Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 25th October 2023 Commons Chamber

[Zarah Sultana]

I am going to continue.

While the Government supported the apartheid regime, local councils across the country rallied around the anti-apartheid movement, with 39 councils across the country having divested from companies operating in South Africa by 1985. If this Bill had been put in place then, that action would have been illegal. That is why a huge coalition of more than 70 organisations have come together to oppose it. Those organisations include trade unions such as ASLEF, the Fire Brigades Union, Unison and Unite, and campaign groups such as Greenpeace and Liberty.

Amendment 17, in my name, and amendment 13 seek to address this grave mistake by protecting the right of public bodies to make ethical decisions, not leaving them at the whim of the deeply unethical decisions of national Governments such as ours. I urge Members from across the House to support the amendments.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

Some years ago, an elderly Jewish constituent came to see me in my surgery concerned about her own safety following a rise in violence in Israel and Palestine, and the resulting antisemitism here in the UK. I said to her then that, if the mob ever came for her, before they got to her they would find me standing in her driveway with my baseball bat in hand. I have stood with the Jewish community across the UK, particularly in London, over the last nearly 25 years of my political career.

When I am told that in seeking to improve this legislation, or in expressing doubts about its impact, I am somehow picking a side, with the implication that I am not standing with that community, I find it both insulting and offensive, particularly coming from Members of this House who, while accepting unquestioningly this legislation, have not done so with other legislation coming from the Government. We all have a duty at this point in time, as the Prime Minister and others have said, to choose our words carefully. On Monday, he said it was a time for “care and caution”, and he was exactly right.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Like me, he has spent a lot of time in local government. Does he agree with the point I raised on Second Reading that a key issue is that our local elected brethren—for example, those specifically elected on a foreign policy platform, such as the 17 councillors who served at one stage on Birmingham City Council on behalf of the “Justice for Kashmir” party—may have a specific democratic reason for being there to express that foreign policy view? There will be circumstances in which councillors, including those who sit in the House of Lords and who sit as part of international bodies, such as the congress of the Council of Europe, benefit from parliamentary privilege in expressing their views. There is therefore a risk that this gagging order is not simply gagging what people should expect as freedom of speech, but is also ineffective in the objective it sets out to achieve.

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend speaks with experience, and he puts it extremely well. To assume that councillors are merely elected on the basis of their attitude towards potholes and refuse collection is completely erroneous; they are elected for all sorts of reasons. Many councillors and Members of the devolved Administrations who campaign on social, moral, ethical and, indeed, foreign policy issues would say that they have a mandate, and not even to be able to express opposition to the law while still complying with it seems very un-British, extremely illiberal and unnecessarily draconian. We have lots of laws in this country to which councillors and, indeed, other elected officials of opposing political persuasions can express opposition. To have an exception on this basis seems faintly ridiculous.

On amendment 4, I declare my interest as a member of the local government pension fund, which I understand is the only pension fund affected by the Bill. As I said on Second Reading, it is unfortunate that, as the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, my accumulated savings are being put under the control of the Secretary of State. If, in pursuit of this control, my pension diminishes in value because I am forced to follow the decisions made by the Secretary of State, what will be my compensation in retirement?

Amendment 5 is about exempting universities as public bodies. There is a technical reason, as well as a principled reason, for this amendment. I outlined my objection on Second Reading, not least because we had just appointed a free speech tsar and legislated for free speech on university campuses, but here we are busily curtailing free speech through this Bill.

The technical issue is about universities being classified as public bodies. As the Secretary of State will know, there has been a flurry of activity in the Treasury because further education colleges have been classified as public bodies, which means all their debt comes on to the public balance sheet. This is another step towards universities, with their even greater levels of debt, coming on to the balance sheet, about which the Treasury ought to have a say. I hope and believe that, when the Bill goes to the House of Lords, the Treasury will want to have a look.

Finally, amendment 6 is about international law. I know that the Secretary of State, like every member of the Government, is extremely keen on international law and wants to ensure it is followed in all circumstances, and particularly in this current horrific conflict in Israel and Gaza. One of the great benefits of our more flexible system is that, as the Government called for boycotts of Russian businesses and Russian individuals following the invasion of Ukraine, other parts of civic society were able to move extremely quickly to comply, whereas under this legislation they would have to wait for the Government to issue some kind of regulation, which would have to go through this House and be debated. That could possibly take weeks, if not longer, particularly if the House is in recess. Amendment 6 proposes that if the Government declare that a country or situation is in breach of international law, other organisations can immediately respond by issuing their own sanctions or disinvestments.

I honestly believe that the amendments I have tabled—I understand that only amendment 7, which is probably the most important, will go to a Division this evening—represent an attempt to improve the legislation, rather than necessarily picking a side. Although this debate has, I am afraid, been positioned as a pro-Israel or pro-Palestine debate, I am primarily pro-Britain. I want to get the legislation right for this country, for the Jewish community and for every community in this country so that we can live with the consequences for years to come.

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

Human rights groups have rightly condemned the Bill as an outrageous and unwarranted interference in the ability of councils, universities and other public bodies to use their purchasing power to pursue ethical procurement and investment policies in order to help defend human rights and tackle issues such as climate change. Everyone who cares about issues such as the illegal arms trade, activities of arms manufacturers and traders whose weapons fuel conflicts around the globe, or climate justice, correctly will be horrified by this blatant attack on the basic democratic rights of elected public bodies to act on behalf of the residents who elected them.

The Bill specifically protects the state of Israel, Israeli companies and their human rights abuses from local authority sanctions, no matter what human rights abuses they might commit or are committing now. It is self-evident that councils and other public bodies must be free—and, indeed, have a duty—to act to prevent or discourage breaches of international humanitarian law. It is clear that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, and no local authority or Government should offer support to such activity. The Government’s anti-BDS Bill contradicts the guiding principles on business and human rights published by the United Nations. It penalises public bodies that comply with the UK’s responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It takes away the democratic right of public bodies to make ethical financial decisions.

The Bill uniquely shields human rights abuses by Israel, allowing it to act with impunity. Indeed, the Bill exempts specific countries—namely Israel, despite its human rights abuses and war crimes—even though we do not know what future actions such countries may take. That is a show of complete contempt for the people of Palestine and the daily inhumanity, abuse and discrimination they face. The Bill is a textbook case of divide and rule politics.

It is profoundly disappointing that the Government are pursuing the anti-boycott Bill at this moment, when tensions are extremely high in our communities. In the past few weeks, almost 7,000 Palestinians have been killed—almost half of them children—and 1,400 Israelis have been killed, and the civilians of Gaza have been massacred by Israeli airstrikes. War crimes are happening in real time. An immediate ceasefire is required, and the Prime Minister, the Government, the Leader of the Opposition and all political leaders in this House should be calling for it.

Boycott, divestment and sanctions are an effective means of peaceful resistance. The Bill is no less toxic than at its previous stage. If it passes, it will close off a vital democratic avenue for the closest representatives of ordinary people at local level to demand accountability and change. It will show how little this Government care about the lives of civilians and the plight of persecuted and exploited communities around the world.