is why I have come to the House today, to set out facts so that Members can make a…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseOf course, the hon. Lady has a very close personal interest in this case, and it will be well understood by Members across the House why she has expressed concerns today and…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI am grateful to my hon. Friend, who asks such a very useful question that parliamentarians should be asking themselves. Yes, I can give him that assurance, and I have made clear…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseThe right hon. Gentleman has been consistent in expressing those concerns over many years. I would gently point out to him that the situation he describes as absurd is the same…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend for her suggestion. I hope that she, the House and Opposition Front Benchers know that my approach will always be to make as much…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI can give the right hon. Lady that absolute assurance. The Government and both the Departments in which I serve take the importance of parliamentary scrutiny very seriously. As…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI have a huge amount of time for my hon. Friend. The expression that I used both on 15 September and again today, on behalf of the Government, was that we are “extremely…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role. As he may know, I am a regular visitor to his constituency and I pay tribute to the important national security work that takes place…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI am grateful to my right hon. Friend. She talked about muddle and confusion: she is right that there has been a lot of ill-informed commentary in previous days. That is precisely…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI find it genuinely astonishing that at no point did the Leader of the Opposition acknowledge that all the acts that we have been talking about this afternoon happened when she…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseDespite the evolving nature of the state threats that we face, the DPP has given his assurance that the CPS was not influenced by any external party, any member of this…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseI took every opportunity to give the right hon. Lady as long as I possibly could so that she could look at the points that we were seeking to raise today. But she has asked me…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseNo, I do not agree.13 Oct 2025HANSARD Security Update: Official Secrets Act CaseWith your permission, Mr Speaker, I want to update the House on the facts surrounding the collapse of the trial of Christopher Berry and Christopher Cash. However, following the…13 Oct 2025HANSARD Official Secrets ActI hold the hon. Gentleman in the highest regard, so I hope that he will not mind me gently pointing out to him that I could not have been clearer in my earlier remarks about how…15 Sept 2025HANSARD Official Secrets ActJimmy Lai should be released immediately.15 Sept 2025