Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Lord Bishop of Southwark Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 20th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Southwark]

My Lords, I expect that the name of Field-Marshal Julius Jakob Freiherr von Haynau does not elicit the sort of interest that once it did in your Lordships’ House. He was, none the less, a staple of O-level history when that subject would have elicited the admiration of the Secretary of State for Levelling Up. Field Marshall von Haynau was an effective but severe Habsburg military commander during the revolutionary years of 1848 and 1849. His imperial standing, however, did not prevent him being chased down Borough High Street in my diocese in 1850—where my diocesan headquarters now is, very near the cathedral—by two draymen from the nearby brewery of Barclay Perkins to remonstrate with him about his military conduct in Italy and Hungary.

I mention this once-famous incident to illustrate that there have always been strong currents of feelings about issues, including those abroad. Some of these fall into what one might call the dissenting tradition. As a Church of England Bishop, I recognise that I am an heir to a different tradition, but surely our history has taught us that consensus has been built up around what is obviously true and lived out with integrity, rather than by suppression.

There is a royal prerogative in foreign affairs, as there is around peace and war. His Majesty’s Government treat with states and, where necessary, apply sanctions, but not all and every entity is derivative of the Executive. Surely if Edmund Burke has taught governing parties anything, he has taught them that few, if any, of these things should be taken into account in ways which are harmful to the nation.

As the Government’s own impact assessment on the Bill demonstrates, we address business other than that which is directly before us. It is for bodies which have a mandate separate from His Majesty’s Government to determine how, within the law, we obtain the best outcome with the assets we have, and to do so while being accountable to the people we serve. For example, Section 17 of the Local Government Act 1988 already prohibits local authorities from making procurement decisions on non-commercial grounds.

I recall from when I served on the staff of St Paul’s Cathedral, and later as a parish priest in Tower Hamlets, the declarations of the nearby borough that it was a nuclear-free Hackney. I am not sure what that achieved but it was a matter for them. More significant is that some of the action in respect of apartheid South Africa would not, as we have heard, have been possible had such a Bill been in force then. There was, let us remember, sharp controversy about disinvestment in South Africa, but it was at the level of argument, not statutory prohibition.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester, who hopes to be present for later stages of the Bill, has raised with me a concern which I think has merit: that public funding means that a number of religious foundations in education will be caught by the prohibition on saying anything about these matters. Perhaps the Minister would be prepared to confirm that this is not the intention of the Bill and, if so, what can be done to mitigate the possibility.

From these Benches, we have not called for a boycott or disinvestment, or sanctions against Israel, but we find a number of things alarming in the implications for our liberties and freedoms. One is blanket prohibitions about statements, even on matters such as Uighurs in China. One may argue that the Secretary of State may permit such things, but why should this require the permission of the Secretary of State? The other is that there can be no justification for singling out a particular country in the Bill, as many noble Lords have already said, to put it beyond exception in the regulation-making power in the operation of any resulting statute. It is also deeply worrying that territory illegally occupied by the same state is treated identically in the Bill, as if it is the sovereign territory of that state. This is not in accordance with the repeated statements from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on the need for lasting peace on the basis of a just, negotiated settlement.

I endorse what the Minister said about the need to eradicate anti-Semitism, but have the Government heard the concerns of bona fide Jewish bodies? For instance, a motion passed unanimously at the recent conference of the Union of Jewish Students, which represents 9,000 Jewish students, stated that

“the UK government’s recently proposed BDS Sanctions Bill weakens the ability of British Jewish students to approach the conversation about Israel in a nuanced manner”.

The motion went on:

“UJS reaffirms its support for the democratic right to non-violently protest and opposes the government’s proposed Boycott Bill which is a curtailment of that right, as well as presenting a risk to British Jewish communities and a setback to Israeli-Palestinian peace”.


It seems clear that, rather than there being a concern that local authorities operate a separate foreign policy from that of His Majesty’s Government, we should query why the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is pursuing policy objectives for the Occupied Palestinian Territories that are at variance from those of the Government as a whole.