Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Bishop of Manchester

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Manchester]

My Lords, I support this amendment and the stand part notice, to which I have added my name. I declare again my interest that as a bishop I can, in certain circumstances, be deemed to be a public body in my own right. I can also assure your Lordships that I have no acquisitive designs on any noble Baroness’s handbag this evening.

Clause 4 represents an attack on free speech. It prohibits even statements that suggest a person would have acted differently had it been legal to do so, even if they make it clear that they are going to act within the confines of the law. It is hard—as the noble Baroness just said—to see this as anything other than a sizeable infringement on that basic right to free speech, which is a cornerstone of our democracy.

Your Lordships will not be surprised that I oppose that restriction as a matter of principle. Free speech should be limited only when it is absolutely essential in order to prevent some very grave harm. I have heard nothing to date to suggest that such grave harm is likely to arise. If the Minister or her colleague has an example—perhaps in the aforementioned handbag— I plead with her to share it with us tonight.

Having taken a matter of principle, let me now set out why I believe the clause also contains important practical challenges. The Local Government Association has labelled this clause as particularly problematic. The Government say in the Explanatory Notes that councillors are not prohibited from expressing support—including in minutes—but if that is so, why is it not clearly in the Bill? Why not just remove this problematic clause?

Aside from the moral qualms that we might have about limits on freedom of speech, it is difficult to see how this clause could be enforced. It makes councillors particularly vulnerable to challenge when we elect them to give their opinions; they have to be free to do so. I also know, from having served for a good number of years as the independent chair of a local authority standards committee, that it is not always clear when the elected member is acting on behalf of a council or on their own behalf. Noble Lords may well remember one famous case where this distinction lay at the heart of it, involving the person who was at that time the Mayor of London. Mayors are of course public bodies in their own right, and that entire case, at the various levels it went through, hung on whether at that time he was acting as the Mayor of London or simply as a private individual going about his own business.

We heard at Second Reading the concerns that this will create a culture in which difficult ethical discussions do not take place, because of fears that this clause might be brought into action. Later this year, we are going to have a general election, I believe. Many candidates in that election may also serve on local government bodies. It would be invidious to our democracy for a candidate not to be able to answer honestly a question raised at a hustings, or by a journalist, out of fear that action might somehow then follow under this clause.

I have focused on local authority members, but we have spent many hours already in Committee discussing the uncertainty as to who exactly constitutes a public authority or a public body, or even whether those two terms mean the same thing. If we end up with university authorities being so classified, do we really wish to fetter the free speech that lies at the heart of healthy academic institutions—in fact, the free speech of which, on just about every other occasion we have discussed it in this House, I have always felt this Government to be a strong supporter? The only way to avoid such a culture of intimidation, which I am sure we all agree would be detrimental to local democracy, and potentially to wider civic and public life, is to remove this clause altogether.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have been trying to think of the right reverend Prelate as a public body. He is certainly a public authority, but he is at most a hybrid public body. I am not quite sure what sort of hybrid he is in this respect.

My name is on Amendment 33 and the clause stand part notice. I make it clear that this entire clause should go. The exact phrase in the Conservative Party manifesto in 2019 was:

“We will ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, disinvestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries”.


There was nothing about what they say there, although I note that the department’s memorandum for us says:

“It is intended that the measures will be widely construed”.


This is widely construed to the degree of being ambiguous and imprecise, as so much of this badly drafted Bill clearly is.

Yesterday I ran into the noble Lord, Lord Frost, in the corridor and commented on his rather good article, which was in the Telegraph on Friday, on freedom of speech as fundamental to the Conservative Party. I then asked him what he thought about Clause 4 of this Bill. He looked at me in some confusion and said, “I thought that had been withdrawn already”. I wish that that thought was a precursor of the change.

I have found it difficult to find arguments in support of the clause. I looked through the Commons Public Bill Committee stage, where evidence was taken from the legal adviser to the Free Speech Union, who said:

“My position is that clause 4 really needs to go in its entirety … there is no need—I think it is not necessary either politically or perhaps even legally—to prohibit statements. The mischief that is to be prohibited is the threatened act … This Bill very clearly targets expressions of political and moral conscience, which is to say the form of expression that is most highly protected by article 10””.—[Official Report, Commons, Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill Committee, 5/9/23; cols. 38-39.]


of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is not just the European Convention; we go back to the Atlantic charter, the fundamental basis on which the post-war international order rested, drafted by British diplomats, and in which the four freedoms include freedom of speech and freedom of belief.

I note that, in the Commons stages, one Conservative MP, David Jones, said:

“This is a Conservative Government. Conservatives believe in and value free speech … This is a deeply un-Conservative measure and I believe that the amendment”—


to Clause 4—

“is right and that the provision should go”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/10/23; col. 915.]

The Committee should take that seriously. In the Commons debates, another Conservative MP referred to this clause and the ones that follow as introducing the concept of “thought crime”.

The Constitution Committee of this House’s very critical report says:

“The protection of free speech is a fundamental right. In our view, clauses 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b) unduly limit freedom of speech … The House may wish to consider whether clause 4 should be removed from the Bill”.


I dare to suggest to the Minister that this House will reject this clause and that, when the Bill returns to the Commons, it is quite possible that a number of Conservative MPs who do believe in conservative values of free speech will find it convenient not to be there when the Commons vote again. Therefore, it would be wise for the Government to consider their position and, I suggest, withdraw this clause.