Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 3rd July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow another excellent speech dissecting what is wrong with this very faulty Bill. What a contrast it was with the Secretary of State’s opening speech, which was effectively a display of polemical and performative rhetoric, containing assertions that the Bill itself contradicts—and I think that was a shame.

We have benefited from some extremely good analysis, although I have not been able to read all the briefings on the Bill that we have received, not just from eminent KCs—it was, again, a shame to witness one of them being speared by the Secretary of State—but from some leading expert organisations in the field: from the Council for Arab-British Understanding, from our former colleague Richard Burden, from the Balfour Project, from many Jewish organisations including Yachad and the Union of Jewish Students, from many trade unions, and from environmental groups who believe they will be caught up in this as well. I do not think that is what the Secretary of State intended; I think he intended the Bill to appeal to a populist narrative; but I do not think that has happened. Perhaps it is the revenge of the experts whom he trashed so publicly years ago.

While it is good that the Bill is not being given a platform and is not acting in the way in which the Government would like it to act—the way in which all the other legislation they are introducing seems to act at the moment—that does not mean that it is not a dangerous Bill. It does not mean that there is no harm in its provisions: harm to civil society, the rule of law and freedom of speech, principles that the Secretary of State would doubtless say that he wishes to uphold.

I am pleased to say that the nature and number of the risks in the Bill have been helpfully set out by the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), in the reasoned amendment, and I commend her for an excellent piece of drafting that really takes the Bill to pieces. I hope it will be approved tonight, because it would deny the Bill a Second Reading. If it does not succeed, some Members may vote against Second Reading, while others may abstain. I will abstain at that point, because I am reassured by the shadow Secretary of State’s assurance that if the Bill is not substantially reformed in the way in which the amendment suggests, it will be rejected. I hope it will be rejected by Members in all parts of the House on Third Reading, before it leaves this place.

In the very limited time available to me, I want to headline my concerns. The first question I want to ask is this: will the Bill help or hinder groups that are under threat around the world, such as the Uyghurs, the Rohingya, minorities in countries, or people in occupied territories—in Western Sahara, Northern Cyprus, Crimea, or the Palestinian territories? Will it help them in any way? The answer is, I think, a clear no. The Bill will run contrary to international law, it will run contrary to United Nations Security Council resolutions, particularly resolution 2334, and it will run contrary to the due diligence and fiduciary duties of local authorities and other public bodies and to legal principles. The FCDO guidance has already been quoted, and we have heard what Ministers have said as recently as last week in making distinctions between our policy towards Israel and our policy towards the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This point has been made a number of times already. By treating Israel exceptionally, the Bill does it no favours. By treating the Occupied Palestinian Territories alongside Israel, in a way that I have not seen before and that runs contrary to Government policy over many years under different Governments, the Bill makes a significant break and gives comfort to those who wish to see the Palestinian territories under permanent occupation, including many within the extremist Government in Israel.

Whatever the Secretary of State says, the Bill is a clear attack on free speech, and it is quite Kafkaesque in how it denies people the ability to speak out against what is happening. By inflicting not only strong powers of search and seizure but unlimited fines and penalties on those who speak out, this really is appalling legislation.

The Bill will have a chilling effect. We do not need to analyse the exact effect on every procurement and investment decision to see that pension funds are conservative bodies that will take decisions in ways that do not lay them open to this very woolly legislation. The consequence is that they will make bad decisions that go much further than the Secretary of State says he wishes to take the Bill.

Finally, I speak up, as many Members do, for the Palestinian people. How does this Bill benefit them? What effect will it have? On a day in which battlefield weapons are being used against civilian areas of the west bank for the first time in decades, we are talking about this scurrilous and performative Bill. The occupied territories have been occupied since 1967. Who will champion, as I wish this Government and this country would, their right to self-determination and their right to have their country recognised as a sovereign state, as we absolutely respect for the people of Israel? This Bill only hampers ambitions along those lines.

For those reasons, I ask Members on both sides of the House to vote for the reasoned amendment and not to allow the Bill to pass from this House in its current form.

Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

This is a bad Bill both in intent and in the methods that it adopts, which are harmful to Britain’s reputation around the world, to human rights, to the proper conduct of state actors and corporations, to citizens’ freedom of speech and to the actions of public and elected bodies. It has nothing to recommend it. It aims to prevent any boycott and to affect the right of public bodies, especially those that are elected, to consider factors beyond commercial procurement and investment decisions, such as ethical factors, which are often also commercially sensible factors. It neuters the exercise of choice by pension funds, employees and citizens. It constricts the freedom of expression of religious groups, trade unions and elected councillors. It proscribes freedom of speech in a draconian way, which sets an unfortunate precedent.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share concerns that clause 4 may contradict the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 and go against the academic freedom that is enjoyed on university campuses?

[Andy Slaughter]

I do not think it is lost on any hon. Member that the Bill flatly contradicts the Government’s rhetoric on freedom of speech in a most draconian way.

The so-called exceptions require actions to be unlawful before action can be taken, but we know how difficult it is for foreign states to have convictions against them in that way. The Government produced no evidence, only assertion, to support the provisions.

The Bill fails every test. It weakens human rights protections for persecuted groups around the world, from the Rohingya to the Uyghurs. It particularly fails Israel and Palestine. It singles out Israel for special treatment. In the words of Daniel Levy, the respected commentator and former Israeli negotiator when talking to MPs earlier today, the Bill demands a lower, not a higher standard of Israel. It does not distinguish between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Singling out Israel and conflating Israel and the OPT breaks the consensus that both main parties have maintained under successive Governments.

The subject of settlements often comes up. For example, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse) and I raised it in the urgent question earlier this week. Why, at a time when Foreign Office guidance advises against investment in settlements, when the Government have rightly spoken out about settlements being reintroduced in Gaza and rightly talked about sanctions against violent settlers, do the Government try to prevent, through the Bill, any action from being taken against settlements that are illegal under international law? A ban on settlement goods or investment in settlements is not the same in any respect as a boycott. The Government constantly dodge that issue, and they need to deal with it. The signals that they are sending out are entirely contradictory.

I hope that the Bill will be defeated. If it is not defeated and the reasoned amendment is not accepted tonight, I hope that we will return to the issue in the other place and that the Bill will not see the light of day before a general election. It certainly should not. It would be a shameful legacy, even for this Government.