National Security and Investment Bill

John Hayes Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th January 2021 Commons Chamber

It is quite clear that national security is not just in our defence interests; national security is the defence of our prosperity, and indeed our way of life. With this Bill, we are at last considering our commercial interests, including the interests of our research institutions, and the areas where the two meet. National security is a primary responsibility of Government, and hopefully the Bill will see the Government start to think about our economic strategy and resilience, but they must also think about our social resilience, as so many have said. That has to be a good thing.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con) [V]]

This Bill is apposite. It is an appropriate response to an ever-pressing but rapidly changing problem: our national wellbeing. I want to speak briefly about its scope, its dynamism, and the oversight that is necessary to make it as effective as it can be.

That national security is inextricably linked to our national interest is axiomatic. It is obvious that our trade and investment also serve our interest. The potentially paradoxical objects of economic interest and keeping our nation safe are brought into sharp focus by the Bill, which I welcome, and I congratulate the Government and the Minister on bringing it forward. The Government response to the changing circumstances that we face could not be more significant. Malevolent forces of ill intent—both hostile state actors and non-state organisations, including global commercial interests—must be countered, curtailed and, where necessary, controlled. As the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said, greater assiduity in this respect is to be commended. No longer can we be naive about the ethics of the free market or free trade; nor should we appease foreign powers that, frankly, embody tyrannical tendencies, in a chilling echo of the worst of the 20th century.

As the scope of the Bill’s provision must be used appropriately, so it should also be used as necessary, and as circumstances dictate. I am afraid it is not enough to count risk and resilience in the way we have, historically; we need to measure risk and prepare the necessary resilience in a new way. So I am sympathetic to new clauses 4 and 5, which look to establish factors to which the Secretary of State must have regard when assessing risk, but I hear what my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said: given that that risk is as I have described it—dynamic—it is important that there should be a framework, rather than specifying precisely what the risks are or may be. It does seem to me, however, that the Government can do more work, as the Bill continues its passage through both Houses, to be clearer about the circumstances in which the Government might assess risk and define its character and the response to it.

That BEIS is to take the lead in this policy area is new, and it empowers Ministers in a very particular way, but in my estimation, security is likely to be the business of all aspects of Government. As has been said by previous speakers, in respect of health, is it really in the national interest for vital health supplies to be dependent on provision from unstable and unhelpful places? Should the supply of technology, which is so critical to so much of what we do in business, in the public sector and as individuals, be in the hands of those who are either capriciously cavalier or maliciously malign? Should our universities become so dependent on funds from overseas that they are obliged to transfer knowledge to individuals or states that may use it against us?

From now on, the whole of Government have to be associated with the effort to measure risk, develop resilience and understand the threats to our security. In those terms, the Bill must allow sufficient responsiveness to metamorphosising threats, to allow us to alter our response to counter those threats. That implies acting quickly and Ministers using their executive power without the scope, space or time always to seek parliamentary approval. If they did seek such approval, they would be doing so almost every week, certainly every month, and possibly by the day or hour. That is why oversight matters so much, yet the Bill is not yet quite right in that respect, as several contributors to the debate have said.

The existing accountability to Select Committees is valuable, but not enough. As the Chairman of the ISC, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), explained, that Committee is designated. Indeed, it was set up for precisely this purpose, dealing with highly sensitive information, including secret documents that would normally not pass through the House as a whole because of the public implications of that. Adequate oversight is therefore essential.