Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Lord Warner and Lord Boateng

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Warner (CB)]

My Lords, we are dealing with a Bill that is in highly controversial territory. If we have sloppy definitions in the Bill, it will encourage litigation. It would be a strange thing if we passed a Bill with a lot of problems around definitions that causes, over time, more people to raise issues around sources of investment through the courts. With all due respect to the Government of Israel, from time to time they have shown quite an enthusiasm for using litigation to make their points.

Also, picking up from the last group of amendments, we live in a rather different time in terms of who raises money for public services, particularly capital money for investments. If we take health and care, the areas I know something about, there is a lot more interest in the idea of going into the private sector—private equity and PFI being good examples—to try to raise money to build facilities of some kind or another for which the public sector has found it difficult to find the money. People who raise funding and use it to provide public services perform a kind of public function. If we have a sloppy Bill, they leave themselves exposed to probing of where their sources of money come from. You then run the risk of driving these people away from the kind of investments in public service that we may need to get some of our old capital structures improved over time. I suggest to the Committee that if we do not tighten up these definitions, we run a series of risks that are self-defeating to any Government.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my noble friends for these probing amendments, and even more grateful after hearing the contributions from Members opposite that they have elicited. A number of very serious questions have been raised about ambiguity and lack of clarity.

I hope that the Minister is not tempted to reply with words that are meant to reassure us, such as, “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. The Secretary of State will decide”. I must confess to the Minister that, the older I get, the less confidence I have in Secretaries of State. I suspect that, in a few months’ time, she will begin to have less confidence than she currently has. There is a good reason for that: all of us—I emphasise this—whatever side of the House we are on, need to be wary of overpowerful government.