Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill (First sitting)

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

I suppose, for the sake of completeness, that I should say I too have been on a trip to Israel with Labour Friends of Israel. However, as with Wayne David, that was many years ago.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

I have also been on a trip funded by Conservative Friends of Israel, and I am also a friend of James Gurd.

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I have been on a trip funded by Caabu, who are not giving evidence this morning, but I believe they are later on.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

The regulator might consider itself to be an exception to that rule.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith]

Q Some have suggested that it is rather pointless to implement a ban if you have a toothless enforcement regime. Do you agree that it therefore needs to be sufficiently robust if we are to introduce this regime?

Councillor Deering: If I may say so, I thought that Councillor Jamieson’s response to the previous question was very good, because the question went to freedom of speech but Councillor Jamieson talked about judicial review, and in effect you are talking about enforcement through judicial review.

I substantially endorse what Councillor Jamieson just said. From the practical point of view of a councillor—forgive me: no doubt some of you in the room have this experience, but perhaps some of you do not—JRs may very well not be vexatious but my goodness me they give rise to a huge amount of work. They involve huge cost exposures and they are very, very demanding on a council’s capacity. If there is to be a JR backdrop to this, it needs to be put together in a thoughtful and careful way.

Subject to that, of course, if you are creating a regime that requires application, there does need to be some enforcement mechanism. Yes, I agree with that.

Councillor Jamieson: There does need to be an enforcement mechanism, which is the whole point of the Pensions Regulator. That should have sufficient teeth. It covers a whole range of issues—not just this but other things—and in general it works reasonably well.