Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I shall speak in favour of Amendment 54, to which I have added my name. I also support the other amendments in this group. I listened carefully to the previous debate. As other noble Lords have noted, there is a strong overlap between this and the previous group.

Again as others have said, my concern is that, before we pass this Bill, we get clarity on who it covers. I declare a particular interest in that those of us on these Benches, along with other diocesan bishops of the Church of England, do carry out public functions. From time to time, these might bring an individual, in our corporate capacity as bishop of a diocese, within whatever definition of a public body or authority we might eventually land on.

In responding to an earlier group debated before the Recess, the Minister referred to the fact that mayors, police and crime commissioners—and, indeed, Government Ministers—also exercise public functions and hence fall under the scope of the Bill. However, since what these officeholders have in common is that they are elected or appointed primarily to exercise political functions, I can see the logic that maybe they should not use their investment and procurement functions in order to pursue a foreign policy in contrast to that of His Majesty’s Government. Notwithstanding the fact that some diocesan bishops are members of your Lordships’ House, is it really intended that we, along with the small charitable funds for which we are responsible in our corporate personality, should fall under the scope of the Bill? If we place those modest charitable funds with an external investment body, do we have constantly to ensure that that entity does not at any point seek to make restrictions in contravention of the Bill, by investing our money where it should not be—or not investing it where it ought to be?

Other Church institutions are at potentially greater risk of being inadvertently caught up in the scope of the Bill. Noble Lords will be familiar with the Church Commissioners, the body that manages the historic endowments of the Church of England, for the furtherance of the mission and ministry of the Church in perpetuity. It was my great privilege to chair the commissioners’ board, until the end of last year, as the delegated deputy of my most reverend friend the Archbishop of Canterbury. During my tenure, we grew our reputation, alongside our sister pensions board, as being among the world’s leading ethical and responsible investors.

As noble Lords well know, the commissioners require parliamentary approval to spend capital. Indeed, I spoke before the Easter Recess when we brought just such a measure before your Lordships’ House. What noble Lords may not know is that six state officeholders, including the Prime Minister and the Lord Speaker, are ex officio Church Commissioners, notwithstanding that the Government make no contribution to the commissioners’ coffers. Noble Lords will have noted a plea there. The ability of the commissioners’ investment team to deploy assets in furtherance of our mission objectives is not a case of anyone taking taxpayers’ money and using it to pursue their own independent foreign policy, yet, on some readings, these Church bodies may be seen as being within the scope of the Bill. Can the Minister clarify whether such bodies are indeed in scope?

Beyond the Church of England, there are many religious, charitable and other foundations—across a variety of faiths and of no faith—which perform functions in areas such as education. We have heard that referred to before. I am a grammar school boy. I benefited from a scholarship. My widowed mother could never have paid school fees. Such bodies raise and hold endowment funds for such purposes in order to enable students and pupils from less well-off backgrounds, like mine, to fully access and benefit from their services. I know that goes on because I am regularly invited to donate.

What is true of schools is even more true of the endowment funds of universities and colleges. Let us suppose that such an institution receives an offer of funds from a private philanthropist in the UK or beyond who wishes to make some stipulation as to where the endowment may or may not be invested. This is private money. Would this Bill mean that the foundation has to refuse the money, not because the country that it wishes to boycott is already on the list but because it may come on to a subsequent list at some future date?

The simplest way out of this confusion is for the Bill to contain either a schedule of the types of bodies to which it applies, as in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, to which I have added my name, or to use a definition that points to a well-defined list in existing legislation. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, offered that earlier today in the previous group. The advantage of requests under the Freedom of Information Act is that they are ubiquitous and long-standing. I know because I get them all the time and turn them down because they do not apply to me. As we have already heard, this means that most institutions are now very clear as to whether FoI applies to them. The same cannot be said for other definitions, even those contained in the Human Rights Act. So, in responding to this debate, can the Minister let us know how His Majesty’s Government are going to provide the clarity over scope that will be essential for this Bill to become a workable Act?

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest in the sense that my wife is a trustee of a major public orchestra. It does not receive public money, but I just make the point: if you do not receive public money, are you one of these public bodies? If you do, do you become one, and does that mean that you make a choice, which is quite a serious choice?

I also declare an interest because in my business we advise people on procurement and sustainability of procurement. I say to my noble friend that procurement is a very difficult issue on which to advise, because it is very widespread. What does it mean? It means almost everything from what might be called lavatory rolls at one end to procuring very large numbers of services or products. It can also cover the issue of the orchestra that procures another orchestra from abroad. As the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said, it might have intended to bring an orchestra from, let us say, Russia to this country; if it then decides not to do so, is that the kind of decision that comes under the Bill?

I also have a concern, as the noble Baroness put forward, that the Secretary of State has an ability to remove from the exceptions things that for most of us are really important. If we are not to be allowed to procure on the basis of sustainability or climate change—things that really are existential issues—we have a serious problem, because on any definition of public bodies, the very bodies we are talking about are the ones that ought to be procuring and investing on those bases. The idea that this is only temporary, that it is in the Bill but can be removed by the arbitrary decision of the Secretary of State—and it could be arbitrary, because there is nothing in the Bill to say it is other than arbitrary—worries me considerably.

I rose not just to say that to my noble friend. I am afraid that the Government have a record of producing Bills that do not appear to have been carefully thought through. If the Bill had been produced to me as Secretary of State for the Environment, I would have sent it back and said, “There are too many questions in this, and I don’t want to have to present it to either House of Parliament because I can’t answer a number of the questions”. I do not blame my noble friend for not being able to answer some of these questions, but they are pretty fundamental, are they not? I just wonder what the Secretary of State responsible for the Bill said when it was brought in front of him. Did he ask what the definition of public body is or what a public function is? If he asked those questions, did he get answers? If he got answers, were they satisfactory, and why do we not have those answers when the questions are asked on the Floor of the House?

My worry is this. Out there large numbers of bodies, some of them very small, are worried that this will affect them. I do not believe that kind of legislation does us any good at all. Precision is absolutely crucial here, and we need to restrict this to a very clear, relatively small number of bodies and have a very clear understanding as to what it means.

If we take sporting bodies receiving government money—I cannot claim to be a sportsman and I declare no interests whatever on this front—it seems to me that if individual sportsmen wish to boycott something, the sporting body probably has to discuss that. If a body discusses that, it seems to me that under this Bill it can easily get itself into a position in which that is improper, if not illegal. Again, I do not see why people should have to ask themselves this question.

We are, at the moment, seeing a very inelegant discussion about individuals’ decisions on tax matters, pretty unfairly in most cases I have heard. It is difficult to understand quite a lot of the detailed tax legislation, but producing this legislation will ask a whole lot of other people to understand very detailed and extremely difficult concepts. I say to my noble friend that all I want is to feel that I could vote for something that I understand, and that other people can understand, which does not reach beyond the necessary areas and actually achieves some good. Those are three perfectly reasonable requests, but I am not sure that the Bill meets any of them so far.

Public Order Bill

Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Report stage
Tuesday 7th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

I too speak in support of the amendments to remove Clauses 10 and 11, to which I have added my name. I declare my registered interests as the co-chair of the national police ethics committee and the chair of the Greater Manchester Police ethics advisory committee.

Stop and search can be an extremely useful tool in the police kit box, but, like many tools, it works far less well if it is overused or used for the wrong task. Eventually, it loses its efficacy entirely. I have several broken screwdrivers at home that bear witness to my own excesses in that regard, as well as to my very limited DIY skills. That is the danger we run when we extend stop and search powers in what, at times, feels like a knee-jerk reaction. They are simply the most obvious tool at the top of the box, whether they are appropriate or not. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, indicated, stop and search becomes, as it has in the past, so discredited that it reaches a point where, like my screwdrivers, it is counterproductive to use it, even in circumstances where it would be right and appropriate to do so.

The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, reminded us, with some chilling figures, of its disproportionate use against certain sectors of society—young black men in particular —which damages confidence in policing not just with regard to stop and search but more generally. It is because I am passionate to support our police that I have such worries about anything that tends to diminish that public confidence. I have the greatest concerns where stop and search is undertaken without suspicion; such powers are even more at risk of simply being used against people who look wrong or are in the wrong place. They become especially prone to the unconscious bias that we might try to shake off but all to some extent carry within us. Should these amendments be pressed to a Division, they will have my full support and I hope that of your Lordships’ House.

I conclude by offering a modest proposal that goes beyond these clauses and the Bill. Could the Minister seek to gain a commitment from His Majesty’s Government to refrain from any extension of stop and search powers until such time as it is clear that the existing powers are being used properly and proportionately? Such a self-denying ordinance might lead to us have an intelligent conversation about how better to focus the use of stop and search. We could then look at whether there are circumstances in which those powers should be radically extended—but not before then.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I have a question. I am imagining the circumstances with which the police are faced. In what circumstances would they proceed to stop and search if they had no suspicion? This seems a rather curious concept: to stop and search without suspicion means that you do not like the look of somebody—but, even then, you might have a suspicion. I just cannot conceive of the circumstances in which it would be proper to stop and search without suspicion.

I am also particularly concerned about the effect of this as far as the police are concerned. If people can be stopped and searched without suspicion, they themselves will probably not have a suspicion that they should be stopped and searched. Given the present circumstances, in which the police will have to work very hard to recover confidence, a woman stopped and searched without suspicion, and who has no suspicion of why she should be stopped and searched, will have a very considerable concern.