National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Katherine Fletcher and Jamie Stone

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

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

I shall heed your remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker, and try to keep my contribution short. In truth, I have not been involved thus far in this Bill, but I am my party’s defence spokesman and I therefore take a view on it.

Given the constituency I represent at the very top of the British mainland—north coast, east coast and west coast—I intuit from what I see that the Russian navy is no stranger to those waters. Therefore, the defence of the realm is in my mind personally as well as in speaking in the Commons. As I have said many times before, we do, alas and alack, live in a world where there are states that are not about the best interests of the United Kingdom. As other speakers have said, we see the Chinese threat and we see the Russian threat. It is within that context that I say what I say.

I want to make three or four very general points; as I say, I will try to be fairly speedy. The first is about the amendment that seeks to place an annual security report before the Intelligence and Security Committee. Yes, we have heard that the Government are proposing to bring in something similar to this amendment in the upper House, but it would be no bad thing for us to agree on it at this stage, and then let us see what the Government come back with if they decide not to accept it. In recent days, we have seen on the other side of the Atlantic the whole notion of parliamentary democracy come under some challenge. Here in the mother of Parliaments, the idea of Parliament as supreme and of reports brought back to Parliament is very much a part of our democracy. It is a vital mechanism in securing the way we do things nationally and our freedoms.

On the Chinese point, the sale of DeepMind to Google, and Arm, which will go to NVIDIA in due course, is regrettable, to say the least. Let us make no mistake: this is a quite deliberate act by China and other Governments who are hostile to us. At the end of the day, there are front organisations that are trying to get a grip on cherry-picking those parts of the British economy that are fundamental to our workings. That is extremely dangerous, to say the least.

The scope of the public interest test is important to the Liberal Democrats, as we have been saying for a long time. First and foremost, this Bill, which I support entirely, is important to the safety of the realm—to protecting British interests—but at some stage I would like the public interest test to be broadened out. Mention has been made of China. We know how incredibly badly the Chinese are treating their Muslim minority in the west of the country. It amounts to something approaching genocide: let us not muck about with this. When companies buy up a British company or business, I would like the public interest test to be applied, for instance, on child labour and on modern slavery. The trade deals should be examined in that context as well. At the end of the day—we have said it many times in the House of Commons and the House of Lords—we disapprove entirely of the way in which the Chinese have treated the Uyghurs. We have to try to take action to try to influence that. If we can stymie a trade deal on that front, that might be a very good move for the future.

I have discovered—it is a curious factor during my three years in the Commons—that on defence matters there is often broad agreement across the House, which is very encouraging. The idea of constructive opposition is important, and what comes back from the upper House will be of extraordinary interest. I hope that the lesson has been learned, and that when the Bill is enacted there will be a sensible approach to stopping the repetition of DeepMind and the sale of Arm. I give huge credit to the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committee and of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who have worked assiduously, as have their Committees, on a cross-party basis, to protect the best interests of our nation. There I shall conclude my remarks.

[Katherine Fletcher (South Ribble) (Con)]

I join the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) in paying tribute to all the members of the Bill Committee. The room may have been cold but, to be fair, the debate was not. I extend my thanks not only to the Front-Bench spokespeople but to all the Clerks and everyone who made that happen.

What occurred to me as I shivered, with the Thames windows open in the Committee room, was that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) pointed out, this is flipping important, but there is a risk of it becoming dry and remote. I hope that the House will bear with me if I try to bring it to life for people who spend the day on their phone and are not aware of some of the business takeovers that have occurred or of the actions of foreign states that are hostile to us.

I want specifically to speak to new clause 5 and the attempt to seek clarification on the definition of national security. In the spirit of clarity, let me take a step back to take a step forward. What does the Bill do? It enables us to catch up with nations such as America, Australia and Canada, in protecting us from threats from people overseas who try to use business and ideas, candidly, to do us harm. It gives us a legislative framework to address that, and I echo the comments of many Members to put stickers on how important that is.

The Bill gives the Government powers to investigate properly business deals that look a bit fishy or are much worse than that. National security can sometimes end up sounding like that bit in “Men in Black” where, all of a sudden, the sunglasses go on and the pen comes out. What does it mean? To me, it is not a static thing or concept—it is a fast-changing world. In seeking to define it, as new clause 5 does, we risk flagging to our enemies what the “it” of national security is, thus making a big pointy arrow saying, “Go and over there and do this, because we are not thinking about that as a Government at the moment.” The Government need flexibility to be nimble as threats evolve.

To explain that, let me give a hypothetical example. A small firm is curating a TikTok feed and videos on its channel, gaining ad revenue. It is not a huge business—a couple of people—but it is doing quite well. Those videos are funny and political, and are often further left of centre than me. They imply that I, as a Conservative, have only awful motivations for the decisions that I make in this House. Well, such is life. This is the lot that I picked, though, as an aside to the youth of today, I would like to point out that if they are getting their messages from people who are only giving them one side of the story, they should think about it quite hard, because there are always two sides to the story.