Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Bryan of Partick Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

My Lords, over the past few years we have seen many Bills in this House that show a worrying disregard for humanity, but as far as I know this is the first that actually instructs public bodies to disregard morality. The Government state that they want to stop public bodies pursuing their own foreign policy. Most public bodies have no desire for a foreign policy but may find that some countries fall short of the ethical or moral standards that the public body holds as an essential requirement for any business relationship.

As of two weeks ago, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights listed 110 ongoing armed conflicts, and that figure has probably increased since then. I hope that any public body would take account of whether its investment or procurement contributed to the ability of countries to act aggressively against others or to suppress their own populations.

The right of women and girls to live in safety is not protected in many countries, and any UK public body that is uncritical of an offending Government should be ashamed of itself. Some Governments are failing to protect children from exploitation by global companies. Most of us would expect public bodies not to procure goods made in those conditions.

Protecting the environment and workers’ rights should also be important in making decisions. However, financial consultants are warning that even the apparent exceptions may not protect public bodies from being challenged, leading to possibly lengthy legal proceedings.

The Quakers powerfully point out that:

“While the British government has said it will immediately exempt Russia and Belarus from the legislation, it has made no such commitment to exempt other countries that are known to be committing human rights abuses … This Bill gives the government the power to control which”


violations of international law

“public bodies can protest and which ones they must keep silent about. We contend that public bodies should have the freedom to shed light on abuses around the world, even (perhaps especially) areas where the national government would rather avoid scrutiny”.

Ultimately, the Bill acts as a way of gagging public bodies, including elected bodies, stopping them publicly expressing what they believe is in the best interests of those they represent. To prohibit the publication of statements from public bodies indicating that they would act against offending countries if it were lawful to do so has to be one of the worst attacks on freedom of speech.

This means that, if electors approach their local authority or pensioners approach their pension scheme to ask why they are investing in a country that oppresses its own citizens, or which is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths of women and children in an occupied country, they are prohibited from saying that they would have liked to boycott the culprit country but government legislation makes that illegal.

Paragraph 33 of the Explanatory Notes gets us into further confusion when it states:

“For example, councillors of a local authority are not a public authority and, therefore, are not prohibited from expressing support for or voting in favour of a motion supporting a boycott or divestment policy.”


The Minister’s explanation supports my understanding that, if a local council adopted a motion supporting such a policy, the “public authority” would have to refuse to implement it. Does the Minister accept that this is a form of doublethink, and can she help us out by clarifying this point?

The Bill, like many others over the past few years, seeks to grab power from other national and regional Governments. It acts to ensure that there is only one centralised power: the Executive, acting in the name of parliamentary sovereignty and imposing their will, without reference to other elected bodies across the UK. If I had time, I would refer to the proud record of Glasgow, as referenced by my noble friend Lord Hain, in supporting oppressed people in other countries, often in opposition to the views of a Conservative Government. The Scottish Government will, if able, withhold legislative consent—and should have that right. They have also raised important concerns about the use of delegatory powers built into the Bill, which I hope we will be exploring at later stages.

Finally, the Bill is clearly discriminatory, as has been expressed by many noble Lords, in giving a uniquely high level of protection from political and moral disapproval to one state above all others in the world. The written evidence from Jews for Justice for Palestinians, submitted in August 2023, points out that it is not the actual boycott and disinvestment advocacy that leads to “increases in antisemitic incidents” but rather

“spikes of violence in Israel and Palestine, particularly with … major Israeli … attacks on Palestinian areas”.

That is where the spikes are shown to come from, as stated in August last year. Can the Minister answer the concerns of my noble friend Lady Chapman of Darlington that the Bill is not an effective challenge to anti-Semitism and cannot justify why Israel should be given unique status under the Bill, while every other state in the world can be added and removed by delegatory powers?