Tom Tugendhat
MP for Tonbridge · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), rejecting this very policy as the economies of Palestine and Israel are too interconnected—innocent Palestinians and Israelis will suffer. Still this Government are pressing on in haste, despite warnings from the Labour Benches from the hon.”
“First, on the coherence of the policy, can he confirm that the advice from his Department on the practicality of sanctions has changed so dramatically that these sanctions will in reality be targeted, not area as previously stated?”
“Fifthly, what instructions has he given to the enforcement bodies to ensure that Parkinson’s, myeloma and multiple sclerosis patients will still get the drugs that keep them alive?”
“I place on record my and my party’s deep sadness at the violence we have seen in recent months and years, our commitment to the right of Palestinians and Israelis to live in dignity and peace, and our recognition of those who have been victims over generations.”
“In the week before Rosh Hashanah and the high holy days, the Government are acting without prudence, introducing sanctions that are both light and serious.”
“When they recognised the state of Palestine, only recently, they did so against the laws we ourselves have defended since 1933, in contravention of the Montevideo convention and of the principles we have set out.”
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“Let me sketch out a hypothetical situation for you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is possible, although I hope it is not necessary, that British troops will be asked to do some peacekeeping in somewhere like Ukraine. It is possible that they will have to leave at a moment’s notice with the equipment they have, without the ability to re-equip—simply to go with the best that they have. It is possible that countries like Russia will object. We know, because we have seen it happen in the late 1990s and all the way through the 2010s and 2020s, that the Russian Government and others have encouraged legal action against our armed forces.”
“Just after the Falklands war, when the Soviets realised that they did not have the military power to defeat NATO, they started experimenting with lawfare, and we have seen them do it again and again. If Members would like to read reports on this issue, Policy Exchange very kindly published a report by me in 2013, and another one in 2015—“Fog of Law” and “Clearing the Fog of Law”, for those who have trouble sleeping. Since then, we have seen lawfare grow. We have seen states using the power of lawyers against the interests of the British people time and again, and the trouble with the capitulation we are seeing today is that it is not just about Diego Garcia, these islands or this interest; it is about the question of whether or not this Government will stand up for the British people, and for our security and our interests.”
“I will not. The problem is that this case is not just about these islands, or the issues we are debating today; it is about the way in which Governments approach these debates. Just in case we are in any doubt about the changed nature of the use of law against us, it is worth looking at the timeline of these events—which is completely coincidental. We know, because colleagues have mentioned it, that in the 1960s a deal was done, a payment was made, Mauritius accepted it and we moved on. Just after the Falklands war, a legal action was begun, using Mauritius and extending a claim. Just after the Falklands war, the KGB started to fund the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. By the way, it is not me saying this—it is in the Mitrokhin archive; it is all public.”
“The Minister cannot even change the judgment, and he has sacrificed everything on the whims of an international process with no regard to the interests of the British people.”
“I was a Minister, and I wrote about it and complained about it, as did Lord Murray of Blidworth—I think that is right. I am going to get his name wrong, forgive me—that is one for Hansard . We both wrote, because we both thought it was wrong at the time. What can I say? We left office. The civil servants re-presented the same offer and sadly, here we go again. The British people feel so disenchanted at the moment because we see changes of Government and no changes of policy. We simply see a continuation and the Whips’ briefings coming out again. We simply see the pointlessness of democracy in this place, because we might as well not bother being here. The Foreign Office stitched this one up.”
“Had the hon. Gentleman been in the Chamber at the beginning of the debate, he would have been welcome to contribute, but given that he has such a passing interest, I am sure he will not mind if I carry on. The reality is that it is not up to the person who is pursued by law as to whether they will be challenged; it is up to the aggressor, and we know who the aggressor is. We know who has been using lawfare against us. We have seen it time and again, and I am afraid that the effect of this Bill is to concede that point. I am fascinated that so many Government Members feel that they had no choice but to conclude the negotiation. Admittedly it was begun mistakenly by a Conservative Administration and, yes, I did write to the then Prime Ministers—both of them—complaining about it and pointing out the error of their ways.”
“I welcome today’s national security strategy, which bears a remarkable resemblance to every single one I have seen over the past 15 years. There have been only very slight adjustments over that period; I wonder whether there is any connection between the authors, or whether it is just that the officials have not changed, so the politics has not changed. However, one thing that really has changed over that period is technology, and the document I have seen this morning has very little connection to the democratisation of technology that we have seen in Ukraine’s warfare in Russia or between Israel and Iran—or, indeed, in warfare we might see waged against us by the switching off of electronic items, including solar panels and cars by the Chinese state.”
“I enjoyed playing buzzword bingo when the right hon. Member presented his statement. I remind him that the rebellion on Huawei was actually led by Conservative Members, not Labour. May I question the right hon. Gentleman about a meeting, which he referred to with a little more pride than I would have done? It was the meeting with Liu Jianchao, who is personally responsible for Operations Fox Hunt and Sky Net, which, of course, concern transnational repression, the kidnapping of Chinese citizens and their repatriation by force to mainland China. He did not seem quite as ashamed of that as I would have been. Why has he still not made it clear that the first scheme, which the Conservatives left intact and ready to go, will not yet be introduced for the whole of the Chinese state, as it should be? That is what it was designed for.”
“If we are not even willing to be honest with ourselves in this place, how on earth can we expect the courts to consider the questions we have debated when they have to look at these cases? I say to all right hon. and hon. Friends—in a debate like this, we are all friends, because we are all seeking the right answer for our country—that this is the last time we are going to talk about these questions. This is the last time that we are going to have actual authority over the words in this Bill, and no matter what interviews we have heard and no matter what assurances we have been given, today or over the past few weeks, the only thing that matters is the words in black and white in the Bill. Those are the words that will be interpreted by judges for years to come.”
“Yes, the exercise of that power will be agreed and approved of in advance, but when the state takes a life, even with consent, that is a huge shift in the relationship between the individual and the state. It is a transformation in the way in which power lies, and we should be fully conscious of what is being done. That is why this debate, frankly, needs a little more honesty. We have heard the blandishments and the warm words of euphemism; we have heard this called assisted dying, but the truth is that it is not assisted dying. Assisted dying is what a hospice already does today—helping people, caring for them and supporting them. This is assisted killing or assisted suicide, depending on which word we choose. Honesty in language is important.”
“Many points have been made already today, so I will not cover them all. Briefly, I associate myself with the words of the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), whose powerful speech summarised the points that many of us wish to make, and those of the hon. Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), whose questions have got to the heart of this matter. This Bill is about many different things, but fundamentally, it is about two: power and trust. It is about the power over life and death, not just over ourselves, because we already have the power to end our own lives—it is called suicide. It is not a crime, and has not been a crime in this country for decades. The Bill is about a different power: the power of the state through its agents to exercise power over life and death.”
“Choosing to make that gap greater is not just enabling someone to access care, but actively rejecting others in our community who should seek care but will not because of the fear this will raise in their hearts. We need to think really hard about that. To those who say that there will be no change and that, “This is it; there can be no further change,” I say that the closest legal equivalent to this legislation is the Canadian legislation. The closest legal equivalent to us is the Canadian Parliament. The closest equivalent to the national health service is the Canadian health system. I therefore give you—”
“I will not. Those are the words that will give powers to Ministers and to the Secretary of State to exercise his or her discretion with the most cursory of oversight from this place. Let us be absolutely clear on what we are choosing to do. Let us be absolutely clear that it is on us—it is our responsibility—to think not just for those who have options and power, and those who will not be intimidated, but for those who will be. We must think of the weak and vulnerable, to whom the Mother of the House referred, and for the communities in our country who already do not trust the health service, reject vaccination, choose not to come early for cancer diagnoses and already have the worst health outcomes. We need to think of them.”
“Today, sadly, we have even said that those who merely feel pressure are allowed to access this service. Members have a real choice today. When that first 18 or 19-year-old—that first individual—goes and asks for this, it will be we who made that decision. It will be on our consciences. It will be a decision that has fundamentally changed the relationship between the individual and the state in a way that can never be reversed.”
“I am not giving way. [ Interruption. ] The hon. Lady has spoken for many hours; I am speaking for five minutes. The experience of Roger Foley, a Canadian living with a degenerative condition, warns us: “As Canada has expanded its assisted dying law, I have faced neglect, verbal abuse, and denial of essential care. I’ve been told my care needs are too much work, and my life has been devalued. Worse still, I have been approached and told by healthcare staff to consider opting for Medical Aid in Dying. Instead of offering compassionate support to alleviate my suffering, it is suggested…that I should end my life.” Sadly, this is not the only example we have heard of this; we have also heard of veterans with post-traumatic stress order and others with limiting conditions.”
“It is a pleasure to speak after the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) today; I spoke before him at the rally to which he refers. Those of us who have been sanctioned—I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, are among our number—are particularly conscious of the effect that the Chinese state has on our country. Do you, Madam Deputy Speaker, honestly believe that the Minister thinks that the Chinese would look at this proposal in the same way? Do we in this House honestly believe that something threatening our economic security, as highlighted by the Americans and the Dutch, should go through a bureaucratic planning process, with no ability to vary it, because, frankly, them’s the orders? I do not think that is the way China would do it, and it is certainly not the way we should do it.”
“The Minister must appreciate that frustration, given that she was sitting on the Opposition Benches only a few months ago, as no doubt she will be again in only a few years’ time. The reality is that it is very difficult to represent those who send us here if we are not given information. I was sent a letter by Simon Beamish, who runs the Leigh Academies Trust, and he told me that schools in my area of west Kent are already going to have redundancies or are going to make choices based on the unfunded pledges that have been given. Will the Minister make a commitment that the next pledges will be funded?”
“One of the things I think we should be proudest of in England is the success of English schools over the last 10 to 14 years. Frankly, the differences in outcomes in England from those in Labour-run Wales or SNP-run Scotland have been very striking, demonstrating that, while for sure there are brilliant teachers across the United Kingdom, the different system in England has enabled its schools to flourish. While I welcome the fact that the Minister is bringing the statement out early and I appreciate the work the Government have done on it, I am afraid that I do share the frustration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), who is no longer in her place.”
“My hon. Friend will remember that in the last Parliament we brought in the National Security Act 2023, which introduced huge controls on the nature of an individual’s liberty. The legislation passed through the House over a period of two years and required an entire Department to prepare it. There were considerations with the judiciary, foreign Governments and other services, including the police. The Bill before us allows the state to kill someone. Does he feel that this legislation is therefore somewhat more constrained than other legislation that would normally have been allowed to pass? And yes, it is correct to say that it allows the state—an actor on behalf of the state, at the request of an individual—to take a life. In the English language, that is called killing.”
“Will she make absolutely clear that His Majesty’s Government stand for freedom of religion and non-belief, not just belief, and that that means the freedom to change one’s religion, to reject a previous religion, and to criticise any religion? Does she agree with that?”
“I welcome the tone in which this debate is being conducted. Given that the Minister will not make the special envoy’s role statutory, will she state very clearly that she will not make something else statutory—that she will not reintroduce a blasphemy law in the United Kingdom? She will recognise that the abolition of the blasphemy laws in the 1980s and 1990s meant that people could express whatever belief they happened to hold in a completely free way. That ended a level of oppression that had been possible, although not exercised for many years. Will the Minister make absolutely clear that in no way will this Government support a blasphemy law, and that they will not allow police to introduce one through the back door by criminalising acts that would otherwise be covered by freedom of expression?”
“I will continue to be happy to work very closely with the Minister and her officials to achieve that, so we do not allow any historical actions of the kind I have listed to happen again.”
“It is expensive and, since the incorporations legislation in 1992, I doubt whether there have been many other transactions where two interconnecting colleges were broken up, with one split into two parts and then transferred to three receiving colleges. Today, many parts of the complex further education web at Hadlow, and in Kent more broadly, are thriving. I pay huge tribute to those in further education colleges who give so many opportunities to so many. As I said at the start, staff, management and students must take huge credit and huge pride for what they achieved during those difficult days. It is now the responsibility of the Department to safeguard that under the current governance model.”
“Returning to the nub of the issue, Hadlow rural community school must thrive and succeed. To do so, it must have land available to retain its land-based specialism. It can do this under the current governance model, not as part of North Kent College’s delivery of services at Hadlow College. This works best for both parties, otherwise we run the risk of repeating all the governance failures that contributed to educational administration in the first place. The history I referred to earlier—of murky governance processes, expansion without clear justification and, frankly, some pretty outrageous scrutiny of public finances by the two individuals I named—must be avoided. This is where I want to end. Education administration is an extremely difficult process.”
“Tonbridge has some of the highest-performing secondary schools and further education facilities in the country, and many people move to our community for our schools. Hadlow rural community school is an important part of this network, and one that has a clear specialism. The Department needs to support this first and foremost. In addition, I was extremely disappointed to see a passing reference, at the end of the same letter, to the school “engaging with North Kent College” in a “long-term solution”. May I please remind the Minister that the long-term solution was found when separation occurred? I encourage the Minister to speak to officials who can remind her of the considerable correspondence we had back in 2023 to secure the appropriate lease for the school to access the college’s land.”
“The Department is now articulating—based on a letter to the school from the Department, dated 3 April—that the plots of land at Court Lane, which could be used for educational provision, are sold. Frankly, it was this letter that motivated me to apply for this debate. The reasons given for that suggestion are interesting. It is claimed in this letter that Ministers have determined that “capital investment options do not offer good value for money”. This is the same Department that has rightly invested tens of millions of pounds in securing the future of education in Hadlow, both for the school and the college. The education provision needs to be appropriate in a competitive market.”
“Indeed, having to repurpose means a much-desired footpath and cycle way between Tonbridge and Hadlow is extremely unlikely to be delivered. The impact on Hadlow rural community school is even more severe. I am afraid I am deeply concerned about the approach the Department is currently taking towards its governance. The school has done extremely well to survive the process. It was designed for a land-based specialism, which the educational administration process rightly safeguarded. The separation of the college and the school was inevitable, but not necessarily detrimental to either. However, the loss of land in Hadlow affects them both. I refer the Minister to my letter of 10 April 2025 to the Secretary of State.”
“There is broad agreement from all those now responsible for delivering further education at Hadlow, including North Kent College and Hadlow rural community school, that the sale of parcels of land has impacted the student offer. This is deeply regrettable. I would therefore like to ask the Minister how we may be able to adapt the educational administration process to ensure that land sales are not the default, especially for land-based educational establishments with this specialism. From the perspective of North Kent College, having just taken over Hadlow College, the speed of this process meant it could not accurately make arguments to safeguard some land earmarked for sale. This has meant repurposing its provision on a smaller footprint. This has a big impact on the village.”
“Because that is what Hadlow College is fundamentally about. It is a land-based college. It needs land to train the next generation of rural entrepreneurs. The more land it has, the more it can contribute to the rural economy. The same applies to Hadlow rural community school. In 2022, a number of parcels of land around Hadlow were marketed for sale by Knight Frank on behalf of the administrators, and the proceeds were used to pay back creditors. I understand that rationale from a financial perspective, but this is not an administration process. It is called an “educational administration”, and education provision has successfully continued throughout this turmoil.”
“This view is widely held in the community because, sadly, the offer at Hadlow College has deteriorated since the educational administration process. The Hadlow College farm shop is no more and the Broadview tearooms have closed. Its landholding has decreased. All of this had enabled Hadlow College to be a sustainable provider prior to the reckless expansion plans pursued in the last decade. That is all now gone because of the need to pay back for failed business ventures. Put simply, what has happened here is a gamble with students’ education to expand beyond the core purpose of Hadlow College. I want to build on this point further, and I would appreciate answers from the Minister about how we can strengthen the educational administration process to future-proof education land. Why do I focus on land?”
“We learned in November 2023 that Paul Hannan, the then principal, will be fined £250,000 if he ever works in education again. We also know from the administrators’ reports that a deal was made with the deputy principal, Mark Lumsdon-Taylor, whereby he agreed to pay a four-figure sum as part of a confidentiality agreement. I find this part of the process extremely unsatisfactory. Tens of millions of pounds of public money has been poured into the educational administration process because of the reckless actions of the two senior leaders of Hadlow College at the time. Given the scale and profile of this issue, I do not think that a confidentiality agreement is appropriate, and I urge the Department to bring forward amendments to future legislation that increase the level of transparency and accountability in such matters.”
“I include all that history so that the Minister and the House can understand the complexity of the situation and to make it clear what was happening. Money was being requested on a huge scale, supposedly for further education provision, but that is not where it was going. As subsequent investigations have found, there was financial mismanagement on a scale never seen before, which led to Hadlow College entering educational administration. There must be some accountability for the people who made those decisions, and it is therefore disappointing to many that those responsible for the expenditure—primarily the principal and the finance director at the time—have not had their investigations conducted in the public domain.”
“In the years leading up to 2019, I met representatives of the college many times, and often I was asked to help secure significant amounts of money for them. In December 2016, I was informed of two immediate funding issues: the repayment of £888,000 from the 2014-15 financial year, which arose from the K College acquisition, and the £929,935 that was needed at West Kent and Ashford Colleges for 2016-17. I asked the Department for this funding on the basis that it was used to support further education provision in west Kent, but was it? We now know that Hadlow College applied for £20 million from the ESFA’s transactions unit, but the application failed. The ESFA demanded that its funding be returned, and Hadlow College consequently asked for what was essentially a Government bail-out.”
“I have a copy of a letter I received on 1 October 2018 from the so-called Hadlow Group, which informed me of a proposal to merge West Kent and Ashford College with Hadlow College. In the interests of time, I shall not go into the background of the merger, which starts with the collapse of K College nearly 15 years ago; I merely want to point out that the Hadlow Group was seeking to merge colleges at the time. As the ESFA, the Further Education Commissioner, the administrators and the Department have rightly recognised, the Hadlow Group had no legal structure—it was essentially a marketing term to provide credibility to the ever-expanding portfolio of sites—which gives us an indication as to where things started to go wrong.”
“It very quickly became clear that the college had been reckless with its finances. Its expansion was getting further away from its core purpose: to provide land-based education in west Kent. Following the ESFA investigation, I wrote to the then Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education, Anne Milton, on 10 May 2019. On Betteshanger colliery, the letter said: “I would be concerned if further investment is made here in light of the financial situation should courses be cut, with students left unable to gain their qualifications.” Put simply, money was either being used for peripheral projects that did not exist, or being transferred out of students’ education. At this point, I wish to touch on the concept of the Hadlow Group.”
“But it was not just Hadlow College that needed to be rescued; also included were Hadlow rural community school, West Kent College in Tonbridge, Betteshanger colliery in Dover, Ashford College, Princess Christian’s Farm in Hildenborough, animal management sites in Canterbury and Mottingham, and a further site in Greenwich. The question is simple: how did so many further education institutions end up insolvent? The expansion happened quickly in the years preceding 2019. It was about not just the acquisition of further sites, but the subsequent investment. Let us take the example of Betteshanger colliery; after Hadlow College’s interest started, it spent £1.2 million on changing plans for a visitor centre, and then lost £4 million on the collapsed sale of a business park.”
“I will name just a few of those people: Graham Morley, the first interim principal after educational administration in 2019; Lindsay Pamphilon; Jim Mawby at the Tonbridge site; and now David Gleed and Chris Lydon from North Kent College. That is not to forget Paul Boxall and his team at Hadlow rural community school, to whom I will refer later. The reality is that they had a much harder job because of the process the college went through in 2019. In May 2019, Hadlow College became the first further education facility in the country to enter educational administration after an Education and Skills Funding Agency investigation. This followed updates to the statutory college insolvency regime in January 2019 that affected further education and sixth-form colleges. It meant that Hadlow College kept its doors open.”
“For those reasons, we should have always been celebrating what Hadlow College does for the local area, but I must be honest: there was a period when we could not. In 2019, Hadlow College became the first further education institution in the country to enter educational administration. During this debate, I will explore how the process affects Hadlow and the community today and ask the Minister to consider how it could be improved. Before I do that, I pay tribute to all staff and students who were at the college and all the linked institutions during this challenging time. They made sure courses kept running and that most were unaffected.”
“I am sorry to see the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) running off. I was very much looking forward to his intervention a little later, but maybe he will be back. Who knows? Lucky me. Hadlow College is Kent’s only land-based rural college. It is unique in our county for the offer that it provides. Its huge range of courses are designed to provide the skills needed to maintain Kent’s place as the garden of England. Having been campaigning for fantastic Conservative councillors earlier today in the beautiful sunshine, I can assure the House that it remains that wonderful garden. The college is a regional powerhouse and an important part of the local Tonbridge community. Speak to any of our key rural businesses, and they will say how the skills offered at Hadlow College help maintain our agricultural capacity in Kent.”
“I welcome the announcement made only a few days ago that the Government will adopt the amendment to the Great British Energy Bill to prevent slave-made goods, meaning that they will not be balancing their environmental consciences on the backs of some of the world’s most endangered and troubled individuals in the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. Will the Government extend that to the private sector to make sure no slave-made goods are coming into the UK? In New Ash Green and Ridley in my constituency, a solar panel farm is being put in that not only threatens the environment, but threatens to bring in slave-made goods into the United Kingdom.”
“I am delighted to hear that the Minister has been raising human rights concerns with the Government of Indonesia about critical minerals. Would she perhaps have a word with her colleague the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero about the human rights concerns over other critical minerals conversions in China? It is going into a green energy economy that is supposed to have environmental, social and governance accords, yet somehow or other it fails on all of those: it fails because of its coal-powered production, it fails because its products are made by socially undesirable slave labour—I hope she agrees about that—and it fails on governance because there is no oversight. Will she have those same conversations within her own Government?”
“Will the Minister assure me that he is advertising as widely as possible the role of the counter-terrorism police in fighting not just terrorism, but the state threats that are appearing before us? The reality is, we do not expect war today to take its old nature of massed armies or invasions. We are instead seeing a pernicious undermining of the confidence in the British state and the credibility of our ability to protect our citizens and friends, which, in turn, undermines not just our position, but our economy and the freedom of our citizens.”
“First, I want to say that one of the proudest things I was able to achieve over the past few years was the BNO visa route, which was a correct correction of a mistake made by this House nearly 40 years ago. I am grateful that my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who was in her place as shadow Foreign Secretary a few moments ago, was able to introduce it when she was Home Secretary. The support I received from the Minister at the time was also gratefully received. Turning to the threat to activists, as someone who is sanctioned and who occasionally gets letters to my home and text messages from random Hong Kong and Beijing numbers, I can only imagine how much more threatening that activity would be if I had connections or relatives in Hong Kong and mainland China.”
“The pressures that we see in Iran today—the failure of the state, the emergence of a civil society and perhaps even, let us hope, the destruction of that dreadful regime that has occupied the country and tortured those people for so many years—require a whole-of-Government response. We are feeling the effects here in the United Kingdom because the poison is seeping out of Tehran.”
“I pay tribute to the Minister for the work he is doing on leading this fight against a hostile state that is doing so much against us. I join him in paying tribute not just to Jonathan Hall—he did amazingly good work for us in government and I am sure will be serving the Minister with the same dedication and diligence—but to MI5, whose leadership under Sir Ken McCallum has begun to put real focus on some areas that had previously slipped by. Does the Minister agree that this is not just a domestic challenge? I recognise all that he has set out, but we need to be working on this matter with friends and allies.”
“I echo the thanks to the Prime Minister for his leadership over recent days. He has definitely spoken for Britain when he has spoken on the world stage. May I ask him to join me in thanking the parliamentary staffers who, while he was doing that, were driving aid to Ukraine? Quite rightly, the Prime Minister has brought together a coalition of European and NATO partners. Is he working on those further afield? As he knows very well, Australia has already donated Bushmasters, and many are concerned about Iran’s support for the Russians through its Shahed drone programme. Is he reaching out to our middle eastern allies as well?”
“I appreciate that the Minister’s budget has been cut so much that she is now put on suicide watch to defend the indefensible for the Government— [Interruption . ] And I appreciate that the howls of outrage from Labour Members will be confected when it comes to this issue, for the simple reason that the Minister has nothing to add on a budgetary question that has gone from $13 billion to $6 billion and is now coming out of her budget. Will she make it absolutely clear to the House that there is no way that she will take hard-earned taxpayers’ money that should be going to support the poorest in the world and instead pay off a Government who actually have no legal claim?”
“I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way—not only an hon. Lady but an honourable comrade, as we both formerly were. We both heard the announcements yesterday and today of the extra money going to defence and I think we both welcomed that. The thing that troubles me and my party colleagues, about which I am sure she shares concern, is that if we look at the way the maths seems to be working out, particularly given the comments made by the Prime Minister’s spokesman today, it appears that this is not a rise in defence spending but, once these issues are taken into account, a cut in defence spending. Does she agree that that is a matter of some concern? When we factor in the cost of the Chagos, the single intelligence account and the other elements, this increase actually looks like a decrease.”
“If any Labour Members would like to sell me their house and then rent it back from me, I would be delighted to enter those negotiations. Clearly, that seems to be the way they believe property ownership works.”
“May I start by paying tribute to Henry Smith, a former Member of this House? He did an enormous amount of work over many years to represent the Chagossian voice in our country, ensuring that it was heard in these important debates. I agree with Henry that we, as a country, did a huge wrong to those people in not allowing them to return to their country. Sadly, this deal embeds that wrong in perpetuity. It is a wrong that should have been righted on many occasions; a wrong that should never have been done in the first place. To embed it in this treaty is genuinely shameful. This country, and those people, deserve better than that. We have heard the debate about security. It is a bizarre argument that to swap a freehold for a leasehold is somehow to guarantee security in the long term.”