My Lords, as I have said on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition on a number of occasions, we will always work with the Government on matters of national security. All of us want to protect our country, our people and our democracy, and we will stand with our friends and allies across the world in order to do this. We join the Government in condemning Russian interference and hostile activity here in the UK and throughout Europe. There have been numerous examples of such activity, not least the current cases that we have seen and many others, as outlined by the Home Secretary in his Statement in the other place. We read consistently of such attacks in our newspapers.

We also remind everyone that we remain absolutely at one with the Government with respect to Ukraine and that should there be any change of government in the near future, there will be no change of policy at all. It is important for us all to recognise—and continue to recognise—that the defence of the UK starts in Ukraine, against the illegal invasion by Russia, but that there are also challenges and threats to our homeland security, so we support the measures that the Home Secretary outlined a few days ago in his Statement. It is in this spirit of cross-party support that I will make a number of further points and ask some questions of the Government.

Notwithstanding recent changes to the law, there remain questions about illicit Russian finance. Can the Minister reassure us about the priority that the Government are giving to this? What are the latest figures he has available that he can share with us about the amount of illicit Russian finance that the Government believe there to be and how much has so far been seized? As I say, there is continuing concern that we could and should be doing more.

Can the Minister outline what diplomatic response the Government expect from Russia? The Home Secretary said:

“We will always ensure that we protect our ability to have lines of communication with Russia … Routes for de-escalation” and so on

“are very important … We will seek to maintain” those lines

“even while we take these decisive actions

We all agree with that, so can the Minister say anything further on any diplomatic response one way or the other, notwithstanding the obvious difficulties with respect to that?

On the question of seizing Russian assets to fund reconstruction in Ukraine, a policy that the Government have said they support in principle, has this policy been progressed in any way? In the United States, more than 70 individuals have been charged with sanctions evasion and huge amounts of assets seized. Can the Minister give an equivalent figure for the UK? It is my understanding that no one has been charged. If so, can he explain whether any cases are ongoing and, if not, why not? It is also the case that we have still not had a full update on the scale of risks from golden visas. When can we expect that from the Government?

Finally, there can be no doubt that from Iranian-sponsored “kidnap and kill” threats to attacks on so-called dissidents, the repression of Hong Kong protesters outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester, Salisbury and many other examples on home soil in the UK, we have witnessed a fundamental shift in the threat landscape. State actors are targeting us in our own country, sometimes with the co-operation of serious and organised crime. Even in this Parliament, a parliamentary aide and more alleged spies have been charged, as we have recently seen in our papers, although with respect to China. How are the Government responding to this increased threat and supporting the amazing work of our police and intelligence agencies, which we all recognise?

This is one of the fundamental questions of our democracy today, so the co-ordination of that effort across government is of extreme importance. I wonder whether the Minister could say a little about that. We must not be found lacking in our response as we defend our hard-won freedoms, and that co-ordinated effort must be at the heart of it.