National Security and Investment Bill

Debate between Kim Johnson and Bob Seely

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

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I thank the Minister for his work and for being here for the debate; I know how busy he is, so I am most grateful. I will speak to new clause 4, which provides a definition of “national security”. After listening to some of the speeches, I wonder whether I am going to play the role of General Melchett in “Blackadder” when I insist that “security” is not a dirty word. Let me try to put the argument in favour of a national security definition. My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) suggested that I do so, and I am grateful to him for the opportunity. Like him, I thank Nicole Kar and Alice Lynch, who supported the work of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

New clause 4 provides a non-exclusive framework of factors that the Secretary of State would be obliged to regard when he is assessing takeovers or work in this field. It does not limit the Secretary of State in any way, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Katherine Fletcher), who spoke eloquently, and others suggested. It provides a public recognition and a public baseline of things that should be considered. As such, it is a sensible amendment to improve the Bill, as well as providing a wider public service by defining national security in the modern era. I would like to make a few background points and then speak for between five and 10 minutes on a few other points.

We need a definition of national security, because the alternative is to have a vague and unstated set of assumptions. The amendment is broad, but it sets quite a high benchmark. It is not a generalised catch-all, nor does it contain a substitute for an industrial policy; that is another debate. The Cadbury takeover would not be included in this, nor would a Stilton creamery in South Notts—it might in France, but not in this country.

In this country we have a tendency to romanticise vagueness, as if planning were a bad thing and muddling through a strategic art as well as a national pastime, with this just-in-time Dunkirk spirit. I think it was Churchill who noted that, actually, Dunkirk was a military disaster, not a victory, and that if we had got our security and strategy right in the years previously, we could have avoided glorifying disasters because we would not have been in that disastrous position in the first place. A more systematic approach to national strategy—frankly, I think we need a national strategy council—but also to security and the definition of national security is important.

My next point is that the nature of national security has changed, and we need to be mindful of that. It is not simply about defence and espionage and the immediate threat to the realm. We have seen from Russia and China a combining of non-military and military, of covert and overt strategies—people call it hybrid war, grey war, under-the-radar war; there are about 25 definitions doing the rounds. This is not a war as such, but it is a form of state struggle and state conflict. Some states in the world, including very significant states such as Russia and, perhaps to a lesser extent, China, see things as a zero-sum game. We need to understand that liberal internationalism is not the only show in town and not the only way to understand international affairs. The west is good at many things, but seeing the world through the eyes of others is not necessarily one of them.

These new states, as many people here have said, use multiple and novel tools, including economic power, energy power, espionage, blackmail, information war and even cultural and religious power, as well as military and paramilitary power, and they use different templates and different tools in different parts of the world. Clearly, the tools that China uses in Xinjiang province are different from the ones that it uses in the City of London or to reach out to parliamentarians. The tools that Russia uses in eastern Ukraine or Kiev are different from the ones that it uses in the UK. Is the Kremlin’s use of Russian Orthodoxy a national security threat to us? No, of course not. But is its use of oligarchs and informal channels to influence senior political and financial elites in our country—the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) called it “elite capture”—a potential threat to national security? Yes.

The right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) was right to mention how states are using those new powers and how they use power to bend or break the international system. My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling has also spoken about that repeatedly, as indeed have many of us on the Foreign Affairs Committee. That international system is not perfect, but it has served humanity well.

It is important to understand that national security is not just about a narrow defence threat; it is broader. China has published a document, “Made in China 2025”, outlining how it plans to dominate data, artificial intelligence, big data and so on. Is it a threat to our communications infrastructure if we are dominated by a one-party state with a very different values system? I am not saying definitely, but potentially it would be.

The Henry Jackson Society and I produced a report on Five Eyes supply chain reliance on China. Over a quarter of British supply chains are dominated by China, and the UK is strategically dependent on China for 229 categories of goods, 51 of which have potential applications in critical national infrastructure spheres. We need to be mindful of the impact of that on our national security.

There are companies that are going to be bought and universities that are going to be working on gait technology and facial technology. I do not doubt that there are some countries in the world that will use that technology to improve their mass transport systems, but there are countries—China is potentially one of them—that will use it as a means of controlling their people more effectively and developing the sort of Orwellian state that is a potential threat to humanity and mankind.

Let me look specifically at new clause 4. As I said, my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble talked about the need to be nimble, and she is exactly right, but osmosis is not a way to provide a definition of national security. The new clause obliges the Government to look at a series of areas. We tried to make it broad, but it sets a high bar. It requires the Government to look at the critical supply chain, critical national infrastructure and national resource. A year ago, who would have argued that personal protective equipment manufacture, vaccine supply or AstraZeneca’s cyber-security were national security issues? Probably nobody. Who now would deny it? Probably nobody. This is a significant element of our national security.

Another example—one that has worried me greatly—is that the Government did not see Huawei’s domination of 5G as a national security issue. They chose not to listen to those people in the agencies who said that it was and set a clear political direction. It concerned me particularly that, bizarrely, BEIS and other Ministries presented Huawei in this House as a private firm when, clearly, it was part and parcel of the Chinese state. Therefore, having a clear definition in the Bill of what Ministers are obliged to look at would help to guide them to come to good decisions in the national interest, and that is what we are trying to do.

We are trying to do things in the national interest to improve the Bill where we can. Paragraphs (b) and (c) address the threat from individuals and to individuals. Paragraph (c) addresses the nature of potential acquirers of UK firms. The hon. Members for Aberavon and for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) spoke very eloquently about this, and Huawei is instructive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling spoke about two companies that were bought when perhaps they should not have been, and we need to look at the nature of potential acquirers of UK firms. It is not an attack on laissez-faire economics or on our role as a free market and dynamic, global economic centre to accept that a national security definition, along with good laws, helps to provide a framework for honesty and integrity in business life. Paragraph (f) addresses national security and our responsibility to oppose modern slavery and genocide, which is an important issue for me, but again it sets an extraordinarily high bar.

Paragraph (g) addresses the potential threat of global organised crime. Again Russia, specifically, has tried to influence other countries in this way. Yes, that could be a potential national security risk. Finally, paragraph (h) gives the Secretary of State the flexibility to take a generalised approach to things that are not in the interests of the UK and are a threat to our interests or our citizens.

This new clause is a baseline, not a limiting factor. It helps to provide guidance for the Secretary of State and for BEIS. Frankly, this should be cross-departmental. We need our own CFIUS, and why we do not have one I do not know. Again, that is a concern. I will not address it now, because it clearly is not in the amendment and I am wrapping up.

I fear that the vagueness on national security does not help this Bill, nor does it help national security and its role. Clarity is needed in the long term to help us provide better strategy and a better understanding of the opportunities and risks that face this country in the years ahead.

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]]

I start by congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and by wishing for a violence-free inauguration today. Good riddance to the outgoing President. We will not miss his hate speech.

The National Security and Investment Bill seeks to usher in sweeping reforms to how our Government can scrutinise foreign investment. It proposes strong measures to toughen foreign investment rules and to bring the UK into line with other major countries in key sectors. These steps to keep high-growth and strategically important companies in the UK are overdue and highly welcome, but does the Secretary of State agree that, for the UK to have an active industrial policy that works in the public interest, the Government must go further than just blocking hostile mergers and acquisitions, and instead implement a robust industrial strategy that puts critical national infrastructure at the heart of Government policy?

One example is the recent takeover of Arm, the crown jewel of the British tech sector—a genuine global powerhouse worth more than £31 billion and with more than 6,000 employees. Its recent sale to Nvidia, a US tech giant worth more than £338 billion that is tucked away in the tax-light and secrecy-heavy state of Delaware, provides a clear example of the risky and problematic sale of a British firm to foreign investors, which threatens both security fears and job losses.