Speeches by West.

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I will conclude our debate—I am looking at you, Madam Deputy Speaker—by saying that—”

“As the right hon. Member is aware, given his long background in intelligence, the lack of legal certainty is why we have acted. The base cannot operate in practical terms as it should. It is bad for our national security, and a gift to our adversaries, if we fail to secure legal certainty for the base. To continue the …”

“What this debate has shown is that some Members are finding it difficult to deal with the fact that a treaty is between two sovereign Governments, and that when a Government are operating, they have the right to make negotiations in their own way, particularly with the sort of majority that was achieved last July. Of c…”

“I will just finish this point. The new UK Government inherited a situation in which the long-term future of the base was under threat. The previous Government obviously agreed with this Government that there was a need to act, and rightly so—otherwise, the two years of negotiations would not have taken place. Successiv…”

“We have heard some really interesting contributions during this debate. We have had some wild maths, which Carol Vorderman would have had a word or two to say about. We have had some insulting comments from the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), who was downright playing the man—or the woman—and not the b…”

“The right hon. Member has a long history of being active in the all-party parliamentary group with the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell), who is not in his place but is on the shadow Foreign Office team. It goes to show that across the House, there has long been a desire, including from the former Member for C…”

“I rest my case.”

“That was the second point of order that was not really a point of order. It is quite fun to be in opposition, but what we have seen in the past 24 hours is genuine leadership on defence matters, as opposed to some very high jinks.”

“The UK Government are committed to human rights in Sri Lanka and are leading international efforts to promote accountability and human rights, including at the UN Human Rights Council. In a visit to Sri Lanka last month, I raised these issues with Ministers in the new Government in Colombo.”

“We regularly engage with Northern Ireland on all matters of foreign policy. However, this Chinese consular matter is not something that Ministers can discuss at the Dispatch Box.”

“In October 2024, the UK and our core group partners got a resolution on Sri Lanka in the UN Human Rights Council, outlining just what the hon. Member says. It renewed the mandate of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to report regularly on Sri Lanka, and to protect and preserve evidence to use in f…”

“The UK Government have been in touch with the South Koreans, our great friends, and we continue to support the arrangements there, any democratic moves towards stability and the ongoing relationship with the UK.”

“Ministers have engaged frankly with counterparts in India on Mr Johal’s case, pushing for faster progress towards a resolution, including the call for an investigation into allegations of torture by the authorities.”

“As the right hon. Gentleman is well aware, the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office is still functioning here in the UK. We are keeping a close watch on the situation, and we keep all these things under review. My visit to Hong Kong in November was instructive, and I can assure him that nobody was cringing when I met th…”

“Yes, of course, but it is a fairly broad audit, so if there is anything specific that my hon. Friend would like our officials to look at, will he send me just a couple of paragraphs so that I can wind that into our response? We want an up-to-date audit and we are hoping to publish it in the coming months, so perhaps he…”

“I have the pleasure of walking in Richmond Park, which is a lovely thing to do, and I thank the hon. Member for her concern for her constituents. The scheme was designed by the last Government. There are now 293,000 BNO passport holders in the UK, and on the whole I think it is a success story, given the 12 hubs, the w…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for being such an involved constituency Member and for being so responsive over the Christmas period. A number of every active MPs are sitting behind me. Let me make a more serious point. These are the sort of constituency concerns that we want to jump to immediately. In the first place, could my…”

“I thank the hon. Member for relentlessly raising in the House the issue of human rights and the concerns of his constituents. May I refer them to the excellent welcome programme, which is run through local authorities? It was introduced by the last Government and is being continued by this Government. Its purpose is to…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent constituency work, and for knowing his constituents so well such a short time after being elected. I can reassure him that if he feels that the advice that his constituent has been given is in any way lacking, he can write to me so that I can secure a specially designed package …”

“The right hon. Member asks two excellent questions. The first concerns training and capabilities, which feature in our audit of Government Departments and the extent of their preparedness for these increasingly different challenges and threats—they are part of what we are looking at. In response to the second question,…”