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CONSERVATIVES CALL FOR PM TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT THE COUNTRY FROM FOREIGN SPIES - London TV

CONSERVATIVES CALL FOR PM TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS BEING DONE TO PROTECT THE COUNTRY FROM FOREIGN SPIES

by London-TV in Business

THE Prime Minister needs to go to Parliament and explain what the government is doing to protect the country from the activities of foreign spies, according to the Conservatives.

Shadow Housing Minister David Simmonds told GB News: “After yesterday’s events, the Prime Minister needs to explain to Parliament and the country that, given the government’s decision to delay our scheme for foreign interest registration, what steps he’s going to take to make sure that we are safe from the interference of foreign spies.

“Clearly, what’s happened has raised a great deal of concern. We need to ensure that our industrial base is secure and we need to make sure that we have appropriate measures to ensure transparency.

“We introduced those in government. This government, when it took office, decided to delay the implementation of those, and we need to know what they’re going to do as next steps to ensure that we have a safe and secure relationship with China.”

He added: “The UK and China have a very close trading relationship, and it goes back a very, very long time.

“It includes things like the agreements we have in place around the status of people in Hong Kong, where we know that we’ve needed to intervene when in government, because the Chinese government has taken decisions which have harmed the interests of the UK and of the people for whom we have that responsibility.

“So that relationship has had its ups and downs over the years. The key thing now is that the government is looking for a reset in that relationship with China.

“That’s a reasonable thing for them to do, but they need to be able to demonstrate to the British people, to our businesses, that they have their interests at heart.

“At the moment, there seems to be a bit of a black hole in the information that’s coming out of government and that’s why we’re challenging them on that.

“We’re saying, if you don’t wish to proceed with a scheme like FIRS, which brings transparency by ensuring that anybody who’s acting as an agent for another government in our country has to register that fact that everybody knows what they’re here for and what they’re here to do, then we need to know what the alternative measures are that this government would bring forward.”