Nandy says foreign office must ‘claw back’ funding to tackle China

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy has congratulated Liz Truss for being appointed the second ever female foreign secretary, but said the Britain must “claw back some of the influence we have lost in the world”, and that without doing so “we would never be taken seriously in Beijing” in the House of Commons this morning.

She explained: “She [Truss] is right to identify that being a pushover with the Treasury does nothing for our national interest, nothing for our national security… but the Treasury’s accounting tricks will leave her coffers empty.

“Has she clawed back some of her funding in tomorrow’s Budget, or are we going to see the same story played out of a Foreign Secretary that isn’t taken seriously in Beijing because she isn’t taken seriously around her own Cabinet table?”

Truss joked that “the Chancellor wouldn’t be very happy if I announced the spending review today” despite much of the budget being trailed in the media ahead of tomorrow’s announcement.

Ms Nandy, the MP for Wigan, has been vocal on human rights abuses in China, including the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in its North West province of Xinjiang.

Truss has also been outspoken on the regime, indeed yesterday China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs slammed her as “irresponsible” after she criticised the disqualification of District Councillors in Hong Kong.