Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

It is also the case that many foreign Governments have big stakes in listed companies, so any express concerns about those companies could be litigated on the basis that they were influenced by the disapproval of a substantial fellow investor. If pension schemes became open to legal challenge in the way that I have described, it would have a chilling effect on the high standards of corporate governance and corporate responsibilities, which the Government claim to support. I hope the Minister will therefore accept this simple amendment to allow proper stewardship by local government pension funds without the threat of litigation hanging over them.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of the noble Baroness who has just spoken on Amendment 45, as well as Amendment 27 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Drake. As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has eloquently drawn to the attention of the Committee, this is another of the points at which this legislation’s handling of Israel arises. The issue is the elision that has been made by the Government between the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories—the West Bank, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem. Within the Occupied Territories there is a mass of illegal settlements, which the international community and the British Government regard as illegal. A whole rash of outposts have now been established from those settlements, which are also illegal. The elision between the State of Israel and the settlements is causing infinite trouble to this Bill, and I hope that the Minister will find some way to sort this out, because it really needs to be sorted out.

There is no disagreement, between the Government and those of us who wish to see this sorted out, about the settlements in the West Bank, Golan and east Jerusalem. We all agree that they are illegal under international law. I think we therefore agree—the Minister was very clear about this at Second Reading and when it came up in earlier amendments—that for British companies, pension funds or whatever else to invest in those illegal settlements, even unwittingly, would be to create an illegality. Presumably, the Government do not want a British company or a British pension fund to do that—and I hope that we would not want it either.

These amendments would make it somewhat easier for the bodies covered by the Bill to make sure that they were not being drawn into illegality in any way and thus acting in a way that would be contrary to government policy. I hope that the Minister will give careful consideration to the issue, because I am afraid that the elision between the State of Israel and the Occupied Territories is really damaging to the Bill’s prospects.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

I have made no secret that this is a bad Bill that is badly drafted, and I spoke against it at Second Reading. In this debate, my suggestion that we should not agree Clause 12 is narrowly focused.

Local government pension schemes should be treated in exactly the same way as every other funded occupational pension scheme—the point made by my noble friend Lady Blackstone. I agree totally with the amendments tabled by my noble friends, and I certainly support their proposals, but my question is: do we need separate legislation to cover the local government pension schemes? My strong view is that we do not; the schemes should all be treated the same. They should come under the same rules as the fiduciary duties on trustees or committees —whoever is responsible for taking the decisions—and they should be the same across the board.

I tabled my clause stand part notice just to ask what the effect would be of not having this provision. Would it mean that I achieve my objective and that, should the provision be removed from the Bill, the local government pension schemes would be treated like other pension schemes? I suspect not. I suspect that I would need a more detailed amendment that would place local government pension schemes under the same responsibilities and law as occupational pension schemes more generally. That is my objective, and I hope that we can have this debate again on Report so that all pension schemes are treated the same.

I listened carefully to the remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, but I think her argument fails. First, there are private employers whose employees are within the local government pension scheme. Equally, there are public bodies whose pension schemes are not covered by this legislation, most obviously the universities superannuation scheme. So the division between the sheep and the goats in this respect is arbitrary. There is no consistency about—

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[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

I am slightly puzzled by the Minister’s statement that the Government wish to avoid any territorial connection, since the Government themselves have placed large chunks of territorial description in the Bill. Could the Minister enlighten us on that? After all, it is the Government who have put down a Bill that talks about Israel and elides Israel with the Occupied Territories, the Golan Heights, east Jerusalem and the West Bank. Although they have confirmed their view that the settlements in all those areas are illegal, and therefore that investment in those settlements would be illegal too, it is the Government who are specifying this matter territorially. By all means, take the whole lot out—that would be fine.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

As I was trying to explain, the important point is that it depends on the motivation for the decision. The Bill would prohibit only investment and procurement decisions that would appear to a reasonable observer to be influenced by moral or political disapproval of foreign state conduct, and have a territorial element. It would not prevent public authorities making any other kind of territorial or practical business considerations. I have been trying to clarify this.

As I am conscious of time, perhaps we could turn finally to—