Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Lord Hain Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

I am grateful to noble Lords for tabling these amendments and hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider that paragraph 6 of the Schedule may unintentionally be liable to undermine the purposes of this Bill.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Hendy’s amendment. Not only has he made a very powerful case as a renowned labour rights lawyer, but he has mentioned the question of the Welsh Government’s position, which is something I want to ask noble Lords, and in particular the Minister, to consider. Supposing the Welsh Government faced a decision by the UK Government not to support the steel industry with the support that it needs, we could see the closure of the Port Talbot steelworks, which directly employs just under 3,000 people on wages that are high for the area; indirectly, with the multiplier effect, at least 9,000 workers would lose their jobs, and a whole series of supplier industries would be affected. That would be the equivalent of closing mines in former pit villages, which I experienced as a Member of Parliament in the Neath valley, specifically representing those within the old constituency of Neath for nearly a quarter of a century. Closing the Port Talbot steelworks will be the equivalent of ripping the heart out of that whole area, and, as I have said, the multiplier effect will be devastating. It will be equivalent to closing the mines, particularly in the 1980s and flowing on into the 1990s.

I make that point because, if a steel supplier replacing the collapsed British steel industry was found to have labour standards that were in breach of international law, as my noble friend Lord Hendy has so authoritatively explained, why would—and should—the Welsh Government not have the right to say, “No, we won’t source that steel for infrastructure development”, which the Welsh Government largely have responsibility for in Wales under the devolved powers? Why should they not say, “We won’t do that because of the terrible labour standards, which are out of compliance with international labour law”? Why are they being denied that opportunity? Under this Bill, they will be denied that opportunity, unless the Government are willing to accept my noble friend Lord Hendy’s amendment.

This is a terrible Bill. I am normally on the same side of the argument as my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, but this is a terrible Bill, and I will further explain why in the discussion on the next group of amendments. I ask the Minister to consider where the Bill is taking public bodies such as the Welsh Government—and Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, which might be in the same position. If this Government allow the Port Talbot steelworks to close, with devastating consequences for the area, particularly employees in Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, it might say, “In any future procurement decisions, we will not source steel from this or that country, replacing the Port Talbot steelworks, because of their labour law standards and their failure to comply with international workers’ rights and other matters”.

I cannot understand why the Government are driving the Bill forward without considering detailed amendments like that of my noble friend Lord Hendy. I know that the Minister has not replied yet; perhaps she will surprise us and say, “Yes, I agree with the noble Lord’s amendment”, or, at least, “I will take it away and look at how we might refine it in a fashion that could be acceptable to the Government and which he might be willing to accept”.

I hope the Minister surprises me by doing that but, if she does not, I ask her, the Government and the Conservative Benches to consider where this country is going on such matters. We are not respecting human rights. That is a matter for the next group of amendments, but we are not respecting our international obligations to uphold workers’ rights—conventions, by the way, that we have signed up to as a UK Government. That does not seem a good place to leave this country, and I hope that the Minister, having listened to the speech by my noble friend Lord Hendy, will agree to look at how she might be able to support his amendment, perhaps in a slightly modified form.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declaration of interests. It is exactly from that position that I wish to ask a fundamental question of my noble friend. We spend an awful lot of time trying to get companies not to be complicit with the Government of Myanmar, for example, because of their actions. We are proud that there is a whole series of decent private and public companies that make decisions on those grounds. Are we sure that we should be in a position in which we will encourage public and private companies to make decisions on those grounds but specifically exclude the right of elected bodies—and some non-elected bodies, because they have been designated as public bodies—to make those decisions? I find that a very difficult position to support.

Part of the problem is that we are now in a complex and extremely uncertain area, which is why all the amendments before us are of considerable importance. They say that we are putting public bodies—we are not quite sure what they are—in a position where they do not know quite how they should behave, and we are opening them up to the opportunity of people taking them to court because the decision they have made has not been in conformity with what the plaintiffs suggest should have been their decision in relation to international law. At the same time, we are saying to them that they should not take into account the same things most of us would try to get private companies—and public companies, in that sense—to take into account.

We are getting into a real mess here, and I do not see that this is a carefully written Bill. Indeed, my last point is simply that this is a terribly badly written Bill. I do not know who thought it through. We have now had a series of people taking rather different views—as a matter of fact, I am unhappy about the particular way in which Israel is treated in the Bill. We are all taking different views, but we are all saying that the Bill is so badly written that people will not know how to deal with it.

This is a central concern for this House; we need legislation through which we can explain to people what is happening. If I may say to the noble Lords who put the amendments forward, it took a bit of listening to understand what their problem was, to put it bluntly. How on earth are we going to have public bodies coming to decisions when they have to read that to start with to understand what mess they might be in? I hope my noble friend will help me to understand how this Bill will be simple enough for it, first, to be enforced and, secondly, to be proper. At the moment, I feel it is improper, because it is so badly drafted.

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[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, helpfully explained in his opening remarks the extent to which he agrees with the aims of the Bill but not the means chosen. However, his amendment could open a huge back door to councils and devolved authorities doing what they want in relation to BDS activities, because they would only have to dress up what they want to do as a statement of human rights policy. That statement is not even fully defined as regards what is meant by human rights. This could be a massive loophole. At the end of the day, it would still involve public authorities, including the devolved Administrations, in ignoring foreign policy as set by the UK Government. We must not allow ourselves to get away from the fact that that is crucial. We cannot have public authorities setting foreign policy.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

My Lords, I follow on from the noble Baroness’s diktat position whereby central Government decide the policy and nobody else can have a view. That would undermine the position. It was the thrust of the noble Baroness’s earlier speech that the Minister indicated that it is for the UK Government to set foreign policy on boycotts and sanctions, and nobody else can do anything about it. As I pointed out at Second Reading, that would have made illegal the decision by many local authorities, universities and student unions to boycott products from apartheid South Africa, and I quoted a KC’s legal opinion confirming that.

How can the noble Baroness possibly justify her position, given the history of the downfall of apartheid, which is contrary to what she tried to suggest? The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in a very unfortunate speech, tried to suggest that sanctions played no role. No serious student of the history of South Africa agrees with that position. Sanctions certainly played a part. But the boycott decision taken by many local councils, universities and student unions, in particular, among the public bodies covered by the Bill to refuse to source products from South Africa—and indeed, to impose sanctions and boycotts and to support Nelson Mandela’s being freed from 27 years of imprisonment—would have been illegal under the Bill. Why? Because the Government of the day in the 1980s, under Margaret Thatcher, did not support that boycott and sanctions policy. So all those local authorities and churches, including many archbishops, bishops and vicars, supporting those boycott campaigns would have all been acting illegally under the Bill if speaking for public bodies.

I want to speak especially to Amendment 19 and to notify your Lordships’ House that I do not wish to move my Amendment 49, in the sixth group, not least to spare Members hearing a further similar speech from me.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, the analogies in discussion around the Bill are being pushed too far. The Bill is about procurement and investment. When student unions sit in, they are not doing procurement and investment. It is only when student unions start spending their money in contravention of charity law—to which they are subject—that they may be beginning to breach the law.

The Bill is not about curbing freedom of speech—far from it. As far as the South Africa analogy goes, the point of those sanctions was to bring an end to that particular regime. The point about the BDS movement and sanctioning Israel is not just to change the regime; it is calling for the eventual end of the state—as the noble Lord, Lord Hain, knows, because in the past he has called, in print, for the dismantling of Israel.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I have not called for the dismantling of the State of Israel. I was a Middle East Minister for the Government and conducted diplomacy with the Israeli Prime Minister in 2000, trying to repair the damage from the collapse of Camp David. I support the right of Israel to exist, as I support the right of the Palestinians to have their own state. Please do not misrepresent me.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I am glad that the noble Lord has changed his mind—

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[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

It does not need to be defined in Amendment 19 because it would adopt the normal practice of human rights, as defined in the definitions at the front of the Government’s annual report on human rights—which I am sure the noble Baroness reads on an annual basis, as I do.

As the noble Lord, Lord Hain, indicated, those human rights reports refer to a separate category of countries, the priority countries, and he named them: the A to Z is Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The thrust of the Bill seems to suggest that, unless the Government, through legislation, put sanctions to limit trade with certain countries, any decision-makers would not be able to make any decisions about investing in that country. That is contrary to current practice with countries from A to Z on the priority list.

For example, other than the sanctions that exist against certain elements of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the Bill would prohibit a decision-maker in the United Kingdom deciding not to invest in a Taliban state-owned enterprise. That is extraordinary. Under this legislation, a decision-maker would be prohibited from making a decision about investing in a mining or a gold company in Zimbabwe, which has had many concerns over human trafficking and other human rights concerns. That is also extraordinary, because unless the Government have put in trade sanctions, the Bill will prohibit any other decision-making.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

I very much support what the noble Lord said about Zimbabwe. He will know that there was a lot of corruption in the Marange diamond mines, with Government Ministers taking a rake-off from those diamonds. We should be boycotting diamonds from conflict zones such as that, or where corruption is involved—there are many other examples in Africa. I very much support the noble Lord’s point. The Bill would stop public authorities doing that.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. Not only do I agree with him but it goes beyond that. I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify the point for me. Where bribery or labour-related misconduct are concerned, unless the Schedule relates to those, and there are general human rights concerns stated in the priority countries list, a decision-maker who uses the priority list—or, indeed, those issues that have been campaigned on, such as blood diamonds as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, and my noble friend Lord Oates—would be in breach of law. That cannot be right, so I would be grateful if the Minister could put my mind at rest.

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[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, as we speak, the double standards are in operation on many campuses in this country, where there are sit-ins in relation to one country but not, for example, in relation to Russia. As a footnote, I would like to substantiate, in case there is any doubt, what I said earlier in relation to the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, to Israel. In his article in the Guardian in 1976, when he was a young man, he says it twice. It concludes:

“The present Zionist state is by definition racist and will have to be dismantled”.


I just clarify that that was his article in the Guardian.

[Lord Hain (Lab)]

Since this has been raised—and I am not sure who I am intervening on—that was a long time ago. I do not withdraw the fact that there are many features of the State of Israel of which I am critical, not least in its dual citizenship law, where certain citizens are regarded as full citizens and others are not. That is a racist thing to be practising—but the noble Baroness suggested that I was questioning the right of Israel to exist. I have not done that, and I do not believe that, and she should not suggest it.

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

My Lords, to bring us back to Amendment 19, I thought it was a probing amendment—but it seems that perhaps it is a serious one, given the endorsements of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others, so let us think about it. I am querying it only because, if it comes back, it might allow the noble Lord, Lord Collins, to refine and consider it further.

I would add to the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. For example, let us assume that there is an egregious gay rights violation in some country, and a local council gets very agitated about it, responds to pressure and announces that it will no longer do business with, or procure works or services from, this country, because it abuses gay rights. Under this amendment, it would then have to apply that to every country that does not fully respect gay rights, so if it wanted to buy product from the Middle East then the only place it could go to would be Israel.