Labour's Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury has said that answers from the Government are needed to explain why hackers have been able to access sensitive Ministry of Defence information.
Darren Jones told GB News: “Clearly, we need to have answers for the Ministry of Defence personnel who have been affected by this hack to reassure them of their privacy and security.
“And then we need to understand why we had IT systems in the place that could be hacked, especially in of all departments, the Ministry of Defence. The broader question around foreign policy is, of course, relevant.
“There are a number of countries around the world who we know are actively trying to hack UK systems as well as the systems of our allies and we should be in a position to prevent that from happening and then in those diplomatic conversations, making the case that that's clearly not an appropriate way to behave.”
In a discussion with Isabel Webster and Stephen Dixon, he continued: “The approach that we take from being in opposition right now is that we need to compete where we need to compete, collaborate on issues, for example, on climate change, where we have a shared interest across humanity and on advanced artificial intelligence and those types of issues.
“But also to challenge our Chinese counterparts when we are clear that they've not been following the rules-based order that we would expect from countries around the world.
“Of course, as the Labour Party is in opposition right now, we don't have access to the intelligence information that the Government does and that's why we'll listen to the statement from the Defence Secretary closely in the House of Commons later today.
“If we win the General Election, of course, we'll take a view in the round once we have access to that up-to-date secret information.”
Asked about the economy, he said: “The economy in real terms has not been improving…whilst we welcome these statistical improvements, we expect to come out of recession, we expect inflation to come down. That's a pretty low bar that would be the starting position normally in this country, not a point of success and celebration.
“And so Rachel Reeves the Shadow Chancellor will be saying today until people at home feel better off in terms of their family finances and their experience of the economy that the country has not turned a corner.
“We need to end this chaos under the Conservatives and go towards a period of economic stability and growth under labour at the next election.”
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