Speeches by Doughty.

“Imminently; in the new year.”

“Sir John, you and the Chair will know of my love and admiration for the BBC World Service; I am an avid listener and it is one of my most trusted sources of information that I go to. I love having it on in the car when I am driving around my constituency and to and from London. It is a fantastic organisation, and it is…”

“I will take that away.”

“I will come to Jonny in a moment to give some examples. Obviously, you will appreciate that there are complexities around attribution and about what we can say about certain things and whether that is the right thing to do at different points. But we have taken some very public action against some of the agencies I men…”

“I can definitely come back to you with some information on that. I can assure you that work continues, because I have witnessed it. I do not want to name individual countries, but I have seen some of the important work that we are doing with a range of media organisations globally, including in a number European locati…”

“There is a range of measures under the Online Safety Act, as you know, and the national security legislation and a range of other measures that we are taking to reduce foreign interference. I would definitely recommend, as Jonny suggested, inviting in colleagues from DSIT and the other domestic Departments to discuss t…”

“I go back to the example I gave of the narratives that were put out around the Skripal poisoning. Those were reflected back to me unwittingly by individuals in my own constituency and even around this place. This has been going on for some time, but I am equally as confident that we have very strong co-ordination in pl…”

“The example that you cite is deeply disturbing and I am well aware of the attempts to influence the diaspora here—not just the Romanian diaspora, but other groups too. We are incredibly alert to that—my colleagues in other Departments who I have mentioned certainly are. I discussed these issues when I was in Bucharest …”

“Closely. That was conversation I was having with my counterpart in DSIT just a few weeks ago. Jonny will want to add a little bit on that.”

“Yes.”

“I am happy to write with what information I can. I do not own the Defending Democracy Taskforce, so I do not want to give information about the way it operates here today, but I am happy to write with some further information about how it is structured and how often it meets. I will say that it is not just Ministers an…”

“Yes, we come together in that Defending Democracy Taskforce, and it has the appropriate Departments represented.”

“It is a really important challenge that you mention. I will look forward to what the Committee recommends, and I am sure that colleagues across Government will as well, but there is a challenge in that sometimes if you stick all things into one agency, people go “That is their business; they are dealing with that.” The…”

“We do work very closely, and Jonny can speak a bit more on the level of co-ordination that goes on between officials, but ultimately, matters of structures of Departments, agencies and other bodies are usually for the Cabinet Office and others rather than ourselves. I am here to speak about the work of the FCDO in thes…”

“There is a central taskforce: the Defending Democracy Taskforce.”

“Going back to that point, we are co-ordinating closely and I want to reassure you, Chair, and the Committee of that. I sat with members of the Defending Democracy Taskforce just a few weeks ago, and there are of course a range of other agencies we have to work very closely with on these issues, including parliamentary …”

“We all saw those images of wodges of cash that were found. It is a shocking case, and that is exactly why, part-way through December, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Security Minister announced an inquiry into countering foreign financial influence and interference in UK pol…”

“I have said what the terms of the inquiry are. Obviously, you are very welcome to write to Philip Rycroft about what he is looking at; he is doing that on behalf of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. The US national security strategy is a matter for the United States. Q226  …”

“Not to my knowledge, Mr Brickell.”

“There are a range of issues that we are looking at. Of course, we are also looking at other matters in the Defending Democracy Taskforce in terms of wider activities and building resilience to this industrial-style activity we are seeing coming from Russia and elsewhere. I am confident that colleagues in DCMS and other…”