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

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 5th September 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

I declare my membership of Unison. I understand that an individual from Unison will give evidence at this session.

[Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)]

As per my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I recently visited the occupied territories. The visit was paid for by Amnesty, who will join us later this week.

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[The Chair]

Thank you. Chris Stephens.

[Chris Stephens]

Q Let me confirm my membership of Unison; that has been declared. I should also declare that I am a member of the Scottish local government pension scheme from my time working for Glasgow City Council.

Talking about green pensions, Lloyds Banking Group says:

“UK adults believe the biggest benefit of investing in a ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ pension is the improvement that it would make to the lives of future generations...followed by the fact it could help save the planet”.

Are there any parallels between ethical investments in the environment and ethical investments in international human rights?

Jon Richards: It is a very tricky area. It is a difficult tightrope that we walk as pensions trustees and pensions administrators. Let us just say that there are no pensioners on a dead planet, so you can see a clear long-term approach to understanding how you need to deal with potential investments, knowing the potential issues. I should admit that many years ago, I trained as a geologist and I was somewhat sceptical of climate change. I see humanity as a very small part of the overall 4.5 billion years that the Earth has been going. I looked at the different overall increases in temperature, and I think it is now quite difficult to argue against the scientific evidence in that context. That is my view; I understand others have not, but I have changed my view over the years.

Clearly, there is a logic behind environmental and a wish on the part of members to do that. I go back to what we said before: we are there to deliver on behalf of the members. That is our fundamental requirement. Clearly, we can see a desire among the membership to do something about ESG, so there is an understanding and a need to deal with that, because it deals with the wider investment and member issue. This is not the same type of political issue, and we wish to avoid, as much as possible as a pension scheme, getting tied into political issues. Unfortunately, this Bill does that to us.

[Chris Stephens]

Q Jon, you mentioned challenges that you have had. Are they coming from members of the scheme or people outwith the scheme? Can you maybe also talk about how members would raise a concern they had about an investment?

Jon Richards: Again, I do not want to get too dragged into this, because whenever you get involved in these, you always end up arguing about the extremes, as opposed to the thing. As I have said, there have been a very small number of attempts where this has happened. We are aware of one attempt where an external councillor sought to intervene. As I have said, there are some areas where investment managers have made decisions that have had an impact on the problem. Members have sought to do so, and some Unison branches and members have also made some attempts, but whenever they get through to the fiduciary duty, that is fundamentally where the decision is taken, and they have not been anywhere near meeting those requests at this time. They may do; people and members may change their minds. At the moment, we have not reached that threshold of decision making.

[The Chair]

Thank you. I have registered two other Members as signalling that they would like to ask questions. Have I missed anybody? No. In which case, I call Steve McCabe.

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[The Chair]

Thanks. That is very helpful. Chris Stephens.

[Chris Stephens]

Q That was going to be my first question, so I will ask my second question instead. There is obviously a debate about this Bill, including within the Jewish community, and we have some representatives of the Jewish community who will put to us their view of the Bill, namely that it restricts freedom of expression rather than directly addressing the issue of antisemitism. I presume that both of you disagree with that. So, would you tell us why you disagree with other Jewish representatives who will give evidence to this Committee?

Daniel Sugarman: First, I would say that we do not believe that the Bill prevents freedom of expression, in that any individual and any private organisation will still have the absolute right to adopt a BDS motion or to carry forward the idea of BDS. We are essentially concerned that public bodies, which receive public funding, are being used to promote a foreign policy agenda that is different from that of His Majesty’s Government. We find that extremely troubling and the idea that it is a freedom of speech issue is—I think for both of us, although I cannot speak for Russell—appears to be extremely misleading.

Russell Langer: Exactly. I will just add something to that. Neither of us would claim that the Jewish community is a homogenous community that will agree a single position on any piece of legislation, let alone this one, but we both sit here as representatives of national representative bodies, and this is the position that we have considered and come to.

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[Chris Stephens]

Q Do you both accept the principle of a political party stating in its manifesto prior to a council election how it would use procurement and investment policies to incentivise ethical business conduct that is human rights compliant? How would you answer those who have responded to this Committee and their criticism of the Bill that it will

“make it almost impossible for public bodies to use their procurement and investment policies to incentivise ethical business conduct that is human rights compliant”?

Councillor Deering: I did not quite catch the very first part of your question—

[Chris Stephens]

I can say it again.

Councillor Deering: It is okay; I think I got the gist of it. In a way, that goes perhaps not to the heart of the Bill but somewhere reasonably close to its heart, doesn’t it? In effect, it goes to the question of whether local authorities or public bodies should be campaigning bodies. There are some interesting questions there, aren’t there? Of course, in the case of local authorities, their funding is all taxpayer funding, so there needs to be some balance to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent in an appropriate manner. It seems to me, essentially, that that is one of the things that your Committee will be considering when you consider the Bill.

Personally, I would come back to the objective of the Bill, and I would say, as I have already said in this session, that it seems to me and us that the objective of the Bill is understandable: in so far as the country has foreign policy, that policy should be made centrally, and it should not be fractured into all sorts of different variations across the country.

[The Chair]

Q Councillor Jamieson, is there anything you want to add to that?

Councillor Jamieson: I think that, as with all these things, there are grey areas in this, but as a broad principle, national Government set foreign policy. I think that is appropriate and right. Local government provides services for its residents, and we want them to be the best that they possibly can be within the financial envelope, but we do have a wider responsibility, as Councillor Deering said earlier. ESG is a key part of some of our procurement and investment decisions, and procuring to support local businesses is also something that is really important. We need to be clear that those things are still allowed, but speaking personally, I would not support every local council having its own foreign policy. That would be inappropriate.

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[Chris Stephens]

Q Hannah, I think you were present when I put this question earlier. You mentioned the Union of Jewish Students. As I understand it, your organisation and the Union of Jewish Students are on record as saying that this Bill restricts freedom of expression rather than directly addressing the issue of antisemitism, and you are both on record as saying that it does not address the very epidemic—that is, the evil of rising antisemitism—that it claims it wants to tackle. Could you expand on that further, please?

Hannah Weisfeld: I am not sure whether that is a direct quote—I am not sure whether those were our words or the words of the Union of Jewish Students—but our sense is that the Bill will severely limit freedom of speech, as has been mentioned a lot this morning. Clause 4 already gags the ability of local democracies to express their opinions. That is very troubling in a democratic society—the idea that we legislate against free speech. As Jews, we don’t do well in societies that clamp down on free speech, and I think that there is a really big debate in the community about that. There is a very big debate inside Israel about that, and inside Jewish communities in America, where there has been similar legislation.

I think it is worth drawing your attention to anti-boycott legislation that the Israeli Government passed in the Knesset in 2011. Some very mainstream Israeli political figures—people you will know—came out very strongly against it, such as Ruvi Rivlin, who was the last President of Israel, and Tzipi Livni and Dan Meridor. They were all very clear that clamping down on boycotts and doing so in a legislative way does not help Israel and does not solve questions of antisemitism. Dan Meridor, who was the Likud Deputy Prime Minister, said:

“This law helps in delegitimising Israel, and makes Israel look like a country that prohibits free speech. It is useless. Those who boycott are a small group of people. I oppose boycotts, but they should not be illegal.”

That is the kind of sentiment that we echo.

Going back to the Minister’s question about why we do not support BDS, it is possible to say that we do not support something but that we protect the rights of other people to have that opinion. That is a very important principle in a democratic country, and it is one that we—as an organisation that is committed to Israel, committed to Jewish life in Britain and committed to democracy—want to see being upheld, which is why we have an issue with this legislation.

[Kim Leadbeater]

Q You have talked a little bit about your concern about community relations in the UK as a result of this Bill; I think that that has been heard. What impact will the Bill have on your organisation’s work in Israel and Palestine?

Hannah Weisfeld: I do not know whether people have seen it, but a letter was sent by 14 human rights and civil society organisations in Israel that went both to the Opposition and to the Government. They were very clear—I think this is very important—that the current political climate in Israel, which people may or may not be following closely, is extremely dangerous. It is very, very problematic. There are hundreds of thousands of people protesting on a weekly basis. I read yesterday that the police estimate is that there have been 7 million attendees at protests for 35 weeks—not 7 million individuals, but 7 million appearances at protests—and there are very severe clampdowns on free speech.

In the last year, civil society organisations in Israel have already faced two attempts, I think, to severely curtail their funding and to shut down dissent against the Israeli Government. What our partners in Israel wrote to the Government here and to the Opposition is worth quoting from: “We know all too well the consequences of shutting down dissent and disagreement. Today in Israel, there is significant civil unrest involving weekly protests of hundreds of thousands of people, reservists refusing to show up for military service and companies divesting their funds out of Israel. This legislation is giving in to Israel’s far-right Government’s desire to shut down debate, protest and dissent.” Certainly on the ground in Israel, civil society organisations involved in protests see this legislation as a gift to the Benjamin Netanyahu Government.

I should add that there is huge concern in the Jewish community here about the ascendancy of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Government and the far right. Today, literally about two minutes ago, the Government Minister for Diaspora Affairs was just uninvited from JW3, the main Jewish community centre in London, because of his opinions and because of his far-right position. He was due to have a tour there at, I think, 5 or 6 o’clock this afternoon, but about five minutes ago he was uninvited. That is the depth of feeling in this community: 79% of people who were polled in July said that they disapprove of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

We have a community here and partners on the ground in Israel who are deeply worried about the direction of travel. What this Bill will do is say, “It is business as usual—not only business as usual, but we will give you a gift, which is forever to put Israel and the occupied territories beyond public scrutiny.” By keeping the clause that specifically lists Israel, the OPTs and the Golan Heights, we are saying that despite the fact that there are now Israelis divesting and dissolving companies and moving them outside Israel, there can never be any circumstances in which it is OK for public bodies in Britain to do that. I think that that is very, very troubling, given that I think everybody here is committed to Israel’s existence as a democratic and Jewish state.

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[The Chair]

Before you do, is there anybody else? [Interruption.] I will bring in Chris Stephens and come back to you if there is time.

[Chris Stephens]

I will yield to Mr David to pursue his supplementary.

[Wayne David]

Q I am someone who has been on record many, many times as being totally opposed to BDS, but I also respect the devolution settlements. Irrespective of the issue, is it not right for the devolved institutions to exercise the powers that they have without an overbearing influence from central Government?

James Gurd: My understanding is that foreign policy is still a reserved matter for His Majesty’s Government in those situations. It is only right and proper that the democratically elected Government of this country get to determine what those foreign policy positions are. To repeat what I said earlier, this will have a very significant effect in countering the divisive nature of BDS in all corners of the United Kingdom.

We have seen the Jewish community on the receiving end of repeated efforts to pursue boycotts of Israel or indeed companies operating within the contested territories—the Occupied Palestinian Territories—but that has often led to the targeting of the Jewish community directly. This is not just an Israel-Palestine issue; it feeds into the persecution of and discrimination against the UK’s Jewish community. The Tricycle Theatre in London cancelled its hosting of the UK Jewish Film Festival one year. As was cited earlier, there was the case of Sainsbury’s in Holborn removing kosher goods from its shelves due to pressure from BDS activities. This is a problem that has been left unaddressed for too long. There is a clear problem, and I believe that this is the right approach to respond to it.

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[Chris Stephens]

Q James, you said in answer to one of my colleagues’ questions that you believe the Bill would help to solidify international support for a two-state solution, which was a curious statement. The international community broadly supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and opposes the continued occupation of Gaza, the west bank and East Jerusalem. What rights and methods should I and public bodies pursue to press for that change?

[The Chair]

I am going to close the session in two minutes, so it would be good to have a concise answer, please.

James Gurd: Understood, Chair, but that is a big old question. I do believe that the Bill will contribute to wider efforts to promote peace. The UK Government are committed to a two-state solution. I believe that BDS is inherently divisive. As I have said already, the organisations affiliated with it within the Palestinian territories include the likes of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are proscribed terror groups here in the UK.

To cite a personal experience, I visited SodaStream, which is an Israeli company that makes products that have the ability to make fizzy drinks. It was based in the west bank, but following pressure from BDS activities over a sustained period, it had to move. The factory employed 600 Palestinian workers, who would have received greater work benefits and salaries than anywhere in the Palestinian economy. It had to be moved to Israel, where only 100 of those Palestinian workers were able to continue working. I spoke to some of those Palestinian workers myself on a CFI visit to Israel, and they were deeply unhappy about the fact that so many of their family and friends had lost their jobs as a result of that BDS activity.

Indeed, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority President, is on record as having said that he is also opposed to BDS. This is not some sort of peace movement. It is a deeply divisive movement that seeks to delegitimise the state of Israel. The UK and the UK Government should have absolutely no truck with it.