Speeches by Whittingdale.

“I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend, who makes the point that I was just coming to. As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out, all too often one part of Government may be pressing for somebody’s release while other parts of Government seem to have a normal relationship with the foreign Gover…”

“I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on securing the debate, and on the tremendous amount of work that he has done in this area. It is also a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Islington and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), the Chair of the …”

“Let us not argue about whether or not it was raised. Let us agree that what we should do is continue to raise it with the Government of Azerbaijan until Dr Ibadoghlu is released. The final case that I must mention, given that it was raised, quite rightly, by the hon. Member for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick), is that of…”

“How do you see the international role? Are we talking UN, or are we talking the Arab states coming together? What kind of international presence do you think would be most effective?”

“The UK and the international community have always focused on the two-state solution as the best outcome, but as you were saying earlier, that is looking more distant. Are we right still to say that is the only solution?”

“You have been critical of the Abraham Accords for failing to incorporate a way of moving forward on the Palestinian issue, and obviously they ground to a halt after October. Is there a way in which they can still play a part in finding a lasting settlement? In particular, I am interested in what you think is the future…”

“The Minister will be aware of widespread reports of vote buying, ballot stuffing and carousel voting—people voting multiple times—in the Georgian election. It comes just a few weeks after very similar reports from Moldova where, again, there was massive electoral interference. What more can we do to help countries that…”

“The Minister has said that he is not willing to give details of the financial arrangement, although he will be aware that the Mauritian Prime Minister has described the deal as a sell-out. Can he at least give an assurance that the Government will not commit to giving yet more money to get the deal through before the n…”

“T7. May I commend the report from the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, entitled “The future of news”? It highlights the threat from the unauthorised use of news content to train AI models. Will the Secretary of State consider, as a matter of urgency, strengthening the legislation in this area, and c…”

“He did not say it yesterday. He did say it during his election campaign. People say things in election campaigns that do not actually happen.”

“In terms of delivering on objectives, there are some that are easy to measure, such as the number of visitors who come to the UK or the number of overseas students who come to be educated here. How are you going to quantify influence? Are you going to have specific targets and objectives that you will seek to achieve?”

“Foreign Secretary, in relation to soft power you are responsible for certain instruments, such as the BBC World Service, the British Council and the Chevening programme. We understand that you are establishing a soft power council. DCMS covers a lot of other areas, but you could also include the Department for Educatio…”

“One of the reasons why Jimmy Lai is in prison is because of his work in setting up an independent newspaper. Unfortunately, the number of journalists who are killed or imprisoned has been steadily rising. The UK helped set up the global Media Freedom Coalition in 2019. Can you say whether the Foreign Office is still ma…”

“Can I move on to a couple of questions about the British overseas territories, specifically the Chagos islands? It is now about seven weeks since you told Parliament about the agreement with the Mauritian Government, but we still have not seen any details of the treaty that that entails or the financial arrangements th…”

“The new Prime Minister of Mauritius actually described it as “high treason” and a “sell-out”. That does not sound as if he is going to be very happy with it. Are you likely to offer more money as part of the deal with Mauritius?”

“Yes, indeed. The likely incoming Secretary of State in the United States has also expressed severe doubts about this treaty. Do you actually think that it is going to come about?”

“I am sure we may return to this.”

“Just to follow up from Richard’s question, this Government and indeed the last have been hugely supportive of Ukraine in terms of financial assistance, but that is relatively small in comparison to that which has come from the United States. There are real concerns about the continuation of that and the answer to it ma…”

“Can we look forward to legislation?”

“My hon. Friend has done a fantastic job in this area. He has been very persuasive in setting out the damage done to his constituency. Does he agree that the strength of the OffSET group—the offshore electricity grid taskforce—demonstrates that the issue is going to affect communities right across East Anglia, including…”