Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Committee stage
Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, this has been an extremely helpful debate. As the noble Lord, Lord Mann, identified, there is a conundrum in the Bill. The Minister may wish to reflect on the discussion that has taken place. She said after the first group that she valued the expertise of this House and would go away and think about how the Government would respond. I took that to mean that they may make changes on Report, which is theoretically likely to come in about three weeks’ time, but may take longer.

I have concluded, having listened to so many opinions—I am not a signatory to Amendments 19 or 48, though I have huge sympathy with them—from my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others, that it would be useful if the Minister would consider trying to bring all those opinions together into one place to talk further. That is the only way in which progress on this Bill will be made.

I think that I heard the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, say that you cannot have local authorities setting foreign policy. I do not think local authorities want to do so, are doing so or have any ambition to do so. However, they are concerned about human rights and doing the right thing in their procurement and investment policies. Nevertheless, the issue must be discussed.

I took Amendment 19 to mean simply that a statement of policy relating to human rights would need to be considered by those seeking procurement or making investments, and that the statement may not single out individual nations and would therefore have to be applied consistently, as has been confirmed. However, it would have to be in accordance with guidance published by the Secretary of State. I find the concerns we have been hearing against Amendment 19 unfounded. The only solution I can see to this is that the offer made at the outset by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, should be taken up by the Minister. It would be really helpful if that could happen, because otherwise the passage of the Bill on Report will get more and more difficult.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Shipley and Lord Leigh of Hurley

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for telling us that. I had not heard that and I will check it out. None the less, she was dismissed for anti-Semitic behaviour, so it is suggested. We know what lies behind much of BDS. With respect to the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and my noble friend Lord Johnson, the BDS movement, as he said, has taken credit and claimed it scored a victory in respect of divestments by Manchester and procurement by King’s College Cambridge and Southampton. It is true that the UJS’s previous president raised objections to the Bill, but that was before 7 October and before the heat turned up so dramatically. It certainly voted unanimously against BDS.

Most recently, we have seen student demands that Goldsmiths College rename a hall after a Palestinian, give scholarships to Palestinian students and participate in BDS. It looks like the college has agreed to all these demands without carefully considering the impact this might have—again showing absolute failure of leadership. Where does this lead? I am told today by people at Goldsmiths that there is now a movement to prohibit students entering the library unless they sign up to supporting BDS.

In my opinion, this Bill will help those in leadership positions in the above examples and at other universities. It will help them stand up to these outrageous demands by making it clear that intimidation is no longer allowed, and they have no choice but to refuse to enact BDS because the law now demands this. Universities cannot hide from their responsibilities. They should of course be focusing on their core public duty of providing quality higher education and undertaking excellent research while protecting those on campus who are currently threatened by the proponents of BDS with intimidatory anti-Semitic behaviour.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will have listened very carefully and I hope concluded that she has heard several notable contributions on this group, to which the only conclusion, in my view, is that this amendment should be accepted by the Government. I listened very carefully to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, and the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley. In the case of the noble Baroness, I think her argument was that the problem of anti-Semitism on campus is too high, and one would agree. The problem I have with her conclusion is that this Bill would actually make it worse. It would make community cohesion more difficult. It would be worse.

The noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley, talked about institutional behaviour and said that the institutional behaviour in universities would be improved by this Bill. He gave a number of examples, and one has to take those seriously and look at them. I will just say that it is a very dangerous policy to generalise from the particular and to say that across all our universities and higher education institutions, that pattern of behaviour is being followed, because I do not actually believe it is true.

I take very seriously what the noble Lord, Lord Mann, said. I think he made an extremely important contribution. He basically said that the Bill does nothing in the context of universities. There has been no successful BDS campaign, he said. The Union of Jewish Students does not want the Bill, I recall him saying.