Cyber-security and UK Democracy

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 3:50 pm on 25 March 2024.

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Photo of Iain Duncan Smith Iain Duncan Smith Conservative, Chingford and Woodford Green 3:50, 25 March 2024

Tomorrow, it will be three years since parliamentarians here were sanctioned; your defence of us, Mr Speaker, has been remarkable. Although I welcome the two sanctions from the Government, it is a little bit like an elephant giving birth to a mouse. The reality is that in those three years the Chinese have trashed the Sino-British agreement and been committing murder, slave labour and genocide in Xinjiang. We have had broken churches, and, in Hong Kong, false court cases against Jimmy Lai. My question is: why two? America has sanctioned more than 40 people in Hong Kong; we have sanctioned none, and only three lowly officials in Xinjiang. Surely the integrated review should be changed. China is not an epoch-defining challenge, strange as that may be, but it is surely a threat. Can the Government now correct that, so that we all know where we are with China?