Stamp Duty Land Tax
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury indicated that if there was a plan to fund the proposal, he would back it. The shadow Chancellor has clearly set out that we do have a plan to fund it, so will the Chief Secretary back it?
5,750 spoken contributions under 12 words (interjections such as “Will the hon. Member give way?”) are hidden. Show them
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to reduce public expenditure to fund the abolition of stamp duty land tax on primary residences purchased by UK residents, in order to get Britain working, to grow the economy and to give people a stronger stake in their communities through the security of home ownership. There comes a time in the careers of some in this House when they stand too close to the edge, when they play with fire and when they fly too close to the sun. To continue that astronomical metaphor, we have a Chancellor who has truly thrown herself headlong into a colossal black hole entirely of her making. The Chancellor has trashed our economy and she will blame anybody but herself: the Office for Budget Responsibility, the legacy, the Conservative party, Donald Trump, Brexit—whatever it is, as long as it is not herself. However, we on the Conservative Benches know the clear truth. We know exactly what has happened to our economy. We know that we have a Government who, when they were in opposition, said that there was no way they would be putting up taxes left, right and centre, yet within 18 short months had done precisely that, layering up taxes on businesses and destroying growth at the same time as talking down our economy. Then there was the fictitious £22 billion black hole which, ironically, was debunked as not legitimised by the OBR at the behest of the Labour party itself. We know that Labour has borrowed colossal amounts of money and is due to spend around half a trillion pounds more than the plans it inherited. What has been the consequence of that? It has been elevated inflation. We now have the highest inflation in the G7, and the International Monetary Fund tells us that next year we will once again have the highest inflation in the G7. The consequences of that, through monetary policy, are that interest rates will be higher for longer, bearing down on those who have mortgages and on businesses who wish to borrow. Critically, when it comes to our burgeoning national debt, which is soaring under this Government, the costs of servicing that debt are now running at £100 billion a year, rising to £130 billion across this Parliament. That is twice what we spend on defence. Indeed, if the servicing of our debt were a Department of Government, it would be the third largest in Whitehall. None of that money is going on public services. It is simply going to pay off the creditors who are owed money as a consequence of the profligacy of the Labour party.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
We will take no lessons from the Labour party when it comes to the mismanagement of our economy. What I have just set out has led to a Chancellor who had a Budget in October last year in which she blew all the headroom and more, rebuilt it in the spring and is now, as we all know, heading into the Budget on 26 November with a gaping black hole that she will have to fill. That is due to economic incompetence and it is causing huge uncertainty. I speak to businesses up and down the country. None of them know what to expect. They are all fearful about the tax rises that are yet to come, and that is down to this Chancellor. The consequence is that we have the highest level of unemployment in four years. We know that every other Labour Government in history have left office with unemployment higher than that it was when they came into office. In the retail, hospitality and leisure sector alone, 90,000 jobs have been destroyed under this Government. Young people are bearing the brunt of these policies. Under the Conservatives, youth unemployment fell by around 45%. Under the last Labour Government, it rose by around the same amount, and this Government are on course to do that too. Young people are particularly affected, because the national insurance changes involve not just an increase in the rate but a reduction in the threshold. That affects young people who are desperate to get their first job and their foot on the career ladder the most.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We see that in inflation, which is running at about twice the Bank of England’s target and about twice the rate that this Government inherited from us on the day of the general election. Within that, we see food inflation rocketing up at over 4%, damaging and impoverishing the very people that Labour claims to want to stand up for.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
As usual, my right hon. Friend makes a characteristically poignant point. There is another act of damage that this Government have created: some of the most successful high net worth wealth creators in our country have simply gone; they have left. It is estimated that 16,000 have gone over the time that this Government have been in office. Socialists will say, “Who cares? Good riddance!”, but they should dwell on the fact that the tax paid by those 16,000 people is probably equivalent to between a third of a million and half a million people on average earnings. Hard-working people up and down our country are paying the price of Labour’s policies. There are choices; it does not have to be like this. We can reduce taxes if we get on top of and control Government spending. At my party’s conference, we set out £47 billion-worth of savings across Government, including £23 billion in savings across the welfare budget. What did the Government do when they tried to tackle the welfare budget? They showed us that this is a Dad’s Army of a Government with a Captain Mainwaring of a Chancellor. They are no match even for the rabble behind them. We know that we need to have responsible tax cuts. That means that they need to be funded and they need to lean into growth. That is why we have announced that, were we in government, we would be abolishing stamp duty on primary residences. It is one of the worst taxes in our tax system. The OBR states that a 1% increase in stamp duty would lead to a decrease of between 5% and 7% in the number of transactions, yet on this Government’s watch, the stamp duty due on a home valued at £300,000 will have doubled during their time in office.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
Yes, and I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent work that she has been doing on the Committee, particularly when she chaired it in the last Parliament.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reasons that we need to abolish this tax include the fact that it stands in the way of younger people getting on to the housing ladder. To use the words of Paul Johnson, it “gums up” the entire system of house purchasing in our country. He said: “It may look like a tax on wealthy people who move house but it also acts to reduce effective supply for everyone.” That includes first-time buyers.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The tax does precisely that. It stops people moving to where the work is, to get better jobs and further themselves. Who wants to move to one place and pay stamp duty, and then move to another to pay more stamp duty? It does not add up.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The tax is a blocker on the aspirations of those who are growing their families and simply want to find a home with more bedrooms. Often, they cannot find those homes because empty nesters—those whose children have left home—are not prepared to face the huge, eyewatering stamp duty involved.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
We built 2.8 million homes since 2010, and a million in the last Parliament. It remains to be seen how many homes this Government will build. Another huge advantage of abolishing stamp duty is that it will generate more transactions, which will benefit more plumbers, electricians, builders, designers, estate agents, surveyors and conveyancers, and allow local economies to thrive. Above all, it will increase the effective supply of housing, and that means a fairer society and a stronger economy.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
I have already apprised the hon. Gentleman of the fact that on his party’s watch, 16,000 high-net-worth people have left the country, to the huge detriment of our economy. We cannot tax our way to growth. We have to abolish this tax across the piece, and that is recognised by think-tanks across the political spectrum. Indeed, the Institute of Economic Affairs says: “Abolishing stamp duty is the single best reform any government could make to Britain’s tax system.” The Resolution Foundation, which may be more to Labour Members’ taste, says of stamp duty that it is “one of the most economically harmful ways of raising revenue”. That is a simple fact.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have already set out the estimate from the OBR that a 1% increase in stamp duty means a 5% to 7% reduction in transactions. It is a horrendous and terrible tax, and it remains to be seen whether Labour Members choose to defend it.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As Paul Johnson, formerly of the Institute for Fiscal Studies—I quoted him earlier—says, this tax “also acts to reduce effective supply for everyone” right across every age and every section of the income scale. If only the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell)—I see he is not in his place—who is a former director of the Resolution Foundation, could show some backbone and at least agree with his former self and the quote that I read out from the Resolution Foundation. The facts are clear: the Government should support this motion today if they believe in growth, a fairer society and a stronger economy. As we approach the Budget, through a period of great uncertainty, the Chancellor faces a clear choice—a choice between still higher taxes, and controlling spending and getting taxes down; between continued anaemic growth and getting the size of the Government under control; between destroying jobs, and getting people off benefits and into work; and between doing the right thing for our country and simply ducking the challenge. The Opposition know what must be done, even at this late stage, to save our economy. Perhaps even the Chancellor herself knows, deep in her heart, that we are right. Yet is it not the truth that faced with the serried ranks of obstinate delusion arrayed behind her, she is just too weak to act? No plan, no backbone—no wonder that under this Government we are staring into the abyss.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
Speaking of amnesia, would the right hon. Gentleman like to remind the House what the deficit was in 2010, when we first formed a Government?
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BBC World Service
10. What steps her Department is taking to provide sustainable funding for the BBC World Service.
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BBC World Service
The Institute for Global Prosperity and CreativePower have produced an excellent report on the sheer impact of the World Service, which reaches 320 million people globally and is trusted by 75%. In a key market for the Government—India—75 million people listen to or watch the BBC. How will the Government maximise the opportunity of the World Service, which is one of our best soft power assets and the best way that we can have conversations with the rest of the world?
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Topical Questions
The Government’s position seems to be that communist China can and does pose a wide range of serious threats to the United Kingdom but is not a threat itself. How can that possibly make sense?
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China Spying Case
I was interested to see that the National Security Adviser was listed as being involved in that meeting. The National Security Adviser is a political appointee—he is a special adviser—and that is usually the reason why the deputy National Security Adviser is put forward to take all the flak. If the NSA himself is participating in policy meetings about this matter, why does he not come forward? Why is he sheltering behind a full-time official who is being hung out to dry?
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China Spying Case
Can the Minister explain to the House, once and for all, how it is possible for a Government to believe that China is responsible for posing a wide range of threats, but is not a threat itself? He would clear matters up, and allay suspicions that the Government are holding back for economic reasons, if he would simply say that China is a threat to our national security. Will he say that?
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China Spying Case
Of course, the previous Government did subsequently introduce new legislation. However, under the 1911 Act, if the Government had been prepared to state that China was a threat, the case could have gone forward and would likely have been won. The hon. Member cannot blame that Act.
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China Spying Case
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and unanswerable case, but the trouble is that even in the circumstances of this case, the Government have not said that China is a threat. They keep saying that it poses a range of serious threats, but they keep baulking at saying that it is a threat. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has no hesitation in saying that China is a threat, and he should challenge the Government to do likewise.
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China Spying Case
It is true that the Government have repeatedly expressed disappointment, but—still more disturbingly, in a sense—so has MI5. It is quite unusual for MI5 to intervene, by means of a speech by its head which made it very clear that MI5 was profoundly disappointed that this matter had not gone to court. Had it done so, it would have been the culmination of years of work done by MI5 to try to deal with Chinese espionage in Whitehall and Westminster.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
I thank my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor for setting out the opening case for the Opposition’s position on stamp duty. I feel particularly passionate about this policy, which is one I put forward when I was running for the leadership of the Conservative party. Like all good ideas, it has been embraced by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. I am particularly glad—this is a key point—that my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor and his team have worked hard to make sure that cutting stamp duty is not just a headline, but a fully costed and set out policy. The Leader of the Opposition has, I think very magnanimously, said that if the Government want to steal this idea and implement it now, they will get no opposition from us. I think that shows her typical generosity of spirit. The Government are clearly struggling to come up with credible economic plans of their own, so they are very welcome to steal our economic plans. I have been struck by the positive nature of this debate. As Conservative colleagues have noted, the expected wall of thoughtless opposition to this proposal has not materialised at quite the scale we expected. It has materialised in some instances, but that is only to be expected. We heard in a number of speeches, and I will refer to some contributions as I go through my speech, that Labour Members recognise that stamp duty is a bad tax, a counterproductive tax and a tax that has a dampening, drag-anchor effect on the housing market. However, they went on to say, “But we need the money.” They are desperate for the tax revenues, which I think shows the fundamental challenge that, frankly, Labour is going to have to deal with in November. If the Government cannot agree to get rid of this damaging, counterproductive tax, what tax will they be willing to reduce? If they are going to say to the House that, basically, there is not a single tax in the British system that they are willing to cut, reduce or remove, then the mask has slipped. Under a Labour Government, this country faces ever-increasing taxes—that is basically what they are saying. They admit that this is a bad tax, but they are not willing to vote for its removal because they want to see—they need to see, are desperate to see—taxes going up. That was fundamentally the argument put by many Government Members.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
My hon. Friend is spot-on. That point was very well highlighted by my good friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who said that official Opposition felt that this damaging and counterproductive tax should be removed. As I have said, my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has set out that that would be paid for by a reduction in the welfare bill—something that I know has universal support on our Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater highlighted that a reduction in welfare spending is not only something that we think is a necessary and good idea, but something that Labour Front Benchers used to think was a necessary and a good idea until, with great leadership, they were told by their Back Benchers to stop thinking that it was a necessary and a good idea, and to start thinking that it was a terrible idea. Such leadership from the Back Benches is something that I admire from that party. If only Labour Front Benchers had anything like the spine of the Labour Back Benchers, the country might not be in quite such a dire economic state. Labour Members have basically said that they are unwilling to cut even the worst taxes because basically they want to see taxes go up. The Lib Dem position is yoga-like in its ability to bend—
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
Yes, pretzel-like. One after another, the speakers on the Lib Dem Benches stood up and said, “We agree that this is a bad tax. We agree that this is a counterproductive tax. We agree that it is a tax that needs to go.” I, and I suspect others on the Conservative Benches, thought, “Here we go. Here is the crescendo, the pièce de resistance,” and that those speeches would end by saying, “Which is why you will see us in the Lobby with you, ensuring that the motion is passed.” But that is not what we heard.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
In a minute—I have a punchline to get to. That is not what we heard. What we heard was, “We think this is a bad tax that should be got rid of, but we are not going to vote to say it is a bad tax that should be got rid of, because blah”—which is always the Lib Dems’ punchline. I was waiting for an explosion of political integrity, only to be presented with a political damp squib.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
You’ve gotta love ’em, haven’t you? Never seen a fence they would not sit on, never seen a position they would not contort around. “These are our principles”, they say, “but so are these, and so are these other ones as well.” It is that clarity that we value from the Liberal Democrats.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
That’s how you do it! That is how you actually have a position—it is the wrong position, but at least it is a position. The hon. Lady keeps talking about unfunded tax cuts, but she is getting her language back to front. We do not fund a tax cut, because it is the British people who fund Government spending, so when Government spending is eased, it eases the burden on the British taxpayer. It is spending that needs to be funded, not a reduction in spending. I will reinforce what I thought were a number of strong interventions in support of the motion. I was struck by my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Jack Rankin) speaking about his own experience trying to get on the housing ladder and how his enthusiasm was diminished by the realisation that stamp duty was going to make it even more difficult. The hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) made a legitimate point that this tax affects different parts of the country very differently. He made the fair point that there will be many parts of the country where it is not typical that people pay stamp duty land tax, or a significant quantum or scale of it, but that is not a good reason to deny this reduction in cost to those people in the country who do. Although there might not be many in his constituency, I guarantee that he would not have to travel far before he starts to meet people who are being dissuaded from purchasing properties because of stamp duty land tax. Certainly for Members representing constituencies near big cities, wherever they are across the country, or constituencies in the south, significant numbers of people pay this tax. It has been mentioned by many Conservative Members—too many to single out—that this proposal would positively impact not just the people who pay, or may pay, stamp duty land tax. I guarantee that almost all of us can imagine the streetscape that I am about to describe from our constituencies. There are perhaps Victorian or Edwardian semi-detached or detached houses on what used to be the periphery of the town or city before it expanded beyond that. It will typically be a band of properties populated disproportionately by older couples or older people, who have often been in the constituency for many decades. Their children have moved out and they are now under-occupying those properties with two, three or perhaps even four bedrooms spare, but they are deterred from downsizing because they fear the stamp duty that they will have to pay. Estimates show that 2.8 million people would consider downsizing—or rightsizing, as my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor said—if stamp duty were removed. We would then have a ripple effect throughout the housing market, freeing up family homes for people who are currently in overcrowded accommodation. Not only that, but the London School of Economics estimates that for every housing transaction, an estimated £6,000 of economic activity is pumped into the local market, with local builders doing refurbishments, perhaps doing extensions and fitting new bathrooms and kitchens, and people buying soft furnishings and white goods—the sorts of things that people buy when they move. What type of business typically provides those goods and services? It is local businesses—small and medium-sized enterprises embedded in their communities. These are the people who are being denied economic activity because this tax is stifling the property market. We need liquidity in the property market. We need people buying and selling. We need people spending money with local businesses in local shops across the whole of the country. That is what reducing the tax burden on people does; it is what removing the stamp duty land tax will achieve. Yet on the Government and Liberal Democrat Benches, Members are contorting themselves to find excuses not to reduce this burdensome tax, and I genuinely do not understand why. Some 2.8 million people could release their homes on to the market; if each of those homes had two or three spare bedrooms, that would immediately eclipse the 1.5 million homes that Labour is desperately trying to convince the country will be built under its tenure. It could be done almost immediately, without a brick being laid, and—more importantly—without the need for any Government subsidy. That is what the House is saying no to, but not those on the Conservative Benches. We on these Benches understand aspiration. The Conservative party has always been the party of aspiration. We have always been the party that helped people to get on and up the housing ladder—a noble and normal aspiration, and one that we support, even if other hon. Members do not support it.
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
It was the Conservatives who reduced the stamp duty burden—something that was reversed almost immediately when Labour came into office. The simple truth is that the Conservatives have always been the party of home ownership and aspiration: helping people to have a stake in not just the country and the economy, but their local communities; helping parents to stay closer to their own parents so that grandparents can see their grandchildren; creating flexibility so that when job opportunities are created around the country, people can actually move to those jobs without facing a financial penalty for doing so. That is what is at stake. That is what we are proposing. That is what the Conservatives will continually fight for, even in the face of opposition from Labour—a party that should be about aspiration and used to be about aspiration, but which has lost its way, drifted from the path of righteousness, and, if Labour Members do as they claim today, a party that will oppose the removal of what is regularly described by economic experts as the single most damaging tax on our books. I will conclude with this point. [Interruption.] I can continue if Members want. [Hon. Members: “More!”] No, I will conclude on this point. If Members opposite and to my left—both physically and metaphorically—are unwilling to countenance the removal of what is pretty much universally described as the single most counterproductive tax, what tax will they remove? The mask has slipped. Labour cannot and will not bring themselves to reduce any taxes. The British people will notice this, and so will the markets. The unwillingness of the Labour party to make any difficult decisions with regard to public spending or the reduction of the tax burden on the British people is not just painful for taxpayers themselves. It will be painful for our children and grandchildren, who are going to pay increased amounts of money to fund the spending that, as my colleagues have said, is the only way that the Chancellor can try to dig herself out of this hole. That will be a burden on generations to come. I suspect we will divide on this motion, and when we do the choice will be between a party that seeks to support aspiration, families, small businesses and the building trade, and those parties that oppose all those things and will increase the tax burden on British people, our children and grandchildren, and indeed the great-grandchildren of people alive today. That is not what my party is about or what this country should be about. I urge all those who want to do right by small businesses and future generations to support this motion and scrap this deeply counterproductive tax. I commend the motion to the House.
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China Spying Case
I just want to clear up one small point. When the CPS originally decided to prosecute back in 2024, it was convinced on the basis of the then-required evidence that was in front of it that in this case, China was responsible, and therefore it posed a threat. What changed was the Roussev case, which redefined what the CPS needed to be able to say in order to go ahead with any further prosecution. It was made clear that all that needed to be done was to make the clear point that China was a persistent, continuous threat to the UK’s strategic interests. The reason why the CPS needed to make that statement had nothing to do with what had happened before; it was all about what resulted from the Roussev case. That was the key.
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China Spying Case
It is a particular pleasure that you should be in the Chair for this debate, Madam Deputy Speaker, because like me and the others, some of whom have been named, you are sanctioned by a brutal Chinese Government. I think it is excellent that you are here to invigilate this debate and to keep us on track—forgive me if I go over. [Laughter.] I am not going to take the blandishments of the hon. Member for Rugby (John Slinger) who told us to look in the mirror. I stopped looking in the mirror a long, long time ago. In fact, when I was elected in 1992 I was told by a journalist at the Express that I could look in the mirror and see my career behind me. I feel like I have been walking backwards ever since. Can I just say, I think the whole principle that underlies all this is the Government’s behaviour over this decision? I will come to the decision in a second, but I want to address how the Government dealt with the decision—and how they have publicly dealt with it, which is really rather peculiar. It has been almost impossible throughout this to drag information out of the Government about why the DNSA took the decisions he took, where the Government were in this and when meetings took place. Denials slid towards acceptances that dates were in fact as they stood. As I understand it, it was even exclaimed by the Prime Minister that The Sunday Times was lying when it raised the idea of there being a meeting on 1 September containing all the various individuals, including the DNSA. It has been a sort of meticulous nonsense. Dodge, duck, dive, dip, and dodge—the five Ds of dodgeball, or in this case the five Ds of dodge the spying case. Getting to the truth of this has been painful, and if it is painful for the Government, they have only themselves to blame. Had they come out straightaway at the beginning and been clear about all this, instead of hiding behind the DNSA, they might have found it easier. I find ridiculous the position that the DNSA stated yesterday—that he was bound to reflect the position of the Government. The DNSA is not bound to reflect the position of the Government. He was asked by the DPP—and therefore bound to respond to the DPP—whether or not he said that China was an active security threat. What I do not understand is how the then DNSA, both at the time and again when giving evidence yesterday, was able to say that China posed a range of threats—just as the Minister said—on different areas all across the board, from sanctions right the way through to espionage. I do not understand the difference between posing a series of significant threats to our national security in different areas across the board and being a threat to our national security. It is impossible to even conceive that we could define this so narrowly that we are unable to come out with the very simple statement: “They pose a threat to our national security.” From my standpoint, I face a threat. I have been chased and regularly followed by wolf warriors, which are low-level intelligence operatives of China. They have impersonated me abroad and spread lies about what I have said, and those of us who have been sanctioned have been spied on. I know what a threat looks like. It looks like that. It is not a duck; it is a threat. There is no reason why any self-respecting Government could not have said that. The DNSA should have said that straight off—not go out and tell us that the police asked him to introduce what had been in the manifesto of the Labour party in the last election and then say that he knew nothing at all about it previously but had to put this in context. He was not asked to put it in context. The DSNA was asked to state clearly, from what he sees and the evidence he has taken, whether China poses an active security threat. At the nub of this is another particularly important point. The 1 September meeting is critical in all this, because we have been given assurances throughout this—by the Prime Minister, for example, at Prime Minister’s questions on 15 October. He said: “There was no further submission of evidence, one way or the other, after any discussion in September.”—[Official Report, 15 October 2025; Vol. 773, c. 368.] Yet we know that now not to be the case. Why was the Prime Minister making such a fundamental statement at Prime Minister’s questions trying to shut this down? Did nobody bother to tell him that this had gone to a meeting? By the way, we were told that at no stage was the National Security Adviser or any other appointed individual at any meetings with or in contact with the DNSA throughout the submission of evidence. That is utterly untrue. We know that the DNSA was at the meeting chaired by the National Security Adviser on 1 September. What did they discuss? Was it football scores or what was right in front of them there and then: the still-unfinished business of whether or not the DNSA was going to comply with the DPP’s requirement for a very clear statement? It is that bit of subterfuge, with dipping and dodging throughout, that is really quite peculiar. I have respect for the Minister. When he gets to his feet, can we not have this ridiculous game of “You did this” and “You said that”? I would simply like him to recognise that China poses a national security threat. Let us deal with that threat and take clear action, and not play games with terminological inexactitudes about what happened at what meeting. We now know that the DNSA met all those characters —we do not know who they are—so the minutes of the meeting should be released. If the Government will not release them to Parliament, they can do it in camera to the Intelligence and Security Committee. They should do it to clear the record; I recommend that they do. People like me, the Chairman of Ways and Means and others have suffered attacks from this brutal regime, which has massacred people in China and committed genocide. Surely now is the time to make our position clear.
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China Spying Case
I am listening carefully to my right hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Did he see, in the testimony yesterday, the intervention in which Sir Chris Wormald suddenly said that he did not believe that Ken McCallum, the chief of MI5, had described China as a threat? He intervened on the DNSA to make that point. That is fundamentally untrue, is it not?
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China Spying Case
I was not going to intervene, but the hon. Gentleman made a statement about me justifying the position of the Opposition, as opposed to the Government. I assure him that had the two sides been switched, I would be carrying out exactly the same cross-examination that I have done today. No matter who has been in government, I seem to have been in opposition, and I want to say so. I am not doing this for any betterment; I am doing this because it is right.
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China Spying Case
I have a very simple question: if the Minister will not give the minutes of that meeting to the House, will he give them to the Intelligence and Security Committee, which sits in camera?
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China Spying Case
This has been an interesting experience, almost revisiting ancient times with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) leading for the Government on this debate. While I have a great deal of sympathy with his position, I cannot sympathise with his rather bland, anodyne account of the events to date. What is clear, and it is an apophthegm often imbibed with one’s mother’s milk, is that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck, looks like a duck, it is almost certainly a duck. The problem in this case is that the Government were never prepared to describe that animal as a duck. They must have known from a very early period; indeed, the first senior Treasury counsel said yesterday that, even in August, he had made the point abundantly plain to the Government that unless they reconsidered their approach and described the blasted animal as a duck, the case would go down the pan. There was nothing to prevent the Government, through their expert witness, from saying, “In our view, China was a national security threat in 2021”—nothing at all to prevent that.
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China Spying Case
No, I will not—too short of time. There was nothing to prevent that because it was a question of fact. The fact is that the Government were not prepared to change their approach. It is a perfectly legitimate point for the right hon. Member for Torfaen to say to me, “Back in 2021, the policy of the Government was not to describe China as an enemy,” but at that time, we had not had the spying, the intimidation, and the direct targeting of this institution and the democratic assembly of our people that we have now seen by 2025. Things have moved on, and it was incumbent upon the Government to reconsider their approach, which was that they would not describe a duck as a duck. The witness was prepared to say, “It has webbed feet, it swims, it quacks, it has a bill—but we are not prepared to call it a duck.” Are you telling me, Madam Deputy Speaker, that the right hon. Gentleman can look this House in the eye and say that nobody raised this problem inside No. 10 and said, “We have a policy problem. It is a roadblock to this case. What are we going to do about it?”? Is he saying that that was never discussed with the National Security Adviser, that the DNSA never raised that with any relevant Minister? The Attorney General, when he met on 3 September, said, “Well, I couldn’t intervene on matters of sufficiency of evidence.” That is perfectly true; he cannot intervene, but he could challenge. He could say, “What do you need? Is there anything I can do by way of intercession with ministries to ensure that you get the evidence that you require?” But nothing was said. Nothing was said on 3 September because “nothing” was the policy of the Government. It was to wait while this case slid down the slope straight into the pan where no doubt many of the, not inaptly named, mandarins of Whitehall were perfectly content to see it slide. There is extraordinary cheek in the right hon. Gentleman, who came to this House four or five years ago with his Humble Address when he asked for legal advice—advice on the most sensitive negotiating matters that this country was engaged in with the Berlaymont—to be disclosed for all to see, now saying that we should not see the truth of what in reality the Government were saying and doing at the time. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it is almost certainly a duck, and when I apply it to what the right hon. Gentleman says, it is almost certainly a complete crock of old—
- Hansard source
China Spying Case
Will the Minister give way on the question of who was present?
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China Spying Case
Why was the Attorney General’s Office represented and present? If the meeting had nothing to do with the case, why was the Attorney General’s Office present through its representative?
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Government are not only taxing young people’s jobs but taxing their chances of owning a home through the increase in stamp duty and the rumoured increase on the capital gains on principal private residences?
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Stamp Duty Land Tax
The hon. Lady referred to the trade deals—so many more than were achieved under the Conservative Government, she says—but the reality is that those trade deals could not have been made had we not had the Brexit deal that we achieved when in government. What is more, the Labour party opposed that deal. We could not do those trade deals before 2016.