Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee stage
Tuesday 14th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, as a Conservative, I believe absolutely in the right to freedom of speech, but I do not think that the limits on freedom of speech in Clause 4 are as great as some noble Lords have tried to make out. I do not think that Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights is something that affects the rights of individuals, and Clause 4 is fundamentally aimed at public authorities. I completely understand that there is a very small number of public authorities who can be individuals as well, but, as my noble friend the Minister explained at Second Reading and as the Explanatory Notes make very clear, the prohibition on statements is against public authorities and attaches to individuals only to the extent that they are speaking for the public authority. Even if it applies to the statements made by individuals on behalf of the public authority, the ban applies to the public authority and the enforcement action is taken against the public authority. So individuals are not targeted by Clause 4.

We have to remember that this is not an academic issue. We already know that councils are starting to pass BDS motions and they are against this Bill. We know that the student encampments are including demands or public statements on the conflict in the Middle East and on divestment. They may not get all their demands, but that is certainly where they are pushing towards. Without the Bill, I think we can be fairly sure that BDS activities and statements will continue to increase and that will have an impact on social cohesion, and a particular impact on the Jewish communities that are affected by the sorts of statements that are made.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The noble Baroness said that she is afraid that BDS statements will increase. Is she in favour of preventing such statements in unavoidably lively public debate?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

Yes, I am against statements being made by public authorities. I am trying to make the distinction at the moment between public authorities and the individuals who are involved in those public authorities, who I think are hardly affected by this, except to the extent that they speak for the public authority. I think there is a case for taking a position against statements by public authorities, because of the impact on social cohesion.

We have to remember that this provision does not come from nowhere: it is rooted in the real, live example of what happened in Leicester Council back in 2014. It passed a BDS motion and then said, “only as far as legal considerations allow”. At that time, that was hugely divisive in the local community. It does cause very real harm and that is why this is so different from the kind of example that the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, gave at the beginning, about wanting to make a statement about stealing my noble friend’s excellent handbag. This is about social cohesion, at the end of the day; that is why this provision is in here.

National Security Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Report stage
Tuesday 7th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 166A in my name. I also thank the Minister for the way in which the Bill has been discussed and amended between Second Reading, Committee and Report. It is a model of the way in which the Lords should operate, and we all appreciate the way in which the Minister and his team have responded to reasoned criticisms as we have moved forward.

Amendment 166A merely draws attention to some of the definition problems we have all struggled with, wanting to catch all the problems but not to overload the necessary and highly desirable international co-operation with other Governments and other countries, many of which are governed in ways we do not entirely approve of. As somebody who used to work for an international think tank, I am particularly concerned with the opacity of the funding of some of our political think tanks, which as charities do not have to declare their revenue.

In the United States there is much concern with the extent to which some foreign Governments, in particular the Gulf states, put enormous amounts of money into institutes operating as political think tanks, intending to influence and therefore reshape the American political debate. Although that is outside the scope of the current Bill, I and others are much concerned to insist that there should be much greater transparency about the funding of think tanks that set out to deliberately influence the way in which our politics take place.

That is an example, but we all know that there will be a substantial grey area between direction and influence, which we and the Minister have all grappled with. We are not entirely sure that we can draw the line clearly as we go. This amendment asks the Government actively to keep under review and to consult on where that line needs to be adjusted as we move forward in implementation. I hope the Minister will respond in that way.

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I got involved in Committee—my only appearance on the Bill—because of concerns brought to my attention about the impact of the registration scheme on huge swathes of ordinary, everyday business and commercial activity. I was much encouraged that at that stage my noble friend the Minister said that this was under review. I am more than pleased with the actual outcome. I know that once a Bill has been published it is very hard for the Government to do a radical overhaul, so we have to pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister and the Security Minister in the other place for having the courage to say that what we started with would not work well enough and to come back with such a significant set of revisions on Report. I thank him again for all he has done to achieve this.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee stage
Wednesday 6th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, Amendment 22 is in a group of rather different amendments, most of which have more meat in them than my amendment. It is a probing amendment to paragraph 4 of Schedule 3, which contains a provision to ensure that contracts are not fragmented in order to escape the value limits that govern some of the procurement rules. The basic rule in paragraph 4 is that the contracting authority has to add up the value of all the contracts if they could reasonably have been supplied under one contract.

However, paragraph 4(2) allows the contracting authority not to do this if it has “good reasons”. Amendment 22 proposes to remove this in order to find out exactly what the Government intend to allow contracting authorities to do and to probe why they have not been more specific in the Bill. At first sight, paragraph 4(2) is a massive let-out clause, enabling authorities to avoid aggregating contracts. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s explanation. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 81, which we on these Benches regard as particularly important. It would put in the Bill one of the most important decisions to take before embarking on the procurement of public goods and services: make or buy? That is the subject of an entire chapter in the Government’s own Sourcing Playbook. This key decision process is missing from the Bill. We seek to put it in as an essential part of the pre-procurement process. The choice of delivery models should be based on careful and impartial consideration of the different forms of delivery available for each type of work, supply or service.

Conservatives in Government have sometimes acted as though outsourcing to for-profit companies—often large outsourcing companies that have been labelled “strategic suppliers”—is the only model worth considering. Unless the Minister wishes to argue that The Sourcing Playbook and other recent publications on procurement guidelines are no longer operable, it seems entirely appropriate to put in the Bill that the choice between in-house and outsource should first be considered. Later, we will move other amendments on the delivery model choices between for-profit and not-for-profit provision.

We have carefully followed the Government’s own language in these publications in drafting the amendment. The Minister may argue that we should leave the Bill a skeleton as far as possible to allow Ministers as much flexibility as possible; we have heard him press the case for flexibility already. We argue the case for clarity, accountability and future-proofing. The principles of the procurement process must be in the Bill, not left for later in the policy statements issued by changing Ministers as they pass through the relevant office.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Debate between Baroness Noakes and Lord Wallace of Saltaire

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

We have it because it is just possible that the courts could find a way in. We have seen them getting involved in areas that we never thought they would get involved in before. That is a fact of the way the judiciary has moved in recent years, and it is why the clause is there.

I do not accept that the clause sets a dangerous precedent. It is about this one very narrow issue. It is not about an ouster clause that would be put in every statute that came before Parliament. Of course, Parliament must decide at the end of the day how it wants to frame its laws. It has the right to do that, and the courts can then interpret those laws, but I do not believe that this will be seen as a precedent for a more general use of ouster clauses. If it is, I am fairly sure that Parliament would not accept them. We should see this clause in the narrow concept in which it is drafted and not try to extend it beyond that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, if we are talking about our tried and tested constitution, we should remember that in the 17th century it was Chief Justice Coke and his defence of the rule of law against the extent of the royal prerogative which led to the development of some of the ideas of constitutional democracy at least as much as Parliament. The rule of law is an essential part of the way we work.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that we all know that this clause is in the Bill because of the judgment on Prorogation in 2019. I was interested to hear that the Minister’s definition of Prorogation did not in any sense suggest that that use of the power came within an accepted definition. Perhaps he will change his definition next time he comes.

The Minister has said that the importance of the Bill is to restore the status quo, but this ouster clause is not the restoration of the status quo. I agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that it opens a window to its use on other occasions, which would be highly undesirable. It is much more radical than Clause 2 in changing our customs and practices. If we want to maintain the status quo while changing it a little—