Yesterday in the House of Commons I spoke in the debate on media freedom and made it clear that while we know countries like China and North Korea censor and control their media, it is important that the UK Government does what it can to make sure its friends and allies are not repressing media freedom or threatening the safety of journalists who hold them to account.

We are seeing far too many governments – Hungary, Bahrain, India, Pakistan and Israel as well as Saudi Arabia to name a few UK’s allies – creating increasingly difficult working environments for journalists; steps which aim to curtail the independence of the media and threaten democracy, as well as intimidating and harassing those involved in reporting them.

We must do what we can to get them to change their ways.

Democracy relies on people who have the bravery, the tenacity and the ability to hold the powerful to account, 

This is a video clip of my speech and the text is in the link below.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2021-06-10a.1210.0&s=speaker%3A25370#g1215.0