Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Hannay of Chiswick

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendment introduced by my noble friend Lord Warner. It is conceivable that the Government’s objective of exempting the State of Israel—I say that carefully, the State of Israel—from the imposition of BDS, which I do not support, could be achieved with different drafting. However, to have introduced it in the way that it is introduced in Clause 3(7) is a mistake, and the mistake is compounded by mixing up completely different things: the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories, which certainly include the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. They should not be treated in the same way. They are not part of the State of Israel in the view of the British Government, though they are in the view of the present Israeli Government. I repeat, they are not in the view of the British Government part of the State of Israel. Within those Occupied Territories—Golan, east Jerusalem and the West Bank—there are internationally illegal settlements. Illegality is another category on which the British Government’s policy is quite clear—just read the Security Council resolution, which has been quoted. Mixing these things up together is, frankly, a solution of disaster. It will just doom this legislation by including it.

I am not trying to suggest that it would not be possible to do something, though I doubt very much whether specifically mentioning Israel is a wise thing in the first place. I agree with the Government that public bodies should not be making foreign policy, but I am not sure that specifying one country out of 194 where they particularly should not be making foreign policy is a very clever way of setting about that. If you took that away and tried to sort out these unhelpfully mixed-up elements, there might be a better chance of this Bill making progress. So long as they are all mixed up together, we will have a cat’s cradle of contradictions.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said that this Bill will increase anti-Semitism. That is one view. I prefer to observe what is actually happening. We only have to look at what is happening in universities at the moment; we will come on to universities in a later group.

If we look at what has been happening with the encampments that have been springing up in the UK following what has been happening in the US, they are vocally calling for boycott and divestment in relation to Israel—and, indeed, quite a lot worse. This is a very live issue. It is causing much harm on campuses for Jewish students, who are clear that there has been a significant increase in anti-Semitism since this has started. This is not theory; it is actually happening.

Israel is always the focal point for BDS campaigns. The BDS movement itself came into being to attack Israel. I am glad that we are aligned with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, on the need to protect Israel from those activities. From my perspective, if the Bill does nothing else, it should try to protect Israel from boycott and divestment activities. That is why we need Clause 3(7): it underlines the importance of Israel and the particular attacks on Israel.

I accept that the Occupied Territories raise much more difficult issues. In line with the international community, the UK recognises the settlements as illegal, but the practicalities are that this will not be settled conclusively until there is a two-state solution. This is something that cannot be imposed; it will have to be agreed, but that is unlikely to happen very soon. Anyone who has been to Israel or has been in touch with people in Israel will know that the attacks by Hamas on 7 October have left a traumatised Israeli people, for whom the possibility of discussing a two-state solution seems almost unthinkable at this point in time. That is not to deny that that is the right solution in the long term but simply to say that it does not appear to be an immediate, practical problem.

The reality on the ground is that, in the meantime, the unsatisfactory nature of the Occupied Territories is likely to continue. Even if we thought that boycotts and divestments in relation to the Occupied Territories would punish Israel, this ignores the simple fact that there is economic activity in those settlements. Anything that harms that will almost certainly harm Palestinians as much as it harms the people of Israel. We only have to look at what happened when SodaStream, an Israeli company, was forced to withdraw from its activities in the occupied West Bank. The people who really lost out were the Palestinians who lost good, well-paid jobs when that facility had to close.

On our last day in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed me to the FCDO guidance, which I duly went and read; he has read much of it into the record today. The important thing about that guidance is that, although it highlights the risks involved, it does not prohibit anyone in the UK from investing or dealing with those who are active in the Occupied Territories. I believe that this Bill reflects that pragmatic position—that the Occupied Territories are a fact of life—and that, until there is a two-state solution, trying to eliminate it from the Bill does not reflect the practical politics we are facing.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Hannay of Chiswick

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, it seems to me that there is a bit of confusion going on. Amendment 7, which takes out the words in Clause 1(7), relates only to who is carrying out the disapproval. It is just amplifying those people whose disapproval is taken into account, to see whether or not the clause is engaged. It is not trying to add different categories of decision-maker, because the reference to decision-maker is clear in Clause 2, which we will come on to in another group. It is that definition that then drives enforcement, et cetera.

I was interested in Amendment 55 of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman—although I think it is actually the wrong amendment asking for regulations—because it highlights that decision-makers might be individuals under the Bill, which they can be. As I understand it, the definition of “decision-maker” in Clause 2 encompasses some individuals being the decision-maker from whom all these consequences might flow. That was a complete surprise to me because the Bill is titled the Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill—a manifesto commitment related to public bodies. I was completely amazed to find that individuals might be public authorities within the terms of Clause 2, and therefore decision-makers.

I was interested in the noble Baroness’s probing amendment, because I hoped that she would be using that to ask the Minister what kinds of individuals could be decision-makers under the definition that we are using—the Human Rights Act definition. The limited research I have done produced the example of a doctor. When a doctor is carrying out his NHS work, he could be a public authority for that purpose, but when carrying out his private work, he could not be. I did not find much more than that, and I am rather hoping that the Minister will be able to explain to us in rather more detail precisely which individuals are decision-makers within Clause 2.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, will speak to this amendment and do so, like the noble Lords, Lord Wallace and Lord Johnson, in relation to universities and higher education. I had some experience of that: I was on two university councils—those of Birmingham and Kent—and I chaired the Birmingham council for five or six years in the early part of this century.

I have to say to the Minister that, as a result of a lot of extremely desirable reforms, the decision-making at universities was concentrated quite heavily on the council. The council did not micromanage every decision, but it was responsible for every decision taken at the university. That responsibility was clearly focused on a much-reduced size of council, down from the 30s or 40s to the 20s, and it meant that a quite a lot of responsibility came on to its members, who were a combination of academics and lay persons—with a majority, on the whole, of lay persons. The lay persons on the council were volunteers and were not paid a penny. Now, if the vagueness in this bit of the legislation is retained, I would not like to be out there trying to recruit new members to university councils, if they thought they were going to be liable for any of the sorts of problems that could arise under this legislation.

I suspect that this is just one of many pieces of this legislation that reinforce the case for simply taking higher education and universities completely out of it. I think that is what we will come to when we get to Report. This is just the first illustration that it will have a remarkably chilling effect on the conduct of councils and the way in which people are prepared to serve—for nothing and as volunteers—on university councils, giving up many hundreds of hours of their lives to making sure that the university is properly administered and decisions properly taken.

European Union: Negotiations (European Union Committee Report)

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Hannay of Chiswick

Monday 16th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes]

I will come on to that in a short while. I was saying that dynamic alignment is simply not what the British people voted for in 2016 or in last year’s general election. It is right that it forms no part of our approach to our longer-term relationship with the EU.

One symbol of being an independent nation again is fisheries. The EU seems to think it can recreate the existing quota arrangements, which are so disadvantageous to our home fishing industry. That simply cannot happen. The fishing industry may not be the most important contributor to the nation’s GDP, but it is symbolic of what it means to be a free nation: controlling our own waters and setting the rules by which we will be responsible conservators of our fishing stocks.

I am also completely behind the Government’s decision that we should not seek any extension of the transition period at the end of this year, even in the face of the current pandemic, which may well disrupt negotiations but does not present an excuse for not completing them. It is essential that we move to prepare for life without a comprehensive agreement if we do not make enough progress by the summer. I have never been afraid of trading on WTO terms and I will not start now.

All in all, I believe that the Government’s approach as set out in Command Paper 211 and as illuminated by the wonderful speech last month by Mr David Frost, our chief negotiator, is terrific. I hope that the House will support it.

I turn now to the other Motions before us, namely the Motion in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on behalf of the EU Select Committee, and the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter. If I had to sum up both of these Motions, I would say that they are seeking to rerun battles that have already been fought and lost. I was absolutely amazed that the EU Committee managed to hang its first report on Section 29 of the EU withdrawal Act. I shall express no opinion on the validity of the argumentation around this as set out in chapter 1 of the report. It may well be technically accurate. I do not, however, believe that Section 29 was intended to be used for the purpose of requiring a debate on the negotiations on our longer-term relationship. I had understood that section to allow Parliament to raise important issues about EU legislation passed in the transition period and therefore applying to the UK while we do not have any representation in the EU.

Noble Lords will be aware that the terms of the 2020 withdrawal Act differed significantly from the version of the earlier Bill that was considered by the last Parliament. The earlier Bill required the approval of Parliament to the Government’s negotiating objectives, which themselves had to be consistent with the political declaration. It also required three-monthly reports to Parliament on the progress of negotiations. Those provisions were inserted in a doomed attempt to get the last Parliament to pass the withdrawal Bill. But since then, the general election has given a huge mandate to the Prime Minister to “Get Brexit done”. The provisions for involving Parliament in the negotiations were removed from the Bill which became law in January this year. The will of Parliament is now clear: these provisions of parliamentary scrutiny are neither necessary nor desirable; yet here we are with the EU Committee using Section 29 of the Act to achieve a debate on negotiating principles, and even calling for the Government to publish a comparative analysis of the political declaration and the Command Paper.

The political declaration has no legal force and, as the EU Committee’s report makes clear, neither the Government nor the EU are using the political declaration as the starting point for their negotiations. We have moved on. I respectfully suggest that the EU Committee does as well.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

Will the noble Baroness explain why it is that she believes that the European Union is not behaving in a manner consistent with the political declaration when my noble friend’s report says quite explicitly that it is?

[Baroness Noakes]

I will say to the noble Lord only that it may have the headings of the political declaration but the content is significantly different in a number of places, as indeed was set out in the EU Committee’s report.

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 5) Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Hannay of Chiswick

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 4th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure for me to follow the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who is the chair of the International Relations Committee on which I sit. Even when I do not always agree with him in every respect, I always learn a lot from what he says.

I shall pursue my noble friend Lord Pannick’s theatrical image. Sitting here this afternoon, I had a vague presentiment that there was a similarity to the occasion when President Lincoln was assassinated at the theatre and somebody said to Mrs Lincoln afterwards, “And how did you enjoy the play, Mrs Lincoln?”. I think this afternoon’s events might have produced a pretty large raspberry to that, and I find it pretty shameful that not one of the people who kept us here all afternoon in an absolutely obvious filibuster has found the time to participate in the Second Reading of this Bill. Oh—I am sorry; I did not see the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. I apologise. But one swallow does not a summer make.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

There are two swallows.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick]

My noble friend Lady Deech did not move an amendment; nor did the noble Lord, Lord Howell. I am talking about noble Lords who moved amendments. That is what I said, and I think it is rather shameful that none of them, apart from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is here.

I will support the Bill. I think that it is both necessary and urgent. I think the reasons for it are the need to send, ahead of the meeting next Wednesday in Brussels, a very clear message to our 27 European Union partners—and they are still our partners. When this Bill becomes an Act, it will send a useful message to them ahead of that meeting. It would have been much better if we could have passed it through all its stages today, but I do not believe that Monday is too late to pass a useful message, and I hope that we will do that in due course.

What is the message that we are passing? First, as other noble Lords who have spoken have said, it is that this House does not share, the other place does not share and the whole British Parliament does not share the view that no deal is better than a bad deal. That appalling mantra, which dominated the negotiations for so many months, even years, is, I think, being laid to rest by this indication—and about time too is all I would say.

The second message we are sending is that both Houses of this Parliament need more time and space to work on a new course for our relationship with the EU in future, whatever that might be. That is a useful message to send. I do not think that we ought to be too specific about how long it will take. It may be that some rather flexible formula can be found in Brussels next Wednesday to cover that, but the idea—