Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

My Lords, I think the best way to approach a Bill such as this is for me to be completely straightforward with the House. We on these Benches oppose this Bill. We do not support boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns towards Israel—they wrongly single out one nation and are counterproductive to peace—but the Bill is deeply flawed. It contains draconian powers and fails in its central purpose, which surely ought to be to prevent anti-Semitism.

The Bill prohibits public bodies from making procurement and investment decisions based on their “political or moral disapproval” of a foreign state’s conduct. The Government say that this is an attempt to ensure that all UK public bodies speak, as the Minister said, “with one voice” on international issues. However, the Government seem to think that there are councils, universities, NHS trusts and nursery schools with their own foreign policies, and that this is somehow confusing to our international allies. In fact, the impact assessment points to just three local government pension funds in Scotland that have disinvested from an Israeli bank since 2018. None of them say that this was a political decision or should be taken to represent any kind of political or moral disapproval, so can the Minister explain how the Bill would have impacted on those decisions? Would trustees be interviewed by enforcement authorities, for example?

The naivety of the Bill is to believe that trustees of pension schemes have, until now, been making investment decisions—which have a profound impact on their funds—in response to local boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. There is just no evidence for this. The risk is that the Bill will serve only to heighten tensions. I am afraid it plays into the hands of those who spout incomprehensible conspiracy theories and will have unintended consequences. I repeat that Labour has consistently opposed boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel. We know, and accept, that some campaigners have used the cover of BDS to whip up hate towards Jewish people, to hold Israel to different standards, to question its right to exist and to equate the actions of the Israeli Government with the Jewish people. We know that this happens and it is utterly wrong, but do we really think that the Bill will eradicate anti-Semitism? My fear is that it will make things worse, and it could not be happening at a more sensitive time.

The Bill treats the Occupied Palestinian Territories as though they are, in effect, the same as the State of Israel. This runs counter to decades of British diplomacy under Labour, Conservative and coalition Governments. In 2016, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2334, requiring every UN member to distinguish between the territory of the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The resolution says that illegal settlements have “no legal validity”, constitute

“a flagrant violation under international law”,

and are

“a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution”.

Not only was the UK involved in drafting this resolution, but the Government’s advice to UK businesses investing in the region makes this distinction clear. Can the Minister tell us what the Foreign Secretary had to say about this Bill? Can she tell us who drafted it? It is so strange that a Bill is being presented that so blatantly contradicts an internationally agreed and long-standing position of this Government.

Then there is the issue of freedom of speech. Not so long ago, we spent days in this House on a Bill to protect the right of individuals to express their views. This Bill does not do anything to legislate against the expression of anti-Semitism, but it does curtail the right to freedom of expression. Clause 4 is clear: decision-makers cannot express political or moral views that might be seen to relate in any way to procurement decisions. This is unenforceable. Councillors are elected officials. They have every right to express their views on moral and political issues—some might say that is their job. They do not, of course, have a right to whip up anti-Semitism and where that happens it must be dealt with, but the Bill will criminalise community representatives expressing views in a free and open way that has been a fundamental underpinning of our democracy for hundreds of years.

I listened to what the Minister said to try to persuade us that this is not the case. I am afraid she is being completely unrealistic and naive. Why does she say, on the one hand, that a council leader can express a view calling for a boycott on their social media or about another council, yet they would fall foul of this legislation should they express that opinion in a different context? What will the likely advice be from a borough’s solicitor to a council leader or a cabinet member who seeks to express such views? I will tell you: it will be to keep their mouth shut. Is that what the Government really want?

The Minister says that the Bill applies only when a councillor acts on behalf of a council. What does that mean? It is naive in the extreme. I do not know whether she has served as a councillor; I have, and I do not see how the Bill’s provisions, as currently written, are going to work. Suppose a council leader attends a local government conference and expresses a view on human rights, modern slavery, tobacco production, the arms industry, animal welfare or the environment in relation to another country. They will be advised not to express that view or to tone it down. That is not the kind of democracy that I think we want to create.

As for universities being within the Bill’s scope, they are not even classified as public bodies by the ONS, and nor should they be. Why are they included? Which university has actually acted—not made a statement but acted—as a result of a BDS campaign? Perhaps the Minister can tell us. We have just legislated to place a duty on universities to uphold freedom of speech and academic freedom. When does an academic speak in an individual capacity and when do they speak as a representative of their institution? This matters. I just do not think that Ministers can properly answer that question—not when they have an enforcement body with an annual budget of £120,000 to £200,000. I suggest that the Minister might need to look at increasing that, because there are likely to be considerably more complaints and vexatious referrals to that body than the one or two incidents referred to in the impact assessment.

This really does matter, and the issue must be properly answered. If not, there will be the most profound, chilling effect. What would happen if a professor expressed at an event a view relating to China, for example—and was paid for by the university as its representative—at the same time as a procurement or investment decision was being made by that institution? It is not clear from the Bill how that would be investigated.

I accept that there have been some BDS campaigns on some campuses where the atmosphere experienced by Jewish students has been damaged by those campaigns. I completely accept that, and it is right that we do what needs to be done to protect those students. However, the Union of Jewish Students is against this Bill. We need to find a better way to tackle this issue. Universities are not public bodies but are included in the scope of the Bill; however, where is the comprehensive list of public bodies we need in order to consider whether any other institutions might be inappropriately included? I have seen a list, but it is nowhere near comprehensive. It is a very odd list, containing some very surprising institutions such as small children’s charities and the like. This makes you wonder whether the Bill is as well thought through as it ought to be.

One final point is the lack of support from the devolved Governments. The Minister says that the Government have no intention of seeking any kind of legislative consent. That is of course the Government’s right—but is it good politics? Is it good for our democracy for the Government to proceed in this way? What conversations has the Minister even had with her counterparts in the devolved Administrations? Can she confirm that the devolved Governments will be subject to the constraints of this Bill? That being the case, can she understand why this would be a problem for them as democratically elected, accountable bodies in their own right? What have they said to her about what they think of the Bill?

Noble Lords will perhaps remember that we on these Benches supported an alternative approach, during the passage of the Procurement Bill. The approach the Government are taking in this Bill is not, therefore, the only option. Public bodies should be able to take ethical decisions, but these should be based on consistent principles applied equally to all countries. However, the Government rejected that amendment, which would have been a far better way to go about dealing with BDS than this Bill is. Why are the Government hell-bent on taking this approach? I think it is because they want to make political capital out of a very serious issue. This is a sad state for a Government to find themselves in—desperate, in fact. The Front Bench in the other place offered four times during the earlier stages of the Bill to sit down with the Government and formulate a more effective approach. That offer remains open. I only hope that the Minister and the Government are listening.