Shale Gas Production

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The important thing in all these matters is to remain pragmatic. We will need gas even after we hit 2050, because gas, for example, will be the way we make hydrogen and hydrogen is clearly part of the way ahead. The reality is that the Minister knows that. I ask him, whether on shale gas or the North sea, to remain completely pragmatic—as Conservative Governments should be—to recognise that fact and not to allow this new ideological religion to take over everything. If we want to ask somebody, let us ask them whether they feel their gas prices should be rising at the current rate, or whether they would like lower gas prices.

[Greg Hands]

I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend on both the importance of hydrogen and on the importance of being pragmatic. He and I were both elected on a 2019 Conservative party general election manifesto and Government policy is unchanged from that manifesto. That is the height of pragmatism: to stick to our manifesto and keep our options open.

Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully]

There are a number of amendments and they do not all do what is intended. On amendments 24 to 26, I respectfully ask the Members concerned not to push them to a vote, but I will happily work with them to see what more we can do in the other place.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

My understanding is that the Government accept amendments 24 to 26 in principle and will work in the Lords to put something in the Bill that delivers what they suggest. Am I correct in that?

[Paul Scully]

Essentially, yes. We want to make sure that we can work with hon. Members on that. I do not want to accept all those amendments here and now, but I want to make sure that we can get it right in the other place, working with them at that stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to be called so early in the debate, and I rise to speak to the amendments standing in my name and those of colleagues on both sides of the House. I refer to amendments 24 to 27, and new clause 10. First, let me deal with new clause 10 and then come back to the main issues associated with the other amendments.

New clause 10 is really about the issue of debate in this House and being able to scrutinise properly the nature of what is being done or not being done to those whose ill-gotten gains are being used for purposes they should not be. It would place an obligation on the Government to schedule a debate on the annual sanctions regulations report. I know that the Government argue that that is the responsibility of the House, and of course it is, but it is also important that this provision would be specifically tied to this particular issue. There is a reason for that: it is too easy for Governments to find lots of reasons why they do not end up doing that debate or they schedule it somewhere else and it gets pushed away—I say that having served in Governments myself. The new clause would mean that within 10 days of the report there would have to be a debate. That is important as it opens this up to a proper debate and proper scrutiny. Therefore, I wish that the Government will give it further thought, but I will come to that later on, if necessary.

I return to the key area where I and others have tabled amendments. Amendments 24 to 27 are linked and consequential, but, crucially, they are linked to clause 31. Like others, I had concerns about that clause because it seemed to leave a back door open to any enabler to avoid any requirements for reporting by appealing to the excuse that they did not know that the assets or money they were dealing with had any link to any individual or entity. I draw the Minister’s attention to what clause 31 actually says. Subsection (1) uses the words:

“It is an offence for a person knowingly or recklessly”.

So the excuse is, “I didn’t know” or, “I’m not acting recklessly, because I didn’t know”. It is peculiar that we would want in a Bill a defence that someone may wish to use subsequently if they were in court. This will mean that they will never get to court if they challenge the Government.

[Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

rose—

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I will give way first to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) and then to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran).

[Stella Creasy]

I thank my neighbour for giving way. Does he agree that many of our constituents will be looking at this and will be bemused, because when it comes to their own tax affairs they do not get the same leeway? They can be penalised for acting both recklessly and carelessly. So if we want to make sure that this legislation is watertight, we should take a lesson from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and make sure that we are not giving people a loophole in that way, especially if they are oligarchs.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Yes. I take the hon. Lady’s point. The point I am making is that we should rightly assume that this is their responsibility—there is no let-out. If they misrepresent their position, they should face the full rigours of the law. It should not be a case that they can defend themselves before—

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

rose—

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

First, I will give way to the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon.

[Layla Moran]

I was going to make the point that was just made: we should expect oligarchs to abide by the same rules that all the rest of us do.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

We all have to stop agreeing like this, as it will give the House a bad reputation.

[Sir Robert Buckland]

My right hon. Friend is making an important point. I have looked at these amendments. Is not the best way to achieve his aim to make this offence a strict liability one, which does not require a state of mind and simply involves a set of facts having been established? There could be a reverse burden, whereby the subject demonstrates that they have not acted unlawfully. Strict liability might be the best way to achieve his aim.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. I always bow to him in the knowledge of the law, as of course I would. I thought he was an excellent Justice Secretary—I will just slip that one in, gratis, and I am sure he can dine out on it. I agree with him wholeheartedly, because what he says is right. I will come back to the flexibility that is required, but I come to the principle of what we are saying. We are seeking to strike out that little lacuna that results from the words “knowingly or recklessly”. That would make this about the responsibility of the person concerned and that would be it—there would be no let-outs, no issues and no quibbling. This is the key. Everything in the other amendments is relevant to it; they merely backfill various areas, and it is important that they should refer to clause 31. They make it clear that responsibility rests with the individual—the entity, should I say—in this particular case.

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (Wealden) (Con)]

It is important to note that these amendments in my right hon. Friend’s name, my name and those of others do not set us apart from is happening in the rest of Europe and in America. America is applying the same principles. Although the Bill closes the front door on much of Putin’s dirty money, we must ensure that no back door is open. We should therefore be working in line with our NATO allies, and with many other European colleagues as well.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

That is exactly correct. All we are doing is asking for the UK to be at the same level as the United States, and I do not think that that is asking too much. I am co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Magnitsky sanctions, and this is very much what we are driving at. In fact, I love the idea that an individual who is sanctioned in the United States should be sanctioned here, and that if we sanction individuals the United States should sanction them as well, and that the same should happen in Europe. We would have this common purpose: there is nowhere for those people to go. They are sanctioned, full stop, and they cannot use their ill-gotten money anywhere.

[Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend tell me whether his amendment, and the Bill, will address the issue of nominees? That seems to be a way in which someone could get away with it: “I can hand my property to a nominee.” Do the enforcement mechanism and the reference to named individuals enable us to stop them doing that?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

They should, because the individual has to declare the whole chain. “Not knowing” would be no excuse. It would be the responsibility of individuals to know who those nominees were and to declare them They could not defend themselves. What my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) suggested might be a better way of doing this, but my point is that my amendment would nevertheless address it.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I am not sure that my right hon. Friend is correct. The Bill defines a legal entity as

“a body corporate, partnership or other entity”.

rather than an individual. I am not sure that, in those circumstances, the amendment would cover the individual.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It might not, but I think it would, because it covers the information that individuals are asked to declare. It may not cover the sanction on the individual, but it covers the knowledge of who that individual is. If there is a better way to do it, however, I am up for it. That is feasible, and it may be that my right hon. and learned Friend’s way of doing it is a better way.

[Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I think we are all wandering around the same point. May I clarify it? The Minister agreed to look at our amendment 3, which addresses the question of whether this is an entity or an individual, and whether, if it is an entity, that entity can put forward a company provider and thus hide the identity of the owner of the property. The Minister has agreed to look into what could be a loophole in the legislation, and then consult with us on it. I think the point is valid, and I hope that the Minister will look at it and that, between us, we can all close that loophole.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree that clarity is everything in this instance. The Bill will be going to the other place, and by the time it comes back, we will be looking for those loopholes to be shut down and sorted out.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

I do not want to sow further confusion, but I think that the point made by our hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) is critical. Before the Bill passes into law, we need to understand whether a nominee can be the name at the end of the trail. If that is the case, I am afraid that this register will be largely pointless. If I wanted to conceal the ownership of a property, I would simply set up a shell company in the British Virgin Islands through a nominee, in which case, I am sorry to say, all our efforts today would be for naught. We must resolve that before the Bill completes its passage through both Houses.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Let me simply say that the purpose of this debate is to tease out exactly that. I wish that we had less debate on Second Reading and more on the details, but that is water under the bridge, and this is an important factor. In a second—although not quite yet so he need not worry—I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister to explain what he actually plans to do, so that we are clear about that. However, I agree that we need to understand what that relationship is. My assumption was that they come together, but it may not be right, and if it is not right, we will end up back in the courts with delay upon delay and we will never get these people sanctioned.

I know that we must make progress, so I will not go into the details of each amendment, but, as I said earlier, amendments 24 to 27 are connected. We will, I hope, be able to vote on all those amendments, but I am prepared to give some leeway, for the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). Will my hon. Friend the Minister tell me now what his attitude is to amendments 24, 26 and 27?

[Paul Scully]

I will cover this at the end of the debate, but I should like to work with my right hon. Friend on amendments 24, 25 and 26 to ensure that we can make changes in the other place. However, we want to go further than amendment 27 in the second economic crime Bill.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I take it from what he has said that he accepts amendments 24, 25 and 26 in principle, and that he will seek in the other place to deliver their meaning through other amendments, so that by the time they return here, this point has been established. May I draw to his attention the debate that we have just had on the definition of whom this provision encompasses? That will be a vital issue, as my hon. Friends have said, but it is not clear. I hope he agrees with me. I will take a nod from him at this point. Hansard can register his nod, because that is how it works.

[Paul Scully]

indicated assent.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am grateful.

Let me end by saying to my hon. Friend that this legislation is probably one of those great critical junctures at which we finally decide and agree in this place, as a result of an emergency that is going on elsewhere, that our procedures and our laws are wrong, and that we have to make change. When we have to make change, we should not baulk at it; we should make wholesale change, and ensure that what we deliver leaves the next generation clear about where they will be, and clear about the fact that we did not fail them. I therefore ask my hon. Friend to stick to his agreement with us, and when the Bill comes back, we will look to it. Otherwise we will have to amend the Bill, but I take my hon. Friend at his word.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

I want to speak about the amendments and new clauses in my name and those of my colleagues. I refer to amendment 41, new clauses 4 and 21 to 23, and amendments 18 to 23 and 40. I have indicated my support for a number of other new clauses and amendments. I dare say that given the cross-party nature of the amendments that were tabled over the weekend, if we had had more time we would have had more names attached to all of them. The Minister would do well to listen to the cross-party calls from Members of both Houses. I have little in common with the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and I disagree with him vehemently on many issues, but I have signed some of his amendments.

I share the horror felt by my colleagues and my constituents at the news that is coming through from Ukraine. We condemn the flagrant and repeated breaches of the Geneva conventions by Putin and his troops. I thank the people of Glasgow Central who have been raising funds and gathering goods across the constituency, but particularly those at the Hindu mandir, dropping off those goods to help the people fleeing Ukraine. Their sense of humanity has been undoubted, and I hope that it will be met by Ministers—not least the Home Secretary, who disappeared before we could raise further issues with her—because the people of Ukraine deserve our support.

This Bill is patently not enough. The volume of worthy and sensible amendments, and indeed the Government’s own amendments, testify to that. Action is long overdue. Stephen Gethins, Professor of International Relations at St Andrews and our former colleague in the House, has said:

“For years we have turned a blind eye to Putin's dirty money, propaganda and influence in our democracy. Those who called out the corruption were badged as anti-Russian when it was the Russians who were Putin’s first victims. It is a shame that many are only paying attention to his crimes after such grave events. I hope that real action will be taken. After years of inaction we owe the people of Ukraine and Putin’s other victims at least that.”

I agree very much with Stephen Gethins.

The situation we find ourselves in today, legislating in great haste, did not need to happen. This is not new. Putin and his cronies have been shifting their ill-gotten gains through the UK for many years now, unimpeded—and indeed facilitated—by UK Governments of various stripes, while journalists, civil society campaigners and, to their credit, many Members across this House, such as the right hon. Members for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), have repeated their calls for action throughout many Bills.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Davis]

Yes, I do, but my hon. Friend must bear in mind that the burden in the new clause—the responsibility and requirements—falls on the person who is sanctioned.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I was not going to intervene on my right hon. Friend but I have been looking back over the list in his new clause. Does he think there is a slight problem, in that the new clause talks of

“selling any assets they own or…moving any assets they own or have an interest in out of the United Kingdom, or…moving any of their funds out of the United Kingdom”

but it does not cover anything about gifting assets out to an individual who may then transfer them immediately? Does he think that ought to be included in the measure?

[Mr Davis]

Yes, my right hon. Friend makes a good point. The reason why gifting and transferring to relatives, which is another category, is not in there is because I took—I almost ripped it out of the legislation—the legislation that we put in place for Skripal, which also omitted those things. My right hon. Friend is quite right, though, and had my new clause been accepted today, I would have looked to make two changes when the Bill went to the Lords, the first of which would be to do that—to tighten it. The other would be to include a right of appeal if it went on too long the other way round, to balance the human rights issue.

We should bear in mind the fact that the National Crime Agency, for example, has people on police bail. I know of a case in which people have been on police bail for five years and we know nothing about it, so the restriction in my new clause on somebody who faces possible sanction is much less than the restriction the NCA imposes on some people. It is vital that we prevent ultra-wealthy individuals, with their teams of highly paid lawyers, advisers and accountants, from exiting the UK with their ill-gotten gains or hiding them where we cannot find them or get them.

By the way, I am a great believer in the presumption of innocence, but if somebody came out of the old Soviet Union—Russia—in the years between 1990 and 2010 with £1 billion, £2 billion, £3 billion or £4 billion to their name, and they were previously an officer of the Russian state, I do not quite start with the presumption of innocence that I would normally start with. I would start with a requirement on them to explain where that came from. That seems to me to be a reasonable, common-sense modification of my normal “mad-libertarian” interests.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

It always seems to me absurd that it costs £12 to establish a new company in Companies House. Obviously we want to make it easy for new businesses to enter the market, but £12 is absurd. We know that that gets exploited in relation to shell companies, but does it also facilitate economic crime? If we quadrupled that figure to £50, it would still not be a fortune, but we would then have a massive investment that we could put into our enforcement agencies without raising any further money through taxation. There are a whole range of mechanisms that would not have a direct impact on public spending. They may mean that the Treasury gets a little bit less than it thought it would, but they would not have a direct impact on public expenditure and we could employ them to make these enforcement agencies fit for purpose.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I wonder whether the right hon. Lady can see some way forward on a point that I made earlier. Europe, the UK and the USA all have separate sanctioning bodies, with the USA way ahead of the pack. If the USA is sanctioning somebody, it surely should be for this Government, or for that matter for European Governments, to argue why they will not be sanctioning the individual against the evidence that is shared by the USA, rather than why they are looking to sanction the individual here. It seems that, if we are all in this together, it would be far better if we had a much closer set-up, so that we sanctioned people if somebody else had found the evidence and we thought that it was okay.

[Dame Margaret Hodge]

There are already arrangements for the sharing of information and data, but it is not enough. It is absurd. When I talk to the enforcement agencies and the anti-money laundering people working in the banks, they tell me that they cannot share information. If one bank has information that makes it suspicious about a particular client, it ought to be able to share it around the banking system so that they can all take action. There are pragmatic steps that we could take to share information and knowledge across jurisdictions, from America through to Europe to us, which would massively improve things and actually bring in money.

Let me take one example that came out of the FinCEN files. Standard Chartered Bank is a British bank. In 2019, it was fined by both America and ourselves for poor money laundering controls and other offences, including breaching sanctions in Iran. The British bank was fined £842 million in America, but only £102 million here by the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The Americans have got it right. There are lessons that we can learn from them. There are also ways in which we could properly resource all the enforcement agencies. We could perhaps reduce them as well—we do not need all these people. Every time I refer a matter, whether it is for a corrupt or an illegal activity, to one enforcement agency, I am either told that it is the responsibility of another agency or it goes into a big black hole and I never see anything arising out of it again. That situation is completely and totally unacceptable.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

The other day I noticed that the Government said they were going to help and encourage people to invest more in the gas industry and help to produce more, but then I heard a statement contradicting that from my right hon. Friend’s Department. Will my right hon. Friend clarify whether the Government are prepared to see more gas extracted and greater licences?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change have been very clear about the course we want to pursue. We do not believe it is the right thing simply to switch off the oil and gas sector. Unlike many Opposition Members, we do not believe in simply an extinction of the oil and gas sector; we think oil and gas is critical not only to energy resilience but to developing new technologies such as carbon capture and blue hydrogen production. We have maintained that position consistently for the nearly three years I have been a Minister in this Department.

Edmonton EcoPark: Proposed Expansion

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to observe social distancing and to wear masks when they are not speaking.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential environmental and health impacts of the proposed expansion at Edmonton EcoPark.

It is a privilege to serve under your stewardship, Mr Hosie. This debate does not directly have an effect on you, but I hope that you will find something interesting in it that may be applicable elsewhere.

This debate on the proposed expansion at Edmonton EcoPark, with its health and environmental impacts, is critical to those in my area and in my constituency, and I have an apology from the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), who is unable to attend. I want to read out a list of those who have signed letters and been involved in campaigning to stop the proposed incinerator, who include myself and the hon. Member for Edmonton; my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell); my right hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Dame Eleanor Laing), who has expressed her views on this; the hon. Members for Ilford South (Sam Tarry) and for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer); the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who is here; and Assembly Members Emma Best, Joanne McCartney, Siân Berry, Andrew Boff, Caroline Pidgeon, Zack Polanski and Caroline Russell. The AMs obviously could not be here. Some of the Members of Parliament could not be here either, but I thought it would be useful for that list to be read into the record. Those people are all in support of what I am about to say.

The problem is that, for some years, I have been deeply concerned about the way in which the process has been going. The incinerator that was built originally is about to be significantly increased in size. This is a cross-party issue, not one that divides along normal party lines, because it affects ordinary people in the constituencies and areas to which I have referred. They are affected regardless of their political views. I have pretty much never come across a constituent who actually wants this project.

The incinerator sits like an eyesore just below my constituency but, because of the prevailing winds from the south-west, the whole constituency is hit by what comes out of the chimneys. The other day, I happened to visit a shopping centre nearby. It was a cold day and the plume engulfed us as it travelled across my constituency. However, it goes to others as well.

I pay tribute in all of this to the active local campaign group, Stop the Edmonton Incinerator Now, which represents the feelings of many of our constituents. Carina Millstone in particular, and others, have been active on this issue. That is a good sign of how local politics is alive and well and talking about real issues, rather than some of the stuff we sometimes get bound up in in this building.

The project does not represent good value for money, which is the key element of the argument that I am making. In almost everything else we do in the Government or Opposition, we ask whether what we are about to do is good value for money and, further down the road, if costs increase, whether it still represents good value for money. I do not think that the incinerator expansion is a good return for taxpayers in our constituencies. The costs have spiralled, almost doubling from the original £650 million to £1.2 billion now, and nothing has yet been built. The North London Waste Authority has already spent £4.3 million developing plans for the new incinerator. Everywhere, I and other Members have asked for a value for money review of the project, from the Public Accounts Committee right the way through to every single Department and pretty much every single Secretary of State—I do not think I have asked the Defence Secretary, but who knows. The fact is, I have tried to ask everyone.

In normal circumstances, with a budget of £1.2 billion, might someone not want to ask whether a project still represents good value for money? However, nobody seems to say that they will take responsibility for it in Government or local government. It appears that the only body that is capable of reviewing or changing the project is the North London Waste Authority itself. In a way, it sets the exam question and answers it for itself every time. That cannot be right. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will give us some inkling as to whether the Government think that the project carrying on is right.

The high cost is a key reason why we should pause, review and ask fundamental questions about whether this is still the best course of action for our constituents. Let us look at overcapacity. The incinerator is already burning over 320,000 tonnes of waste that could be recycled and composted—just imagine that we are pressing ahead on that basis. Since the plans to expand were originally drawn up, waste generation has actually fallen, because most members of the public are reacting to the drive for recycling and taking greater care in what they do.

The NLWA had a long-standing goal of reaching a 50% recycling and composting rate by 2020, but it is currently still below 30%. If it had got to the 50% marker, there would be even less reason for the incinerator to be there for the local area, and the plan was that it was for the local area—north-west London. I am therefore concerned about the plans because they are no longer about north-west London. To make the project viable, we will now have to drag stuff all the way across London to keep this thing burning. Now we are going to have more traffic on the road, extra fumes and extra environmental damage—just to keep an incinerator going. Why are we so fixed on having this huge thing near my constituency—so much so that we have to drag waste from all over London and clog up the roads just to keep it going? If it does not have enough from the local area as it stands at the moment, what is its purpose?

There are serious health implications for our constituents if the expansion goes ahead. Some 700,000 tonnes of waste will be incinerated every year, releasing what we call ultrafine particulate matter over residential areas. The levels of air pollution over parts of my constituency are already dangerously high. I am informed by Plume Plotter, an independent organisation that plots the plumes of incinerators across the country, that today the plume from the incinerator is blowing right across the whole of my constituency, but particularly the north part, and across the other constituencies I have already named.

We already have many hotspots in my constituency where air pollution is above the World Health Organisation’s air quality guideline levels. Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation have calculated that 100% of schools, GP surgeries and care homes in my constituency are in areas that are already above the recommended guidelines. Even before any attempts to expand the Edmonton EcoPark, air pollution is having a significant impact on the health of residents across the constituency.

Public Health England has shown that short and long-term exposure to air pollution has significant health risks, including reducing life expectancy and having an impact on lung function, which increases asthma cases and cardiovascular admissions—all extra costs in pure value for money terms, even if we do not think too hard about the terrible health implications.

Seventy NHS GPs from across north London wrote to the Prime Minister last year and said that the plans to expand the incinerator should be pulled. In their letter, they claim that the Prime Minister could save more lives by pulling the expansion than they will save in their entire careers. So here is a big dilemma: the Government tell me that they do not have the power to intervene, but it seems that the waste authority has an unlimited demand for money. Something has gone badly wrong in all this.

The environmental impacts are huge. The issue is that incineration captures only a small amount of carbon from the material it burns. We know that alternative waste disposal methods exist, such as mechanical biological treatment, steam autoclaving and anaerobic digestion. All those things are now being used elsewhere, but not here. Over all the years, we have remained wedded to the idea that we have to burn waste. The methods I have mentioned have all lowered carbon emissions, yet the waste authority continues to push for incineration. Most notable scientific advisers have said exactly the same and questioned the suitability of incineration as a method of waste disposal.

I remind right hon. and hon. Members that the Edmonton EcoPark is right in the middle of a residential area. It is not as though this is some industrial park; it is right in the middle of a very densely occupied residential area, which covers all the constituencies that I named. The chief scientific adviser to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that the UK should move away from incineration and find better ways to use the value of materials, rather than turning them into carbon dioxide.

This is meant to be a competitive bid, but it is not. It is now down to one bidder. In other words, it is a slam dunk—name your own price. Acciona, the company involved, won the contract with no competitors. The chief executive officer of Acciona acknowledged the other day that the proposed plant is significantly larger than it should be. The man who is building it now does not actually think it should be built. It is bizarre. Every day I look at this project and wonder whether this is a parallel universe. The CEO said at a panel event at COP26:

“The massive oversizing of the [Edmonton] plant is something that is beyond our control. It’s a specific issue of the plant.”

I have raised this issue with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with Housing, with the Chancellor and even with the Prime Minister. Civil servants have said constantly that it is not feasible to intervene, but the North London Waste Authority, surely, somewhere along the line, needs to be held to account on all the points I have made, which I am sure hon. Members will add to. What more evidence do we need?

Here we have the intransigent, inflexible, arrogant North London Waste Authority—and I mean arrogant, because at hearings it has just swept evidence from doctors and scientists to one side—refusing to budge on a policy that is clearly wrong and that is failing. It is a shameful state of affairs when a public body can no longer be held to account, because it no longer represents what the public want.

When something goes so badly wrong, the Government have to look at it again and ask how it can be that, amidst spiralling costs, health damage and pollution issues, we still plough ahead with a technology that is no longer needed and that will damage people’s lives in my constituency and others. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be able to answer those questions.

[Stewart Hosie (in the Chair)]

Before I call the next speaker, I would just say that if the Back-Bench Members could contain their remarks to around eight minutes we will have plenty time for the Front-Bench speeches. I call Jeremy Corbyn.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to be in this debate with you chairing it, Mr Hosie. I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for the energy he has put into obtaining this debate. I also thank the cross-party group that has supported him.

It is essential that we think seriously about where we are going with our environment and our natural world. They are subject to debate all the time, and we have just had COP26. We have to challenge the conventional orthodoxy about waste disposal—that, somehow or other, incineration is a good thing. If we do not, we will continue to damage the lungs of our children and our communities with not just particles but nanoparticles that are very invasive of the human body. The excellent “Pollution from waste incineration” report from the all-party parliamentary group on air pollution, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), describes that issue very well.

I want to say a big thank you to all the local campaigners —those around the incinerator in Edmonton, who my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) represents so well, as well as the people from all over the seven boroughs that make up the North London Waste Authority.

Before I became an MP, I was a councillor in Haringey. I remember well the discussions about developing the incinerator and cross-borough co-operation to get rid of rubbish. Back in the day—we are talking 40-plus years ago—it was seen as an environmental step forward to burn waste in order to generate electricity, rather than to put it into landfill. It was seen as a good thing to do. I do not think many of us on the council in those days thought very much about what would happen beyond that. Incineration saved landfill and was a way of getting rid of waste. It was lamentable. We should not have done it; I know that. Lots of things should not have been done. But now we have a great opportunity to change the dial on whether we go for further incineration or really put pressure on all of us, local authorities included, to develop a much more effective and comprehensive system for recycling our waste. The technology of the 1970s is not appropriate for the 21st century, and we need to move on from it.

The health effects I have mentioned. The emission effects I have mentioned. But as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, who actually suffers as a result of the pollution that comes from incineration? I get that the plant now being considered for development at the Edmonton site is a lot better than the one there now. I get that there are filters and all that. I fully understand all of that. The fundamental problem is that we are piling a lot of waste, including plastic, into an incinerator; it burns and gives off emissions that are gas, which clearly cannot be picked up by a filter, and the nanoparticles, which I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, are very invasive of the human body and particularly damaging to children in schools, out in the streets or playing. We are polluting the next generation.

The opposition around the country to incineration is enormous. My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West will be speaking in a few moments. People defeated the idea of an incinerator in Swansea. There is a huge campaign going on now against a proposed incinerator in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and there are many other such campaigns around the country. Why? Because people do not want to be polluted, but also because they recognise that it is simply the wrong direction to take and is outwith everything that was agreed at COP26.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

The truth is also that there are now so many new technologies, which others are using, that mean that incineration is no longer necessary. There are other, cleaner ways to get rid of waste.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I absolutely concur. If we look at the processes of waste disposal—perhaps we not talk about waste disposal but about recycling as the priority—that are happening in Germany and Scandinavia, we see that they are far in advance of so much of what we are doing in this country. We could do so much more and do it so much better.

The North London Waste Authority area—the seven boroughs—produces about 820,000 tonnes of waste per annum. Much of that goes into the incinerator. Across the whole area, only 30% is recycled. The recycling rates are abysmal, quite frankly. They are abysmal in many other parts of the country as well. Germany recycles 65%. Other countries achieve that. We are nowhere near.

I remember being appointed as chair of Agenda 21 by Islington Council—this was as the local MP—to try to increase recycling rates. We managed to double the rate, up to 30%, after about 10 years of very hard work, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) when she was leader of the council. I just felt so disappointed that we could not get so much further. I get it: this is complicated; it is difficult. The collection systems are complicated. But if we want to give our children clean air, if we want to fulfil the obligations that we have signed up to at COP26, we should not be investing more than £1 billion in an incinerator that the CEO of the company says is over capacity anyway. We should instead be looking to a reduction in incineration over 10 years; we should go from where we are now down to somewhere nearer to zero in 10 years’ time. That would certainly concentrate the mind and help us to bring about much higher rates of recycling.

On the decision that has been taken by the North London Waste Authority, I have heard the financial arguments that it has put. I have been asked, “Well, what’s your alternative if you’re opposed to this?” It has been quite a robust debate. I am not accusing the North London Waste Authority members of being anti-environment. They are not. In their individual boroughs, they have done a fantastic job in improving the environment and recycling rates. But we have to go a lot further and a lot faster, and that is why I want to make the case, and support the case that has been made today by others, for some kind of intervention by the Government to prevent this thing from going ahead and to prevent the expenditure of this huge amount of money through “green” bonds—yes, “green” bonds to pay for an incinerator that is, I think, not needed and not necessary.

I will finish with this point. I have had a long discussion with a number of people, who have spent an awful lot of time and are much more knowledgeable on all of this than probably any of us in this Chamber today, about how we can reduce incineration. They point out all the technology that is now available that was not in the past: the separation of metals, paper and glass, and the reduction in plastics. That has to be accompanied by a much tougher campaign on packaging, waste and plastic production. What we will end up with is a massive incinerator without enough rubbish to fill it from the neighbourhood area. We will import rubbish from other parts of London, or from abroad, to burn in that incinerator, because we are locked into a £1 billion contract to build it. Can we pause for a moment, think of what we are doing and the opportunity we now have to turn the corner from incineration to reuse and recycling? That is surely the legacy we want to leave to all our children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

It has been a very good debate in the short amount of time available, and the cross-party nature of it is important. Nobody has stood to defend the nature of what is going on with the North London Waste Authority. I take the comments from my right hon. Friend the Minister to suggest that, should things be otherwise and should the Government have the capacity as they see it, they would be concerned about the nature of what is going on at the North London Waste Authority. I therefore say that this has been a very important debate. We have flushed out the idea that an organisation is riding roughshod over the views and concerns of local people, and that there are serious health concerns, economic concerns and environmental concerns raised by the massive increase in the size of the incinerator at Edmonton EcoPark. I call on the North London Waste Authority, which will have heard the debate, to act reasonably, to pause the expansion, to review it, and to try to figure out whether there is a better way to achieve the requirements made by both the Government and the local authorities, in order to achieve a better environment for all of us.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential environmental and health impacts of the proposed expansion at Edmonton EcoPark.

Oral Answers to Questions

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)]

This party of business will not let businesses sink or swim. We will continue to engage with businesses around the regions and around the sectors to understand exactly where they need to change and to help them in their transition.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I point out to the Secretary of State that HSBC, a British-registered bank, is being reported as having invested in Xinjiang Tianye, which is a subsidiary of Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which has been sanctioned by our allies the United States for committing atrocity crimes, including slave labour and genocide. Will he call in the bank and ask it to explain itself, as it is in breach of the modern-day slavery rules?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

My right hon. Friend raises a very serious point. Clearly, HSBC’s dealings with China are of commercial interest to it, but those dealings also have a wider implication. He will know from his experience that the Treasury has direct ownership of that relationship; I am discussing it with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Newport Wafer Fab Sale

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I think that was a hint that the Government should provide them when they are promised.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on his question.

May I say to the Minister that I think the Government are in an unholy mess over this? It is no good their telling us that there is a very clear definition of what is strategic and what is not strategic. In the course of this failure to make a decision, did they look at what China thinks of semiconductors? China is the biggest exporter in the world and is busy buying up semiconductor technology everywhere it can find it. It has identified semiconductor technology as one of the key areas that it needs to dominate globally, and it is busy stealing technology, getting other people’s intellectual property rights and buying up companies. The idea that a semiconductor is not strategic! The technology will be used in almost everything we do—in everything we produce that is electronic.

My simple question is: are we now in a kind of Project Kowtow, where we just have to do business with the Chinese no matter what? That is outrageous. The Minister must take back to her Cabinet colleagues that it is not going to pass. We should have used the Act and blocked the deal.

[Amanda Solloway]

I reiterate that the Government have looked closely at the transaction and do not consider it appropriate to intervene at the present time. The Prime Minister made it clear at the Liaison Committee last week that he has asked the National Security Adviser to review this. The Government are committed to the semiconductor sector and work is under way to review the wider semiconductor landscape in the United Kingdom.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

No Chancellor has faced this kind of crisis in living memory and, by and large, I think the Chancellor has navigated through it with some skill over the last year, supporting those who need support as much as he can. The Bill, as a result, underpins all of this particular Budget: some £407 billion will be spent by the end of next year, with an eye-watering deficit of over £250 billion, as set out in the Budget he has just produced. That clouds every single judgment.

The key point I want to make, and I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), is that we must not lose sight of the reality of the need for growth. If we forget that, then we fall back on the idea that we will somehow get through this. The OBR’s forecasts for growth should make us sit up and look very carefully at that. I worry that the level of growth beyond the year after next is really very low in relation to where we start from now. If we cannot grow faster than that, it says a huge amount about some of our policies. I therefore remind my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that growth is the No. 1 reality for us now.

That is why I was somewhat concerned about some issues, and I want to come back to them, but one thing I did like, which feeds towards the idea of growth, is the super deduction tax relief to kickstart business investment. That is the right kind of thing to do: encourage businesses to bring their money back in to invest in the UK. The news about freeports is also very good indeed. I hope the Government will have time to review the corporation tax rate and be very careful about the effect of that further down the road. I note that the Chancellor has given himself some time to look at that very carefully.

The issue here is that sometimes we compare productivity across countries. I give a warning about that. I do not know why the Treasury has not done more work on this. No two countries compile productivity rates at the same level. For example, France does not have the public sector in its productivity rates; it has only the private sector. That means that comparisons are often between apples and pears. Our problem in the UK is not productivity, because the London and the south-east have the highest productivity in the whole of Europe. Our problem is regional productivity. No other region of the UK meets the average for the UK in productivity. That single fact should tell us more than anything else why it is critical to put stuff and build things in the north, the midlands and places such as Wales. Our productivity around the country does not match that average level of productivity, as we are far too concentrated in London and the south-east.

I agree with those who have said that R&D tax credits are really important. I would stress that that is a good idea and a policy that the Government have to push forward on, because it encourages greater growth. We must remember that many of our technology advancements are made in universities these days, and we have to maximise that. On deregulation, I am going to come forward with plans shortly; there is huge scope for us to release some businesses through deregulation.

I want to draw to a close by making a couple of points. First, I want to make the case for the Government to review the universal credit money. The reason for that is that universal credit is not a flat payment; it is a dynamic process, and it is aimed at helping people back to work. So in truth, even if we invest the £6 billion in universal credit, as we get more people back to work, the cost of that falls because they are back at work and paying taxes. This is the critical bit: I do not want it to be compared with the furlough scheme, which is a very different item. Universal credit is about getting people back to work, and therefore they pay more. I recommend that the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), and his colleagues think carefully about that, because money was taken out of it some years before, and it needs that investment back in it. That was how it was intended.

My last point relates to the 0.7% on overseas aid. I understand the Government’s issue on this and I recognise their problem, but I hope they will keep this under review. As we move away from certain countries, places such as China will move in, and their money will come with serious problems. They will demand more dictatorial government. We need only to look at Burma to see what is going on when China supports countries. I just raise that as a policy point that the Government may want to think about.

Overall, I say to the Government that this has been a good Budget, but it is a Budget that needs to buy a bit of time, and we must think carefully: growth, growth, growth is the most important thing in front of us now.

National Security and Investment Bill

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

This Bill applies to any transaction that relates to an asset or entity in the United Kingdom. If that were the case, of course it would apply.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I am interested in that point. If a malign actor made an investment in another country with a lower-standard test, which then invested in the UK, putting intellectual property rights at risk, where do the UK Government go on that? Do they give themselves the scope, which I do not see in the Bill, to act on the basis of the original investment?

[Alok Sharma]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question. He has taken a great deal of interest in this legislation, and we have spoken about such matters. As I said earlier, the whole point of the Bill is that we will be able to scrutinise the precise details of a transaction and of who the ultimate beneficial owner of a particular acquiring entity may be. I would therefore hope that the Bill will indeed cover the particular set of circumstances he outlines.

Going back to the point about providing assurances, businesses and investors can be reassured that the Government will treat potential national security risks with the discretion they deserve.

Turning to the mandatory notification elements of the Bill, investors in 17 prescribed sectors of the economy will be mandated by law to notify the Government of acquisitions of entities above a certain threshold of shareholding or voting. That mandatory notification process is similar to the approach taken in the United States, Germany and France. The Government have, alongside the introduction of the Bill, published an eight-week consultation to refine the definitions of those 17 sectors. The discussions that I and other Ministers in the Department have had with the investment community suggest that that has been extremely welcome.

Many sectors, of course, are well defined, and the purpose of the consultation is to refine them further so that the definitions are clear and narrowly focused on specific parts of sectors in which risks are most likely to arise and will allow parties to self-assess whether they need to notify. The House will appreciate that we could not have published the consultation before we introduced the Bill, with its call-in powers, or we would have risked hostile actors completing transactions in the particularly sensitive sectors.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Does the right hon. Member agree that the definition of national security provided in spheres such as the United States and Australia would actually help clarify for companies an idea of whether they are likely to fall within it? Without that, they are not quite sure what the judgment will be behind closed doors.

[Edward Miliband]

The right hon. Gentleman has taken a huge interest in these issues and, again, speaks with great expertise, and he may well be right that it is possible to do more on the definition. I am sure that is something the Secretary of State will consider. I can see there are definitely challenges, but I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the more guidance there can be for business about this, the better, because the more we will avoid a mountain of notifications that are not necessary and the more clarity there will be and the greater protection for our economy.

Fourthly, I want to talk about the role of this House in scrutinising the effects of this legislation. A large number of areas are left to delegated legislation in this Bill. Notably, the Bill enables Ministers to add new sectors to those subject to mandatory notification. I understand some of the reasons for this, but I do hope there can be proper scrutiny, if that is the case, in this House and, indeed, interaction with business. Given the sensitive nature of the issues involved in this Bill, I do think there needs to be a way—an annual report is envisaged, I believe, by the Secretary of State—for this House to monitor how this is working in practice.

I do not speak for it, but we have a special Committee of the House—the Intelligence and Security Committee—that can look at these issues. I would like to raise the question with the Secretary of State whether it could play a role in scrutinising the working of the regime and some of the decisions being made, because there are real restrictions on the kind of transparency there can be on these issues for the reasons raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). The ISC is in a sense purpose-built for some of these issues.

Again, this is one of a range of issues we will seek to raise during the passage of the Bill, because I think that it is really important. We see our role as a constructive Opposition to get this right. There is a shared understanding across this House that we need to update our legislation. There does need to be proper scrutiny, and I hope that there can be good scrutiny in Committee and an openness on the Government side to the points that are made across the House in relation to improving the legislation and a proper way to look at its operation, which is vital to our businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

It is always a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), not only because he followed me into leadership and discovered just exactly how pointless that really was. On that we can immediately agree, and he may well have stumbled into another point of agreement; he should know, now that he is a Cummings-ite, that I once employed him and then let him go, so maybe it is time for the right hon. Gentleman to do the same. Anyway, beyond that, I want to congratulate him, because there were things on which I did agree with him, as well as, obviously, things that would need further discussion.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for his deliberations on the Bill, which I will support tonight. It is long overdue. The debates around the Huawei stuff at the beginning of the year really exposed the fact that the UK had lost its way in this area in terms of threats and so on. We were behind the others—Australia, the United States; some of our big Five Eyes compatriots—but at least my right hon. Friend has grasped the nettle and brought this Bill forward, which is laudable. I also thank him for his courtesy in the course of this, in the sense that he spoke to me and, I know, to others. I particularly commend the courtesy of his Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi), who is a very good friend. He went out of his way to talk this through with colleagues on both sides of the House.

This debate is in that context. This is right. I particularly like clauses 32 to 39 and onwards, which deal with penalties, fines and incarcerations, the scope of which is up to five years. These are strong recommendations—slightly stronger than I expected, to be quite frank, but they are well worth it. There are many other good things about the Bill. I will not run through them all, because the Secretary of State did that, and I want to tease out a few points that I think are relevant and need inquiry.

The Bill gives the Secretary of State great powers for industrial strategy—powers to screen these investments that we have been discussing and to address the national security risk that they involve. It also gives him the power to call in investments. We have been through those already. However, I want to pick up on the things that I think are missing from the Bill and that I hope the Secretary of State will look at again in the course of its passage.

First, we have to accept that parked across this space are two very big threats: Russia and, of course, China. In fact, I think China is now the single biggest threat and problem posed to the United Kingdom and the free world. The way it is going—its problems, its difficulties, and the way it is focusing on internal suppression, external expansion and trashing both World Trade Organisation rules and laws—means that we will have to deal with that, and I suspect that this Bill will progressively be right in the middle of that. In dealing with that, I want to raise a couple of issues. In dealing with that, I want to raise a couple of issues.

Without this definition of national security, the Government are giving a stick to beat themselves with at the moment. Having such a definition is important for two reasons. First, it helps to improve clarity—a couple of my hon. Friends wanted clarity. I have looked at some of the definitions out there, including the American definition, which may not be perfect but it does cover some of the wider areas that I will talk about soon under transnational crimes and goes into things such as threats from drug trafficking. It is important for the Government to think carefully about this because it will help to define the Bill.

[Bob Seely]

On what the shadow Secretary of State said, there is obviously a genuine and good debate to be had on the elements of the Bill. This is not necessarily about industrial policy—I say with great respect to those on the Benches opposite—which is part and parcel of another debate. It is about the modern definition of national security and whether we see it as narrow or broad, and there is a strong argument today for having a broader definition of national security.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree with my hon. Friend and I agree that this is not the Bill to discuss industrial strategy. The right hon. Member for Doncaster North made wider points which I think are worthy of discussion, but I am not sure that that discussion should take place in relation to this Bill and I want to keep this narrow.

First, in China something very special is taking place: the idea of civil-military fusion, which is now infecting every single enterprise and company in China. The Chinese military, as we have already heard, uses this concept and strategy to acquire intellectual property, technologies and research for civilian use and for military use. An external investment screening body, therefore, should be set up under this legislation, to establish and investigate cases where this may now affect UK investments. This is very important, because the rules are very strictly applied in China: you co-operate with the intelligence services or you are out of business. You may be out of not just your livelihood but your freedoms.

[Ms Ghani]

Is it not even more dangerous in that, under the national security law in China, not only do people have to hand over data, but if asked by a foreign state they have to deny they are handing over data? If that is the case, should we not have a bigger debate about social media companies based in this country harvesting our data and our children’s data and where that data might end up down the line?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I of course completely agree with my hon. Friend and I was just going to come on to the data harvesting point, because it is caught in this. She is right that China’s national intelligence law requires all Chinese firms to assist with state intelligence work and to deny that if they are asked. Let us say the Secretary of State wants to investigate and says he has strong penalties for non-compliance. By law in China they are not allowed to comply with that process at all, so there is already a national conflict in this. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is a very dodgy company set up in China that has huge links with the Chinese Communist Government. So we need to be very careful about where we go with this because UK nationals might get caught up and get punished for what is essentially a refusal by the Chinese Government to allow others to do this.

I am also slightly concerned about some of the things that happened in the past not being caught by the Bill. The Henry Jackson Society has today announced that, having looked through the Bill, only 23 of the 117 Chinese acquisitions over the last decade would have actually been caught. The areas that are outside of this include pharmaceuticals. The Chinese takeover of Bio Products Laboratory, which has a very significant technology with regard to blood products, would not have been caught. In education, 10 universities have many thousands of obligations to Chinese investors, where they get a trade-off on technology, some linked to defence firms. That would not have been caught. Interestingly, Thames Water and Veolia Water have significant share ownership from Chinese firms, but that certainly would not have been called into question.

[Richard Fuller]

My right hon. Friend is referring a lot to China, and I am sure he will not be alone in that this afternoon. Is his perspective that we should be looking in the Bill to restrict all Chinese investments in the UK, or investment in particular sectors, and what is the differentiation if the origins of that is the Chinese state, in this fusion of the state with business?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My view is that the Bill should help us to identify exactly which of these are genuinely private and not located in China under Chinese law. That will be a big issue. I have to tell my hon. Friend that, on that question he is right, because I believe we are now facing a very significant threat from China. So we now need to use the Bill to figure out how we deal with that threat on a wider basis, not just on individual takeovers. The Government need to look at that. Huawei was a very good example of Government policy having to be reversed on that basis. It is a growing problem and he is right to raise it.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is incredibly important that we recognise that the Bill is not aimed at one particular country or any particular identified sovereign threat? It is a more general Bill about the importance and value of national security assets in this country. Does he also agree that referring to China as communist—although, of course, it is ruled by the Communist party—is a misnomer in the context of a successful model of authoritarian state capitalism with which we will have to deal and the world will have to deal? We will have to separate those companies that offer attractive investment opportunities from those that are genuine threats.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I know he has been a big champion of that relationship. We do not agree with each other on this matter because I think that China, with its dictatorial Government, poses a very significant threat. But I did speak about other countries—I did say that Russia also poses a threat—so I recognise his defence.

I want to move on to the national interest test. This year, the Australian Government invoked the national interest in looking at tests and they used it in similar legislation to block the acquisition of a minor stake—this might deal with the issue that my hon. Friend was talking about—in AVZ Minerals by a Chinese firm. They needed to intervene because the asset, given what has happened with covid and so on, had lowered in value unusually and unnecessarily, and that had opened it up to a takeover which they felt would have been very unhelpful. The other point I want to raise in passing is that we need to look at things like the Confucius Institute, which is here investing in universities with offers but is actually acting on behalf of the Chinese Government to follow lots of Chinese students around.

Other Members wish to speak, so I will finish my remarks. My main point is that without that national security test the Bill will lack clarity and definition, and fail to understand sometimes where it is actually looking. It could be open to pressures to turn this more into an industrial policy statement, rather than a national security issue.

The Bill also falls short of similar legislation by Five Eyes partners. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is absolutely right to say that they have looked across the scope of what others have done, but other Five Eyes partners have gone further on this. They are competitor countries to us, so it is not as though they have any kind of dictatorial regimes. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the Australian Foreign Investment Review Board are external bodies.

This is the point that I wanted to make to my right hon. Friend. I just wonder whether he might want to reflect on the nature of the pressure on somebody such as him, who, under the Bill, will have to sum up and make final decisions on the advice peculiarly to him. The other two organisations, in Australia and in the United States, have the ability to say that everybody on the panel makes a group decision on the evidence. I know he will argue that that process takes longer—yes, he may be right about that—but I feel that the pressure is on him.

I was in government for six years and I know what Downing Street does. It gives you a call and says, “I don’t think you have to go very far with this sort of stuff, do you? After all, this is worth a lot of money to us. Come on.” Others will say that and the Secretary of State will be sitting there thinking, “This is a balanced judgment. Where do I go on this?” I just wonder whether that pressure is fair on the Secretary of State. He would be questioned later on why certain decisions were made. If I was the Secretary of State, I would want to release myself from that situation. I would not want to be dragged to the courts to be accused of being biased in that decision and making a decision that was not agreeable. So I would look for more external bodies to be able to make that judgment.

I also say to the Government that human rights are vital nowadays. We cannot walk away from it; it is part of what makes us. The reality for us is that far too many companies have allowed themselves to quietly get sucked into the use of slave labour and other labour. We know about that, in Xinjiang province and in other areas too. My right hon. Friend does need to think about that very carefully. I do not want to make the Bill a Christmas tree, but elements of that are involved.

I congratulate the Government on bringing forward the Bill. It is the right legislation to bring forward. It is overdue, no question. However, the balance still needs to be widened somewhat. I hope that in the course of the Committee and Report stages the Secretary of State will accept that good amendments may come forward from brilliant people—not just me—who may well be able to help him in his adventures.