Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 20th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to return, very briefly, to something the noble Lord, Lord Mann, raised earlier. I can understand in the broader sense why universities have been included, because very often it has been universities that have been at the cutting edge of popularising boycotts. They have taken a wide range of forms—and not just in terms of what is sold or invested in. As the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, pointed out, it could be denying people research, not letting Israeli academics come over to speak or whatever. There are all sorts of ways that this happens. So, I understand why the university sector is in scope. My problem is that it is not clear to me how a Bill like this can do anything other than attack academic freedom, which I am interested in defending. I think we have to deal with what is happening on university campuses in a different way.

Regardless of that, the reason it is frustrating—and why I am referring to what the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said—is that, if you have a conversation with anyone outside this Chamber, if they are like me, they are worried about BDS and anti-Semitic campaigns against Israeli academics. Something has just happened at King’s College London in fact, where an event has been called off, and there is a University of Leeds chaplain in hiding —all these things are going on. Ironically, if anything, this Bill is too narrow to deal with what is really happening. The point that the noble Lord, Lord Mann, made was that the way wording happens, there are ways around it that this Bill will not deal with. He and I might differ about how we would deal with that—I think we probably would. None the less, given what a public authority is, it is understandable why universities are in here—but, as people have said, which bit of the university?

For the Minister to say “Oh, no, it wouldn’t count, student unions”, would be utterly ludicrous. From the Government’s point of view, even if I go with you, why would it not be student unions? That would be mad. They are part of what the public authority of the university is about, along with research councils and everyone else. I am not trying to encourage the Government to wipe up every part of a university to bring them in scope, but to keep saying that they are not in scope makes no sense from the point of view of the public justification for this Bill by Michael Gove when he has argued for it, and anyone else who supports it. So we do need some clarity here.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, this debate has referred consistently to universities, but I do not want the point to get lost that there is an equivalent problem with local government pension schemes, where a succession of bodies take part in the decisions that are reached. Every fund has advisers, in particular advisers on ESG. The trustees are responsible for the decision, but they are under a legal obligation to give due regard to their advisers’ views. Now, because of the encouragement by the Government, the individual funds are not actually investing the money; the money is passed on to a pooled fund that equally has its advisers and its decision-makers. Somewhere in that thread of control, someone is a decision-maker, but I defy the Minister to tell us precisely, in the terms of this Bill, who it is.

[Lord Verdirame (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I have just a few points and questions, following the discussion we have just had. The first point is to seek clarity on whether my understanding of the last three lines of Clause 1(7) is correct. I understand those three lines simply to be saying that, where the decision-maker is a collegiate body, the duty to have regard applies to the individuals within that collegiate body who are taking the decision. That is how I read those three lines, but I may be missing something.

The second point arises from the comment that the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, made about universities. I suppose it is a point that comes up both under these amendments but also under the next amendments and in particular Amendment 8. Paragraph 20 of the Explanatory Notes, which speaks to Clause 1, states:

“The ban in Clause 1 is not intended to prohibit a higher education institution from deciding to terminate a collaboration with a foreign university on the grounds of academic freedom”.


I read that as implying that, other than on those grounds, the ban would apply to a decision to terminate a collaboration with a foreign academic institution. I would like some clarity on this, because I was a bit surprised to see that my reading of the definition of “procurement decision” would not necessarily have included a collaboration with a foreign academic institution as a procurement decision. It certainly is not an investment decision, but is a collaboration with a foreign academic institution in scope of the ban potentially? That is what I would like to understand. If so, it raises the question that the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, raised, of whether the individual grant holder who has, for example, a research collaboration with a foreign institution, is within scope of Clause 1. That is not clear to me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

The Minister used the word “pressurised”. Did she do so advisedly—“pressurised” as opposed to “called on” or “suggested”? Is “pressurised” defined in the Bill?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I think I used the word “pressure”. Certainly, I was reading “pressure”, but perhaps I blurred the wording and said “pressurised”. I could equally have used “influenced” or some other word. I was trying to explain what we were getting at on the education side of things.

I have a couple of examples of student union pressure, which I mentioned earlier. Warwick student union held an all-student vote in 2020 to pressure the University of Warwick to fully divest from all unethical industries and release all investments. That included divesting from companies in support of a boycott of Israel, and divesting from international companies that are complicit in violations of Palestinian rights. There was also the example of Sussex University, which I mentioned a little earlier.