Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Tuesday 25th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)]

6. What steps his Department is taking to support marine energy generation.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

9. What assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of tidal energy.

[The Minister for Climate (Graham Stuart)]

I am delighted to say that, on 7 July, we announced that 40 MW of new tidal stream power was secured in Scotland and Wales through the contracts for difference round, and analysis has confirmed the predictability, resilience and potential cost-effectiveness of marine energy, which can play a key role in delivering energy security and net zero.

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[Graham Stuart]

There is long-standing Government support for wave and tidal power research and development, with more than £175 million having been invested in the area over the past two decades. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that, where it can be shown that it is cost-effective, tidal and marine energy has a big role to play.

[Anthony Mangnall]

As is so often the case, local ideas can provide national solutions. Will the Minister meet me and Rev. Andrew Langley from my constituency, who is using his churches to look at using new tidal technology to power the town of Dartmouth? Those are the sort of schemes that we need to be looking at and then investing in and supporting the technology.

[Graham Stuart]

Rev. Andrew Langley sounds like a community hero. It is exactly that kind of grassroots approach that is at the heart of Conservative philosophy as we deliver these high-level targets, but we work with the whole community to see it delivered. Community groups have a big role to play in our efforts to eliminate our contribution to climate change, and of course I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his local hero, Rev. Andrew Langley.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Tuesday 12th July 2022 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

1. What recent steps his Department has taken to help support the photonics industry. [R]

[The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that photonics is one of the seven technology families highlighted in the innovation strategy with the absolute intention of showing and developing its domestic potential and the exports possibilities.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I thank the Secretary of State for his response, but he will know that photonics is completely undervalued across the United Kingdom and that south Devon is home to a large contingent of the photonics sector. With that in mind, can I invite him or presumably his successor, if I am allowed to say that, to the iMAPS—International Microelectronics Assembly and Packaging Society—conference on 18 October to safeguard and flag up the photonics sector?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My hon. Friend will appreciate that in the current circumstances 18 October is a very long time away, but of course I will do my best to attend that conference.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That is exactly correct. All we are doing is asking for the UK to be at the same level as the United States, and I do not think that that is asking too much. I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, and this is very much what we are driving at. In fact, I love the idea that an individual who is sanctioned in the United States should be sanctioned here, and that if we sanction individuals the United States should sanction them as well, and that the same should happen in Europe. We would have this common purpose: there is nowhere for those people to go. They are sanctioned, full stop, and they cannot use their ill-gotten money anywhere.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether his amendment, and the Bill, will address the issue of nominees? That seems to be a way in which someone could get away with it: “I can hand my property to a nominee.” Do the enforcement mechanism and the reference to named individuals enable us to stop them doing that?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

They should, because the individual has to declare the whole chain. “Not knowing” would be no excuse. It would be the responsibility of individuals to know who those nominees were and to declare them They could not defend themselves. What my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) suggested might be a better way of doing this, but my point is that my amendment would nevertheless address it.

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[Alison Thewliss]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was talking about people buying their seats at party fundraisers and at the heart of British democracy. That is something that this House should reflect on. This place needs to take a long hard look at itself and at what it has facilitated, allowed and ignored over the course of many years.

We in the SNP welcome this Bill—how could we not?—but we would argue that it is long overdue and does not go nearly far enough. The UK Government’s inaction and prevarication have given the oligarchs a head start to shift their assets, to lawyer up, to step down from companies and boards and to saunter unimpeded to their getaway yachts and go to places that will still have them. Co-ordinated and quick global action, including in the overseas territories, could have made this more difficult, as would action on crypto-assets. The recent Treasury Committee report highlighted the growing role of crypto-assets in economic crime.

We support Labour’s calls to cut the registration of overseas entities to four weeks. We all agree that 18 months was ludicrous, but six months still gives people far too long to shift their ill-gotten gains. I would be grateful if Ministers confirmed what they are doing to monitor asset flight, and if they could provide an estimate of how much money has already left. Our amendments 18 to 23 would lower the threshold for beneficial ownership from 25% to 10%. Evidence already points to the threshold being gamed and to people appointing family members and those they can easily control, and the Government need to be aware of that and do more to prevent it.

[Anthony Mangnall]

I apologise for interrupting the hon. Lady, who is making a brilliant speech. On her point about assets being handed over, where they are being hidden and the chain involved in these activities, does she agree that insurance companies need to be brought into these measures? Insurance companies have a list of every single asset and item in the name of these individuals, yet over the weekend there were reports that insurance companies were seeing people coming off their lists because they were already moving their assets out.

[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and I hope the Minister was listening carefully. We need to use all the levers at our disposal to trace where these assets are going, who is moving them and who is helping them to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

Yes, my right hon. Friend makes a good point. The reason why gifting and transferring to relatives, which is another category, is not in there is because I took—I almost ripped it out of the legislation—the legislation that we put in place for Skripal, which also omitted those things. My right hon. Friend is quite right, though, and had my new clause been accepted today, I would have looked to make two changes when the Bill went to the Lords, the first of which would be to do that—to tighten it. The other would be to include a right of appeal if it went on too long the other way round, to balance the human rights issue.

We should bear in mind the fact that the National Crime Agency, for example, has people on police bail. I know of a case in which people have been on police bail for five years and we know nothing about it, so the restriction in my new clause on somebody who faces possible sanction is much less than the restriction the NCA imposes on some people. It is vital that we prevent ultra-wealthy individuals, with their teams of highly paid lawyers, advisers and accountants, from exiting the UK with their ill-gotten gains or hiding them where we cannot find them or get them.

By the way, I am a great believer in the presumption of innocence, but if somebody came out of the old Soviet Union—Russia—in the years between 1990 and 2010 with £1 billion, £2 billion, £3 billion or £4 billion to their name, and they were previously an officer of the Russian state, I do not quite start with the presumption of innocence that I would normally start with. I would start with a requirement on them to explain where that came from. That seems to me to be a reasonable, common-sense modification of my normal “mad-libertarian” interests.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The presumption of innocence must surely be broad and not subjective in respect of any one individual. My right hon. Friend made the point about people on bail; the whole point is that if someone is on bail, a case has already been presented and built up. I of course understand that my right hon. Friend is trying to get to the point at which the case has been built up. On his new clause, how is the process reversed if someone should not be on the list? How would the Foreign Secretary say they are no longer on the list? There is nothing in my right hon. Friend’s new clause that specifies how that would work.

[Mr Davis]

My hon. Friend is right. If we put the measure in place, there would be a decision at some point as to whether someone was on the list or no longer on the list—“We’ve decided that you’re not subject to sanction.” That clearly has to be part of the operation. By the way, I am afraid police bail does not quite work the way my hon. Friend thinks it does: in the case that I had in mind, there is no case but they have been on police bail. That is just an example to demonstrate that the idea in my new clause is not an unheard of option.

I see Dame Eleanor is looking at me, so let me finish by saying that if we back new clause 29, we will ensure that our sanctions regime will often have real effect. It is proportionate and simple and it would be effective.

Domestic Building Works (Consumer Protection) Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Friday 19th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mark Garnier]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right. The implications of cowboy or rogue builders who do not build to standard are unbelievably widespread—indeed, that opens another interesting debate about inspections by local councils in terms of the amount of work done, and there is a completely different debate about that to ensure that building standards have been maintained. Sometimes there are questions about whether some councils examine building standards properly, and my right hon. and learned Friend raises an important point.

How does the victim of the rogue builder seek redress? The answer, as it turns out, is not simple. In the first instance they could go to trading standards, but with a rogue builder being, by definition, a rogue, the sanctions available are weak at best. Ultimately, the home or small business owner who has found themselves the victim of a rogue builder has no other recourse than the courts.

This is the point at which it is really important that I declare my interest. There has been much debate of late about Members’ experiences—I think you were in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, when we discussed the Domestic Abuse Bill, and we heard a stunning speech from the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) about her experience, which was very valuable. When someone finds themself the victim of a rogue builder, they suddenly discover that they are in an extraordinary Kafkaesque world of misery, and trying to deal with legal practitioners, professionals and all the rest of it. I was going to speak at length about my first-hand experience but, frankly, it is important to move along in the interest of the next debate. Suffice it to say that, apart from anything else, as Members of Parliament we find ourselves subject to blackmail, threats to break into our property to recover items that we have already paid for and multiple final bills—in my case multiple fictitious final bills. The list goes on and on, and it becomes unbelievably depressing and wearing, as we find ourselves having to deal with the problem and, ultimately, there is no justice.

The fundamental fault with the whole system is that contract law simply does not work for people with problems bigger than the small claims court, which is fine, but below a value of £1 million. The reality of the situation is that anyone can make up a fictitious account that they want us to pay and we have to negotiate. In addition, if we want to get redress against a builder, we have to go to court and seek legal action. It works both ways. It is not just about bad building standards; it is also about builders’ bad business practices and vexatious bills.

To challenge or defend this type of bill requires a commitment of between £100,000 and £200,000 in legal fees, court fees and professional fees to demonstrate the loss and to provide the evidence. I have spoken to any number of friends and colleagues with very senior legal experience—this place is stuffed to the rafters with lawyers and barristers—and they all say that the type of problem I am facing, and that hundreds of thousands of people face, has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with trying to achieve a negotiated settlement.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an extraordinarily important point. Many of my constituents have had to deal with rogue builders, and I am sorry for what he has had to go through. Could we improve the civil litigation process rather than creating an ombudsman under this Bill?

[Mark Garnier]

I have privately asked all sorts of senior people and, weirdly, they just roll their eyes and say, “It is what it is.” Perhaps we could, but I am certainly not qualified. I was an investment banker rather than a lawyer, so I approach this from a slightly different direction.

One of our colleagues pointed out that the process of negotiated settlement is like being mugged and then being charged for the mugger’s knife, and it has the backing of the law. The consumer of repair, maintenance and improvement building services has no consumer protection at all. There is absolutely no practical protection for consumers that avoids the highly risky, unbelievably expensive and emotionally draining prospect of prosecuting contract law. Indeed, the subcontractors working on our home were victims of the same rogue builder. They were eventually paid, but they were not paid initially.

While we were going through this nightmare, an unrelated subcontractor came to me with a complaint that he had not been paid by the firm with which we were in litigation. The builder’s manager even boasted to our subcontractor that he usually had five legal cases on the go at any given time, playing the system to get more money. This is not just an accident; it is a deliberate action by these builders.

It is extraordinary that consumers are completely unprotected. When we think about the whole building process, it is even more astonishing. The proud homeowner who is seeking to improve their home will go to an architect, who will be regulated by the Architects Registration Board. They might contract a quantity surveyor, who will be regulated by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. They will probably need to borrow money, so they might approach a mortgage broker who is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. The mortgage broker will help with the mortgage, which will be provided by a lender, again regulated by the FCA and possibly by the Prudential Regulation Authority, with advice from a solicitor regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The money will then be deposited in a bank, regulated again by the FCA and the PRA. The whole process is laden with consumer protection and regulation, right up to the point at which the money is handed over to someone with no regulation—and possibly no qualifications—and with no protection mechanisms for the consumer in any way, shape or form.

Unbelievably, the problem gets worse. The victim may well prosecute the court and win—possibly both damages and costs—but at that point the rogue builder goes bust with no assets and starts a new business the following day to continue the process of ripping off consumers. Meanwhile, the costs to the victim, running into hundreds of thousands of pounds, are unpaid. The reality is that there is absolutely no disincentive for the cowboy builder to present fictitious bills or to do shoddy and appalling work. While the consumer must engage in a risky legal process to seek redress or protection, the rogue builder can game the system with no jeopardy whatsoever.

What is the solution? How do we protect honest builders and subcontractors, builders’ merchants and, importantly, consumers? I repeat that most people in the trade are very honest people who also need to be protected from the activities of rogue builders. How do we redress the balance of risk away from favouring the rogue builder to giving equal weight to both consumer and builder? We must remember that the builder is not always in the wrong, so we need to ensure that the solution is balanced. The answer must lie in a regulation and licensing scheme.

My Bill asks the Government to come up with a scheme of compulsory licensing for SME building firms working in the RM&I space. While it does not set down the specific framework for a licensing scheme with associated regulations—it would be wrong for a Back Bencher to try to undertake that work, because it is complicated—I will suggest my vision of how it would work. My experience, which informs how I look at it, is with financial services and banking regulation—back in the 2010 Parliament, we were heavily involved in changing financial services regulation—and while I do not propose anything remotely as complex as the FCA or PRA, there are some important carry-acrosses from financial regulation.

First, any regulatory scheme must not be a financial burden on the wider taxpayer. A licensing scheme for builders must be self-financed through licence fees. Rules for having a licence must be straightforward; they cannot be complicated. Importantly, no firm can be allowed to offer services direct to customers without a licence. That in itself would result in the wider industry policing the market. For example, mortgage lenders would require evidence that money would be spent on a licensed firm, while architects and surveyors acting as project managers would need to see a licence to engage a building firm, ensuring that builders were licensed. The consumer could check the builder on the regulator’s website, just as can be done with the FCA. The regulator should probably be TrustMark, which currently operates a voluntary scheme. There should be rules regarding code of conduct, honesty, safety and quality of work. Those failing to comply should face a series of sanctions resulting in the ultimate sanction of the loss of licence and, therefore, the loss of the ability to work in that industry.

National Security and Investment Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I can assure the House that I will not be speaking for quite as long, although I aim to speak as eloquently. I thank the Minister for the time that he spent with the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China yesterday, going through some of the issues in the Bill. We operate on a cross-party basis, and I will be mentioning some of the concerns raised in that call so that they are made public.

The Liberal Democrats absolutely support the premise of the Bill. It is the right thing to be doing. My objection, however, lies in the Bill’s scope, which I genuinely believe should be wider. I appreciate that it has been constructed narrowly, presumably so that it can be put through Parliament quickly, but this is a great opportunity that should not be missed. The point that I made to the Minister yesterday was that if we are not going to amend this Bill to include some very important changes that are needed in our legislation, when are the Bills that will be necessary to fill in the cracks going to be brought to the House? I am hearing that that is what Members across the House want to know. If not now, when?

I will focus on two specific matters. The first, which has been mentioned by other Members, is the definition of national security. I found the speech of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings very interesting, because there are arguments for defining and not defining. I believe that we should be defining, so that this House can properly scrutinise whether the definition encompasses everything that we would consider a national security concern and whether those concerns will be captured in the Bill.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Rather than being about not not defining national security, I wonder whether this is about broadening the definition so that it can include the many other issues with which we are all concerned.

[Layla Moran]

Yes, indeed; I agree. We should be broadening it, in fact, to underline the values of our country that should be enshrined in the Bill. I hope that Members would agree that there is no way that anyone could describe human rights as baubles. Human rights are not baubles off of which we are hanging a Bill. Human rights are the trunk of the tree off of which we hang the legislation and everything that we do in this place. When I suggest that we widen the scope of the Bill to include more human rights amendments, it is in that spirit.

We should not be singling out China particularly—although I am about to—but it is right that this Bill is looking at the enterprise in itself; it is not China or any Chinese investment per se that concerns Members of the House. That distinction is very important. It is equally important, especially during the time of a pandemic, that we attract business, that this country is open for business and that businesses want to invest in it. That is all correct, but I have grave concerns, particularly about companies such as TikTok, which is an example of the kind of thing that we very much hope is captured in the Bill. It is a shame that we do not know—I certainly do not—whether TikTok will fall within the scope of the regime put forward by the Minister and the Secretary of State. That is a genuine question. If it will not, let me make the case for why it should.

As has been said, this is not just about national security and infrastructure as things that we can touch. As we well know, the way in which hostile states are now operating is more to do with data flows and what they do with them. We also know that China does not think within the scope of two, three or four years; it is thinking ahead to the 20, 30, 40 and 50 year marks. What is it doing with TikTok? It is harvesting data, and primarily the data of young people—not just here, but across the world. Some 41% of TikTok’s users are aged between 16 and 24. Our young people’s data is being harvested now. Why? Competitive advantage, perhaps, but also we know that the way that the modern Chinese state is operating is to slowly build dependency. It is incredibly important to recognise the point around dependency and national security now, because it is getting a slow underground hold on our country. If we are not careful and we just focus on the parts that we can see, like the mycelium of a fungus—is it edible or not?—we forget that the majority of what is happening is underground and longer-lasting than we might imagine. Will data flows be considered specifically? Will the movement of the global HQ of TikTok to this country come under the scope of the Bill? If not, I will seek support across the House for amendments at the next stage so that that can happen.

Now is the time to fully address human rights. That is why it is important to talk about China, because yes, on the one hand, there are data flows, but on the other, there is what it has done in Hong Kong. The issues with TikTok arise from 2017, but the more recent issues in June of this year, and what it has done in Hong Kong, suggest a direction of movement for the Chinese state that is deeply concerning. Linking that to what is happening in Xinjiang with the Uyghurs, we have, almost through not paying attention, tacitly said to that state, “We think what you are doing might be okay. We are not going to challenge it directly.” Magnitsky sanctions are mentioned as the current way that the Government are dealing with this. We welcome that and think they should go further. However, it is also time that we had amendments to a Bill that specifically deal with genocide, slave labour and supply chains. This is not just about sanctioning individuals. We know that the state has a hold on its enterprises, and that needs to be addressed too.

At this stage, I have no intention of throwing any Lib Dem strops and opposing Bills, or whatever. However, I hope that the Minister knows that at the next stage some movement needs to be made on these two very important issues.

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[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me in such an important debate. May I start by thanking the Secretary of State and the Minister for the time that they have given me, members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China and others to discuss the contents of the Bill and what it does?

As I understand it—I hope I get this explanation right—the Bill gives the Government the power to screen and call in acquisitions of assets deemed to pose a threat to national security. Those assets might include land, physical property or intellectual property. As a result, the Secretary of State will be given retrospective powers to consider investments made over the past five years.

I welcome the cross-party consensus on the Bill. It seems to me, as a new intake Member of Parliament, that this is one of those rare moments when there is consensus in the House to produce a truly remarkable piece of legislation. I hope that the Government will listen carefully to the comments that have been made already.

I welcome the sentiments of the Bill, and I hope that passing it into law will be our first step in attempting to match Australia’s Foreign Investment Reform (Protecting Australia’s National Security) Bill and America’s Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernisation Act of 2018. But—and there is a sizeable “but”—we have, as other Members have made clear, a long way to go before this legislation reflects the comprehensive laws that many of our Five Eyes nation colleagues have in place.

The UK seeks to be a competitive, free and fair economy. I believe that that is sacrosanct and that we must do everything we can to ensure that businesses and people around the world look at our country as an attractive destination for investment. A stable democracy, a highly skilled workforce, league table topping universities, the rule of law and world-class industries such as photonics and FinTech all make the UK an attractive place to invest that benefits investors and British citizens alike.

Our laws are balanced as a result, encouraging foreign investment and adherence to UK laws and national interests. That balance has become all the more challenging with rapid technological change, internationalist agendas and our own failure, if I may say so, to hold a strategic dependency review. In short, the threats to our national security are numerous, real and present, and they come in a multitude of forms.

The narrow scope of the Bill limits its impact. It fails to address the threats that the UK is currently facing, and it holds the potential to see us become complicit with businesses and organisations that violate human rights. The national security that the Secretary of State spoke of remains ill-defined, to the detriment of the objectives of the Bill. Added to that, under the screening mechanism outlined in the Bill, a number of sectors are not addressed, such as education—a core part of the UK’s economy and an attraction to thousands of foreign students across the globe, with institutions that undertake research and development programmes in myriad areas, including defence, development and foreign affairs. A recent study found that 10 UK university laboratories are now dependent on significant investment from Chinese defence firms, yet our universities have not been specified in the scope of the Government’s consultation on sectors to which mandatory notification applies. How can that not be considered a national security risk?

The pharmaceutical sector is a global success story, with many companies basing their operations here in the UK, but there is nothing in the Bill that would have stopped or reviewed the Chinese takeover of Bio Products Laboratory. At a time when we face greater and graver challenges around the health of mankind, the Government must rethink what needs to be included in the scope of their consultation.

I have touched on two sectors but said nothing about the UK’s nuclear sector or water industry. Both need to be given the cover to protect our national security. Our core infrastructure, which is intimately connected to our national security, is routinely being placed in the hands of foreign owners. That should be a cause of great concern to the whole House. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) mentioned the 23 out of 117 Chinese acquisitions of UK firms—if less than 20% of Chinese acquisitions are being scrutinised under this legislation, we need to rethink parts of the Bill and strengthen it where possible.

[Richard Fuller]

I think it would be helpful for us to decide whether we are talking about foreign ownership of assets or Chinese ownership of assets. Obviously there is a gradation between them, but I am hearing from some of the contributions that we just do not like foreigner ownership of assets, which I am sure is not what my hon. Friend means at all.

[Anthony Mangnall]

It is important to recognise that China has a poor track record in this case, which has not been addressed, but of course we are not against foreign ownership. We want to ensure that the structure is in place to scrutinise these acquisitions in the correct way that protects opportunity in this country. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

A few months ago, I broke cover early on to vote against the Government over the proposals to see our 5G network built by Huawei—and I have not lived it down yet! I did so because our core infrastructure should never be compromised by foreign investment, and that was a severe threat to our national security. I welcome the fact that the Government have moved so significantly and plan to phase out Huawei by 2027.

I also did so because of the reports of human rights violations by Huawei. The success of my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) in passing the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is a proud moment for the UK, but it is worthless unless we use this Bill to stop dealing with companies that are reported to be using slave labour and looking to invest in the United Kingdom. Nothing in the Bill prevents companies that are complicit in gross human rights violations from investing in the United Kingdom, and that is a huge oversight. It would be an injustice and morally wrong for the UK ever to look the other way as money created from slave labour was invested in this country.

We have been told that this is not the right Bill for such provisions, but with all due respect, that is the same excuse used by the Whips on every single occasion that I have raised concerns about a piece of legislation. If we are going to bring forward the correct pieces of legislation, let us bring them forward. If not, the Government should not be surprised if we try to tack on amendments to address the issues that so many Members across the House feel strongly about.

[Bob Seely]

My hon. Friend is making such a brilliant speech that I do not want to interrupt him, but I will do so briefly. Does he agree that all these concerns could be wrapped up in a public interest amendment—including, for example, a human rights element—which would give Ministers some leeway and scope to address them?

[Anthony Mangnall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I hope that the Minister is listening, that we might expect such an amendment to arrive before us in due course, and that, with the consent of the House, we might see it implemented.

As I was saying, the line between state and civil actor has been blurred. The civil/military fusion requires legislation, and the Bill is in need of development to counter it. I therefore ask the Government very quickly to consider the following few proposals.

First, I would suggest the introduction of a committee on foreign investment. Our colleagues in America have introduced such a system. That would alleviate the pressure for any decisions to be made from political expediency. I believe, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was saying, that that would promote parliamentary scrutiny and transparency and ensure that there was an understanding of the entire system.

Secondly, I would suggest that the definition of national security be expanded to include human rights. We do more often than not, in this country and in this place, develop policy around moral obligations. This should be one of those cases.

Thirdly, I suggest that we increase the Bill’s scope and use it to tackle organised crime. That has not been mentioned. The UK very successfully closed the domestic trade in ivory. There was a trade across the globe—a domestic trade in ivory that was linked to al-Shabab. There is a way to track organised crime down to terrorist organisations. There is scope within the Bill to do so.

Fourthly, a recent study found that at least 929 UK shell companies used in 89 corruption and money laundering cases accounted for £137 billion. Those companies are registered through Companies House. The Bill should be used to alleviate the burdens and ensure that there are fewer implications for the UK.

We can attract investment and tackle malign activities. I hope the Government will engage, in the same constructive manner in which they have introduced the Bill, and I will be supporting them tonight. I am sorry for going on for so long.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

Tuesday 29th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

We have had this debate, of course, during the passage of the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill over the past few days. Subsidy control has never been a devolved matter. The right hon. Lady is absolutely right. We have always been clear that the regulation of subsidy control is a reserved matter. There will be a consultation, but ultimately we want to promote a competitive and dynamic economy throughout the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

What support his Department is providing for high-tech industry.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Amanda Solloway)]

The UK has one of the most vibrant and innovative tech sectors in the world, and it has been highly resilient through the pandemic. We are providing a wide range of support for high-tech industries, including the artificial intelligence sector deal, the industrial strategy challenge fund and the £1.25 billion coronavirus package of support for innovative firms.

[Anthony Mangnall]

The Minister will be aware of the value of the photonics industry to the UK economy. My constituency is home to the EPIC Centre in Paignton and its own site in Brixham. Given the leading value it has in the manufacturing industry and in quantum photonics, what support will it be given, along the lines of the research and development roadmap?

[Amanda Solloway]

Indeed, I know about the excellent work in Totnes. The Government recognise the important contribution made to the UK economy by the photonics industry and its underpinning role in growing the UK’s quantum technology sector. Successive Governments have supported the growth of the sector with R&D investment. As the Government implement our ambitious “UK research and development roadmap”, published in July, investing in cross-cutting technologies and realising the potential for regional strengths will be vital to making the most of the UK’s potential and becoming a science superpower.

Business and Planning Bill

Anthony Mangnall Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 29th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

I spent my weekend in Dartmouth speaking to some of those businesses in the hospitality and tourism trade. May I associate myself with the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) about making sure that councils are not over-zealous in their approach to allowing businesses to adopt the measures in the Bill for outdoor dining? I think it is very important that we can give those businesses reassurance.

[Alok Sharma]

Of course my hon. Friend makes an important point, but I think local authorities will understand that it is in their self-interest to ensure that businesses can open and that high streets flourish. I certainly encourage businesses to look at the guidance and adhere to it.