Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

George Eustice Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

As I said at the start of the debate, people have to be responsible—and, in fairness, I acknowledged that the Prime Minister at the start of this week also outlined that people have to be responsible. I say that across the whole House and genuinely mean it: we all have to be responsible. I know people feel very strongly at the moment about these issues, and rightly so, and I hope the hon. Gentleman sees from my contribution to this debate that I am taking that very seriously as well.

We rightly expect that our local government must surely stay by the principles I mentioned, but we must also make sure that our national Government do too. That is real leadership—of our communities, and of our whole country. Instead, I fear we have a Government unwilling to recognise what is needed from them at this moment on this Bill: careful, precise deliberation and to bring communities and the country with us.

I am disappointed that the Secretary of State has taken the reckless path of forcing the Bill back to Parliament today—a Bill that fails on its own terms. His approach risks dividing our country, our communities and even his party. I urge him now not to divide the House and to accept the amendments proposed by Members on the Opposition side and his own.

For our part, Labour stands ready—as we have at every single stage of the Bill—to work constructively with the Government and other parties to build consensus behind a workable, sensible solution. There is no doubt that the people of our country want us to speak with one voice. Labour stands ready and willing to work in good faith to achieve that goal. The question is, are the Government?

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

The Prime Minister was absolutely right earlier this week to say that the tone we adopt is incredibly important given the gravity of the events we are seeing in the middle east at the moment. Every single Member of this House is obviously absolutely horrified by the tragedy that is unfolding and the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas. In my case, I absolutely support the right of Israel to self-defence, but it is possible to believe all these things—to be a friend of Israel, too—but nevertheless to be reluctant to pass bad legislation through this House unamended when we have the opportunity to make amendments on Report. It is possible, too, to believe strongly that freedom of contract and freedom of speech are important pillars in our liberal democracy, and that although we might sometimes fetter those key pillars of freedom and our liberal democracy, we should not do so lightly.

For that reason, I would support amendments 7 and 3 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), because putting the occupied territories and Israel into the Bill is unusual for a Bill of this sort. We must ask this question: if the purpose is to make it difficult for a future Government to take a position that would change the approach to our close allies, why is the United States not also listed? Many of the groups that people object to, such as BDS, are often quite anti-American as well, so why do we not have a fuller list of countries to make it difficult for them to add?

More importantly, this sends an unfortunate signal around British foreign policy. It has been the long-standing position of all British Governments that we support a two-state solution and that the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal. That is a consistent British Government position over a long period of time, and we must be careful not to send signals that that has changed.

More importantly, I would also support amendment 3, because clause 4 is a strong violation of freedom of speech. It has come to something when we are saying that not only would people not be free to follow the procurement policy they want, but they would not even be allowed to say that the reason why they were not free to do so was this Bill. I will support amendments 7 or 3 if either go to a vote this evening.

However, I want to focus principally on the two amendments in my name—amendments 10 and 11. Although much of the debate around the Bill is understandably conducted through the context of BDS and of Israel and the Palestinian situation, the scope of clause 1 is very broad. What is before us this evening is a broad procurement Bill that places quite broad restrictions on procurements and applies to every country in the world. I presume the reason is that the Government’s legal advice was that to have something that focused just on one country, Israel, or on just one campaign group, BDS, would create some legal issues. So they then had to construct a Bill that affects every organisation, every issue and every country, and then through the schedule try to piece back some of the liberties affected by the imposition of clause 1.

I want to focus on that schedule, because it lists lots of different issues that are outside the scope of clause 1, and rightly so, including “environmental misconduct”, but there is no mention of animal welfare. There will be times when public bodies will take a procurement decision based on animal welfare. They need to be free to do that, and it is not at all clear from the schedule that that could be done. Paragraph 10 mentions “environmental misconduct” and at the end talks about

“the life and health of plants and animals”,

but it does so very much in the context of the environment and the wild environment rather than through the context of kept animals.



The Government buying standards were recently revised to encourage all public bodies and all Government Departments to take account of animal welfare in their procurement policies, but the Bill would appear to curtail the right of local authorities to do just that. Legitimate issues will come into play here. These are probing amendments on which I am looking for reassurance from the Minister and an undertaking to consider these matters further in the other place. For instance, were a local authority to judge that it would prefer to procure lamb from New Zealand over, say, Australia, because New Zealand has high animal welfare standards while the Australian sheep industry has poor levels of animal welfare and does not have in place the right regulatory powers to deal with certain practices, that would be a legitimate consideration. Indeed, it is not only legitimate but a consideration that the Government’s own buying standards and the Crown Commercial Service encourage all public bodies to pursue.

In closing, my question, which is very much linked to my two amendments, is this: is the Minister’s understanding that it would be entirely in order under the Bill for any local authority or public body to make decisions based on animal welfare, and that any such decision related to animal welfare would be totally outside the scope of clause 1?