Britain’s Industrial Future

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Peter Grant

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chi Onwurah]

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman has just illustrated yet again how Conservative Members cannot answer the challenge of well-paid jobs across our country and a pay rise for our working people.

We have had 12 years of low growth; low productivity; austerity a-go-go; broken promises and abandoned manifesto commitments; spiralling inflation; the NHS at breaking point; the Home Office broken, and that is according to the Home Secretary; higher taxes; and higher bills for working people. What a record. At the heart of their ideology, Tories do not believe Government can make a positive difference. They do not want to get stuck in; they just want to get out of the way. It is just one long season of “I’m a Tory MP, get me out of here” where British business is concerned.

However, as my hon. Friends the Members for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) so ably laid out, the state working in partnership with the private sector can shape and create markets. That is what industry needs: a partner to help plan for the future, provide investment and certainty, skills and infrastructure, research and development, trade and market access. The reality is that our great industries will never get the partner they deserve under Conservative Governments. It is much easier to destroy than to construct. They can crash the economy, but they cannot build the economy of the future.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) emphasised, net zero and growth are not in opposition. Partnership between the market and the state presents the opportunity to build world-leading industries that will last for decades and spread wealth across the country. Labour believes the UK has huge potential for new green industries, such as clean steel, as championed so passionately by my hon. Friends the Members for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald), for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock).

With our world-leading research base and universities, skilled workforce and deep capital markets, the UK is also well placed to create new clusters of manufacturing from Bolton to Birmingham. Labour has committed to an additional £28 billion of green capital investment a year until 2030 through our green prosperity plan as part of our British wealth fund.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) said, this country has enormous untapped potential when it comes to electric vehicles. In my constituency, Newcastle University is a leader in research to overcome the challenges of current battery technology. Under Labour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) emphasised, we will have eight gigafactories to ensure that the next generation of electric cars is made here in Britain. Labour also recognises that hydrogen could modernise heavy goods vehicles and public transport. These are long-term projects, so we will ensure certainty for business with our industrial strategy council to end the farce of long-term plans that do not survive the political cycle.

Science is the foundation of future success, but not content with crashing our current economy, the Tories seem bent on destroying our future economy. They simply are not serious about science. As well as their catastrophic trickle-down experiment with the nation’s economy, they are now trialling Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” for science. For the past few months, it has been impossible to know both the role and the number of science Ministers at the same time. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman), who is not in his place, resigned over the previous—times two—Prime Minister’s behaviour. Then he asked for his job back, but that Prime Minister preferred to keep the position vacant. Then the previous Prime Minister gave the brief to the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), but barely had she got her feet under the table when the current Prime Minister gave it back to the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk. Two weeks later, though, we still have not seen any ministerial responsibilities published. The rumour is that the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk has the brief, but the hon. Member for Wealden has the furniture—you could not make it up.

British science is no joke. Labour sees a clear path from world-leading British science to the jobs on which people can raise a family. That is why Labour will aim for 3% GDP investment from public and private sources into research and development, almost double the 1.7% that we have been seeing under this Government, supporting the jobs of the future—in life sciences, artificial intelligence, clean energy, satellite applications, semi-conductors, quantum technologies and marine autonomous technologies, as championed by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard).

Labour would maintain our membership of the world’s largest science funding programme, Horizon, and we will ensure that the wealth and opportunity that science brings are spread across our country more fairly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) called for so passionately.

[Peter Grant]

rose—

[Chi Onwurah]

I cannot give way, as I must make some progress.

We will help to champion clusters of businesses and universities as engines of regional growth, providing them with the levers and resources to collaborate and innovate together, rather than slashing regional science funding as this Government are doing.

British cities lag behind our European counterparts across productivity metrics. Newcastle, famous for its industrial heritage, is less productive in GDP terms than Gdansk, Lille and Valencia. Unlike the previous Prime Minister, I know that that is not because British workers are the

“worst idlers in the world”.

It is because the Government are not supporting them to reach their potential. Labour will work in partnership with businesses, civil society and trade unions and finally put an end to 12 years of Tory low growth, low wages and low productivity.

Labour’s industrial strategy will deliver clean power by 2030. We will create an economy that cares for the future and that harnesses data for the public good. Labour will build a resilient economy so that we can not only protect jobs in our British automotive, steel and shipbuilding industries, but provide the investment and long-term strategy that we need to be competitive on the world stage. Labour will grab hold of the national prosperity of which Britain is capable and deliver a fairer and greener future.

Today’s debate has shown that the Tories are out of plans and out of ideas. So, here is an idea for them: call a general election and let us put our industrial strategy to the country.

National Security and Investment Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Peter Grant

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 10th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant]

Does the hon. Lady share my understanding that the definitive statement on what the Bill is about is the long title of the Bill, not the explanatory notes? Does she agree that the long title makes no mention whatsoever of helping the CMA in the general exercise of its purpose?

[Chi Onwurah]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, because he is absolutely right that, rather than having a debate on the contents of the explanatory notes, line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill should focus on what the Bill says, and it does not mention general improvements to our competition and mergers regime, much as we feel that improvements could be made. Although we will not oppose the clause, I register our disappointment that we were not better informed of the Bill’s additional scope.

National Security and Investment Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Peter Grant

Committee Debate: 12th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 10th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

[Chi Onwurah]

[Peter Grant]

[Chi Onwurah]

[Peter Grant]

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

[Chi Onwurah]

National Security and Investment Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Peter Grant

Committee stage
Thursday 10th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

Absolutely. That is why we are not seeking a statutory definition of national security. That is why we are seeking to include and to set out points that the Secretary of State may take into account. The hon. Member should recognise that the Government’s statement of intent is designed to give guidance as to how the Bill will work and be used in practice, and what might be taken into account. The guidance is there. It is just that it is very limited.

We are deliberately not seeking a prescriptive definition of national security. We recognise, as Sir Richard Dearlove did, that it can and must evolve over time. We are seeking to give greater guidance and to promote a better understanding of the remit of the Bill, so that it can be better interpreted and better implemented and so that all those who come under its remit can share that understanding. That is what other nations do. The new clause takes our security context seriously, and signals to hostile actors that we will act with seriousness, not superficiality.

Paragraph (f) bridges the gap between the Government’s defined sectors and focus and the critical national infrastructure that we already define and focus on in our wider intelligence and security work. It brings us in line with allies. Canadian guidelines list the security of Canada’s national infrastructure as an explicit factor in national security assessments. In Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States cases, Congress lists critical infrastructure among the six factors that the President and CFIUS may access.

The provision also acts on the agreement of the ex MI6 chief. In relation to having a critical national infrastructure definition in the Bill, he said:

“I would certainly see that as advantageous, because it defines a clear area where you start and from which you can make judgments”.––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 24 November 2020; c. 24, Q31.]

Some of the interventions have been about whether the new clause hits the right spot between prescribing and defining what national security is and giving greater clarity and focus. We would argue that the evidence that I have just set out shows that it does.

Paragraphs (g), (h) and (i) recognise that national security is about more than a narrow view of military security; it is about human security, clamping down on persistent abuses of law—as other countries do—and recognising that a party that consistently abuses human rights abroad cannot be trusted to do otherwise at home. It is about knowing that the single greatest collective threat we face, at home and across the world, lies in climate risk. It is about acting on illicit activities and money-laundering threats that underpin direct threats to national security in the form of global terror.

I recognise that many Government Members have recently raised the importance of human rights, illicit activities, money laundering and climate change in our security. In the statement on Hong Kong this week, the Minister for Asia acknowledged that human rights should be part of our considerations when it comes to trade and security but said that he did not feel that the Trade Bill was the right place for such provisions. I argue that today’s Bill is the right place for them because it deals with our national security.

The new clause would show the world that the UK is serious about national security. We must protect our national security against threats at home and abroad, and build our sovereign capability in industries that are the most strategically significant for security. We must view security in the light of modern technologies, climate and geopolitical threats. None of those constrain the Government’s ability to act; they simply sharpen the clarity of that action, and its signal to the world.

When we began line-by-line scrutiny, I spoke of my astonishment that the Government’s impact assessment referred to national security as an area of market failure that therefore required Government action. I hope that the Minister can confirm that he does not believe that national security is an area of market failure, but that it is the first responsibility of Government. The new clause sets out to give bones to that assertion and to demonstrate to the world that we understand our national security and the interests at play in promoting and securing it, and that we will act decisively in the interest of national security, taking into account this range of factors to protect our citizens, our national interest and our economic sovereignty, now and in the future.

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central although I confess I was not quite able to pay attention to the early part of her remarks, because I was still reeling from the revelation that a born and bred Geordie is capable of feeling cold. I just hope that her constituents do not get to hear of it, or she might be in trouble at the next election.

Perhaps the aspect of the new clause that I am least comfortable about is the title. I think that is what is causing the problem. The title is “National security definition”, but what follows, thankfully, is not a definition of national security. Like a lot of people, I would love to be able to come up with a definition of national security that worked and was robust, but no one has been able to do that. The new clause, however, does not seek to prescribe what national security is, and despite what was said in some of the interventions, it certainly does not attempt to prescribe what it is not. It gives explicit statutory authority to the Secretary of State to take certain factors into account in determining whether and how, in his judgment, a particular acquisition is a threat to national security.

[Chi Onwurah]

I can only ascribe my lack of the usual Geordie central heating to being so far from home at the moment. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the new clause seriously, and I think he is right. The title misleads to the extent that we are not looking to define national security.

[Peter Grant]

If the hon. Lady thinks she is a long way from home—tell me about it.

There was discussion, and quite a lot of questions to some of the early witnesses, about whether we needed to give some kind of guidance on what national security is not. Some of us vividly remember—I think that the hon. Lady’s constituents will vividly remember—that there was a time when someone was a threat to national security if they were a coal miner who went on strike, or if they had a trade union membership card in their pocket and worked in the wrong places, such as in Government establishments that officially did not exist then. When we look at the honours that are still bestowed on the person responsible for those two abuses of the claim of national security, it can be understood why some of us are always concerned about giving any Government powers to act in the interest of national security unless clear safeguards are built in.

The other side of the coin is that I can foresee times when the Secretary of State might be grateful for the fact that the clause has been incorporated in the Bill. Let us suppose that someone wanted to take control of or influence a software company. I know that software is itself an area we would want to look at. We all know what can happen when the software that helps to control major transport systems goes wrong. We have all been affected by Heathrow terminal 5 effectively shutting down for hours at a time. When there is a major signalling fault caused by a software malfunction at one of the main London stations, the whole of the south-east can be clogged up for hours or even days.

Can that become a threat to our national security? I think there are circumstances in which it could. I can certainly foresee circumstances in which someone who wanted to damage the United Kingdom—for no other reason than wanting to damage its interests—might seek to do so by getting a way in that enables them to interfere with the code controlling software of the transport or financial services infrastructure, for example. It is not in the interest of any of us, at the point when a Secretary of State intervenes to stop such an acquisition, if the matter can be taken to court and it becomes necessary to argue that deliberately causing the national transport infrastructure to freeze is an attack on our national security. I cannot understand why anyone would want not to add a clause to the Bill to allow such an interpretation to be made if the Secretary of State saw fit.

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Gentleman reminds me that I should have mentioned either the impact assessment or the consultation response. I think the consultation response gives the deliberately induced software failure at Heathrow as an example of a failure of national security that the Bill would be able to circumvent by preventing hostile parties from owning that software company, without setting out how that would be part of the definition of national security that the Bill is seeking.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful again for those comments. The hon. Lady has referred again to what is in the explanatory notes. Unless somebody has changed the rules, the explanatory notes are not part of the eventual Act of Parliament. In borderline cases, they may be used by a court to help to interpret what the intention of Parliament was when it passed a Bill, but as a general rule, the intention of Parliament is stated by the words in the Act as it is passed. If it does not say in the Act that a Secretary of State can take those factors into account, there will be an argument that will have to be heard and tried in court, if need be, that a Secretary of State should not have taken those factors into account.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

That is a valid point, but I do not think it is. The difficulty with the case-by-case basis is that it creates uncertainty and worry for the small business concerned. We are talking about a period of only six months. I do not really think that hostile overseas investors are waiting to pounce during those six months to gobble up small businesses in a way that will damage our national security. Let us face it: if they were going to do that in the first six months, they would be doing it now or they would have done it in the last six months.

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying, but the new clause is deliberately worded to explicitly recognise the importance of small businesses, particularly during this period. The Bill is likely to come into force at the exact time that small businesses will be trying to get back on their feet. They need all the help they can get. There is a danger that the way that the Bill could be implemented and enforced will be an unintentional barrier to their growth.

All that we are asking is that, for a short period, until smaller businesses get used to the new legislation, it does not allow them to go ahead with transactions that are otherwise prohibited and would otherwise be blocked by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State will still have the full power to block those transactions or to impose conditions on them. It does not mean that an acquisition is legally valid if it would otherwise be void under the terms of the legislation. The only difference it makes is that it removes the danger of small businesses or their directors spending time defending themselves in court when they should be developing their business and helping to get the economy back on its feet. On that basis, I commend both new clauses to the Committee.

[Chi Onwurah]

I rise to speak briefly in support of additional support for SMEs. The hon. Member for Glenrothes is a champion of small businesses, which is a pleasure to hear. As he set out, and as has been set out in a number of the amendments that we have tabled in Committee, we are concerned to make sure that the seismic shift in our national security assessment with regard to mergers and acquisitions does not stifle our innovative but often under-resourced small businesses, which are such an important driver of our economy. New clause 2 reflects our intentions, particularly in amendments 1 and 11, to support and give further guidance to small businesses. I hope that the Minister and Conservative Members recognise the importance of supporting small businesses at this time through direct measures in the Bill.

National Security and Investment Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Chi Onwurah and Peter Grant

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 26th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Peter Grant]

To be fair, there is nothing to stop MPs from asking questions about international security, but the chances of us ever getting an answer may be somewhat less.

[Chi Onwurah]

Q You have placed a lot of emphasis on the right technological skills and said that they should be forward looking, for a number of reasons, including identifying new technologies, but also giving clarity and certainty to businesses. Where do you see those tech skills being located? How can the Bill ensure adequate appropriate access to them?

Professor Martin: I am not sure if the Bill will get in the way or help, one way or the other. I think Government technological nous across the civil service needs to be invested in properly. There is a deep, fairly sizeable reservoir in GCHQ. Again, without going into too much detail, more and more people are being transferred and seconded from there into other areas. That is a good thing, and we should welcome that rather than cast aspersions on this being all secret state stuff. It should be permeating normal Government activity.

There will be issues about how to pay for some of the specialists that are needed. I do not think we will ever compete with the big tech companies, but there may be scope for paying some specialists a bit more and bringing them in here. There is something about creating a career path for technologists in Government. There are big issues for the heads of the civil service and the permanent secretaries. If I were heading it, I would want an immediate infusion of seconded talent and private sector buy-ins relatively quickly. Government can do that quite well some- times, and sometimes not so well. There also needs to be a long-term strategy for technologists in Government.