Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Baroness Lister of Burtersett Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, when I was a child, we always had grapefruit for Sunday breakfast. However, for some months of the year it was tinned grapefruit because my mother, one of the hundreds of thousands referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hain, refused to buy South African Outspan when that was all that was available. Now, of course, the Bill would not have prevented her personal anti-apartheid boycott, but that was brought to mind by the Quakers’ warning, cited by my noble friend Lord Boateng, that the Bill would restrict their ability to put

“their faith into action by campaigning on matters of conscience, particularly at the local authority level where opportunities for citizens to influence democratic decisions are greater”.

In addition, as Bond points out:

“We now know that the local authorities who took a stand against Apartheid were on the right side of history”.


Had the Bill been in force, it suggests, as have a number of noble Lords,

“it is likely such campaigns would have been illegal”.

What does it say about local democracy that local authorities will no longer have the right or the power to respond positively to such campaigns? The Bill represents a further erosion of local democracy, which is one of many reasons why it prompted so much criticism on the Conservative Benches in the Commons. Indeed, it is tempting just to string together quotations from what they described as “bad legislation” and “a very un-Conservative measure”.

One important point some of them made was that this may have been a manifesto commitment, but that commitment was country-agnostic. As we have heard, the Bill singles out Israel and the Occupied Territories for special treatment. In doing so, it undermines its own stated aims. In particular, many organisations, including some Jewish organisations, warn that, in the words of Kit Malthouse MP, it is

“playing into the anti-Semitism we have seen rise in this country”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/10/23; col. 904.]

Data published last week, referred to by the Minister, underscored just how serious that rise has been.

The impact assessment admits that official assumptions about the impact of the legislation on community relations are just that—assumptions in the absence of adequate data. My honourable friend Dame Margaret Hodge pleaded with the Minister to withdraw what she called

“an act of complete irresponsibility and unbelievable foolishness”,

particularly in the context of the unspeakable horrors taking place in the Middle East as we speak. It will, she warned,

“only heighten tensions between communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/10/23; cols. 888-89.]

The other stated aim is to stop public bodies pursuing their own foreign policy agenda, as we have heard, so that the UK

“speaks with one voice internationally”.

I think I heard the Minister say at the outset that the nation must speak with one voice. That to me smacks of totalitarianism—it is frightening.

On foreign policy, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Alicia Kearns MP, warned that by, in effect, conflating Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Bill

“is a departure from our foreign policy”.

The fact that they are listed separately does not, as Ministers have tried to argue, negate the point. Furthermore, as has been said, it risks putting us in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which the UK itself drafted. Kearns expressed the worry that

“the Bill will leave the international community questioning whether Israeli settlements in the OPTs and the Golan Heights are still regarded as illegal by the UK Government”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/7/23; cols. 604-05.]

In this context, I welcome the reassurances given by the Foreign Secretary to your Lordships’ House last week, and his reminder that

“we should focus on what is happening in the West Bank as well as Gaza”.—[Official Report, 13/2/23; col. 147.]

He cited what he called the “chilling statistic” that 96 Palestinian children had been killed there since the horrors of 7 October, but I respectfully suggest that his proud statement that the Government had for the first time just taken out sanctions against violent settlers does not add up to much, given that it was only four settlers. On the Government’s own website, the FCDO’s press release announcing those sanctions states that Israel’s “failure to act” in the face of “unprecedented levels” of violence, harassment and intimidation,

“has led to an environment of near total impunity for settler extremists”.

I echo my noble friend Lord Grocott when I ask what hope there is for the holy grail of a two-state solution if one of those states is subject to ever more illegal settlements that deprive Palestinians of their land and livelihoods? When the Government talk about speaking with one voice internationally, they cannot be surprised if some organisations and citizens want to see more than speaking—actions, not words. And if central government will not take decisive actions against the illegal settlements, of course they might well look to local government, which will now be powerless to act.

The Minister sent us a letter which tried to reassure us about some of the concerns raised in the Commons, including those regarding protection of the environment and freedom of speech. There is not time to go into any detail now, but suffice it to say that civil society organisations concerned about the Bill have not been reassured. Nor has the higher education sector—I declare an interest here as an emeritus professor. Universities UK fears that the Bill will have

“severe unintended consequences for the higher education sector”,

including contradicting existing duties regarding freedom of speech and academic freedom, as well as official policy and guidance on establishing international partnerships and collaborations, as has been already mentioned.

To conclude, the impact assessment explains that the Government decided on primary rather than secondary legislation so as to “allow for proper scrutiny”. It points out that

“good parliamentary scrutiny of legislation can allow parliamentarians and civil society to highlight problems in bills before they become law”.

Well, the Government have not shown much, if any, willingness to listen and act on concerns raised so far. While I wish they would withdraw this miserable, dangerous Bill, I, like my noble friend Lord Wood, am a realist and I hope that, at the very least, they will take seriously the problems that I know will be highlighted during its passage through your Lordships’ House and that they will act so that those problems do not become enshrined in law.