Covid-19: Government Handling and Preparedness

Matt Western Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

There are issues around Bolton in my red box very regularly, Mr Speaker. I was waiting on tenterhooks to find out whether, as well as his constituent being a fan, my hon. Friend is a fan—maybe he can tell me later in private. But he makes a very serious point: we have a significant challenge in Bolton right now, with a high rate of covid transmission, and we have done everything we possibly can to support Boltonians to solve this problem with increased vaccination. It is great to see the huge enthusiasm for vaccination and the queues of people coming forward. I say to everybody in Bolton, “Please come forward if you have not had both jabs yet.” Also, the testing effort, which has seen people come forward and get tested, is helping us to break the chains of transmission. That is the approach that we are trying to take now that we have built this huge vaccine and testing infrastructure over the past few months.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

The Secretary of State claims that he has always been straight, yet his response to my question last week suggests otherwise. Remember, he was not straight over the need for higher-grade FFP3 masks for our frontline NHS and care workers, he was not straight over the need for the public to wear masks at the start of the pandemic, and he has not been straight over Test and Trace, for example with his fabricated test numbers last April. Given yesterday’s revelations, however, will he apologise to Warwickshire families for the 344 excess deaths resulting from his decision to discharge hospital patients directly into our care homes?

[Matt Hancock]

I do not recognise those figures, but I do recognise the enormous challenge of keeping people safe in care homes at the height of a pandemic in unprecedented circumstances. The other thing that I would say is that in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency we are building one of the biggest testing laboratories, if not the biggest, that this country has ever seen. The ability to have this huge testing capacity is an asset that this country has. It will mean not only that we can help to tackle the virus now, spot the new variants and make sure that we have an understanding of where it might be popping up—such as in Bolton, for instance—but that we are better prepared in future. I would like to work with the hon. Gentleman to deliver this brilliant laboratory in Leamington Spa and make sure that it is a model for how we do diagnostics. That working together is the best approach that we can take.

Covid-19 Update

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

There is one other person who my hon. Friend did not add to the list, probably due to modesty, and that is himself. He has worked incredibly hard over the last few days to get the message out to people across Bolton, and I am very grateful. My message to everybody in Bolton and Blackburn is: take these steps, but please take them safely. Get a test and get yourself vaccinated as soon as you are in one of the eligible groups. It is incredibly important that we get vaccinations to anybody over 50 who has not had a jab yet, so please come forward now. Anybody over 50 who has had one jab eight weeks ago or more should come forward for their second. Crucially, get a test.

I pay tribute to all those my hon. Friend mentioned. Councillor David Greenhalgh, the leader of Bolton Council, has worked incredibly hard, as have his whole team. We are working cohesively together, and I very much hope that with that effort, we can get this sorted.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

Obviously vaccines are important, but so is testing. Six months ago to the day, the Health Secretary told us that the UK would open two new mega laboratories in early 2021 to double the country’s capacity for carrying out covid-19 tests. We were then advised that they would open in early spring. The one in Scotland was cancelled. The one here in Leamington remains surrounded in secrecy, non-disclosure agreements and private contracts for staff employed by private companies, some linked to Conservative donors. The Health Secretary will be concerned by the delay, I am sure, even if he does not have a financial concern in this project himself. Can he tell us what is going on, and can he confirm when the place will open and that staff will be employed directly by the NHS?

[Matt Hancock]

We have a PCR testing capacity in this country of many hundreds of thousands more than we use each day. The Leamington Spa project is incredibly important and the people working there are doing a magnificent job. Frankly, I do not think that the rest of the hon. Gentleman’s question deserves an answer.

Covid-19: Government’s Publication of Contracts

Matt Western Excerpts

Tuesday 9th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. For our businesses to go from a capacity to produce this country’s PPE of 1% to 70% is an incredible achievement, but we must not rest on our laurels. We must continue to work with British business to allow it to continue to innovate and develop its ability to meet UK need. I pay tribute to the businesses in his constituency of Rother Valley for the work they did in helping out this country when it needed it most.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

The simple truth is that businesses up and down the country feel as though they were misled by the Government. They were encouraged to get behind the PPE challenge, and they made capital investments to expand their capacity to manufacture, yet we know that Government middlemen mates were 10 times more likely than they were to win contracts. So can the Minister set out when he will publish the details of all the contracts, including when the principal businesses were established and what the duration of the contracts are?

[Edward Argar]

The Government will meet their legal obligations to publish contracts under regulation 50 and the requirements that that places on us for the information that needs to be published. Those that meet the criteria for a CAN—a contract award notice—under that, and that have been awarded by the Department of Health and Social Care directly, have been published. All contracts will be published—all details under CANs will be published—where that is required by the regulation, and the information specified as to what is published in a CAN notice is of a standard format. We will continue to meet that obligation.

Covid Contracts: Judicial Review

Matt Western Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Edward Argar]

Transparency is important. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee and others have rightly made that point, but saving lives is important and, I would argue, in the height of the pandemic, more important. It was right that civil servants and others focused entirely on that purpose of getting the PPE to reduce the risk of loss of life, and as the judge acknowledged, they have worked very hard subsequently to catch up with the transparency requirements to ensure that the information is published and is available for interrogation.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

As they say, if it smells of fish, it is fish, but in this case it is like Billingsgate market. When it comes to Government contracts, someone is 10 times more likely to get one if they have a Government contact. The protocols are clear, as the Supreme Court confirmed, and the Health Secretary acted unlawfully in not revealing the details of contracts with his pub landlord, a hedge fund in Mauritius or the jeweller in Florida, yet there was insufficient PPE available in our social care system. As the NAO said, it was 10% of what was required. For our frontline health workers, there was just not enough FFP3. The Minister says that trust is vital, but is it not the truth that Ministers’ mates and their suppliers in China have been favoured in supplying PPE over UK companies such as Tecman and Contechs in my constituency?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. That was a very long speech. I do not want the hon. Gentleman to create a precedent.

Covid-19

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 22nd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Three minutes is barely enough time to do justice to the Government’s mishandling of the pandemic, the vaccination programme excepted, but I will do my best.

From the outset, as the old adage goes, the Government failed to plan; the result they faced, failure. Precisely a year ago, the Prime Minister failed to attend not one, not two, but all of the first five Cobra meetings. Then there was the revelation that the previous Conservative Government had undertaken Exercise Cygnus, modelling and predicting the consequences of a pandemic, back in 2016. It was ignored, as were the calls by the scientists to lock down hard and early. Sadly, this Government do not do due diligence; otherwise, they would have followed the leadership and example of Sheffield City Council and its excellent locally delivered test and trace system. Instead, the Government blew £21 billion.

The farce that has been the Government’s handling of PPE underlines that failure to do due diligence. UK companies such as Tecman and Contechs in my constituency—brilliant, agile small and medium-sized enterprises—can supply PPE. They are supplying it to Europe and elsewhere, shipping all they are manufacturing, while the UK Government source from China and Turkey at higher cost. Meanwhile, frontline NHS and care workers are denied FFP3-grade masks. This from a Government who claimed that staff were overusing PPE in the first few months of this crisis, and denied for the first eight months that the public needed to wear masks. Is it any wonder the public do not trust this Government?

Thankfully, the Government took options on vaccines. Credit to them for that, but the success of the roll-out is down to the universal healthcare provided by our fabulous NHS, and the use of our primary care networks and people such as Sukhi, Nick and Ollie driving local delivery. I now hear that, having finally realised that the NHS, and not Deloitte, Serco or others, was critical and central to meeting that challenge, the Government have appointed a private company to run their mega-lab in Leamington. I ask the Minister why.

While there is hope of arresting the health crisis, the Government need to do more to help businesses through the coming months, with more certainty. We do need dates, whether for extending the furlough scheme, for maintaining and simplifying grants, as called for by the Federation of Small Businesses, or for the extension of the business rates holiday or the cut to VAT on hospitality. There must be support for the 3 million self-employed excluded from Government programmes.

It is not enough to claim that there is light appearing. The Government need to provide protections for public health and the economy to secure and make certain our recovery, and they need to prioritise vaccinations for our teachers if they are really serious about schools returning.

Covid Security at UK Borders

Matt Western Excerpts

Monday 1st February 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)]

Let me begin by thanking all hon. Members who have contributed to today’s debate. We must keep this horrendous virus under control so that we can roll out the vaccines as quickly as possible and get back to our normal lives. I do not doubt that the whole House, whatever Members’ views, is united behind and resolute about that common goal.

The Government have always sought to steer a protective but practical course through this crisis based on scientific advice. In the fact of a lethal enemy, we will continue to act in the best interests of the British people. We will continue to protect lives. We will continue to distribute our world-leading vaccine programme, because that is what will defeat the coronavirus. We will do everything to ensure that we can support an economic recovery that is as strong as it is safe.

The delivery of an effective vaccine, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) has noted, is the best way to protect the most vulnerable in our society, to save thousands of lives, and ultimately to support the easing and removal of restrictions so that we can return to an era of safe international travel, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) and my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) have said.

The whole country owes a debt of gratitude to the incredible health workers who are administering the jabs, as the hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), among many others, have said. Vaccines have already been administered to 9.3 million UK residents and key workers—that is more than in the rest of Europe combined. As my hon. Friends the Members for Harborough (Neil O’Brien) and for Newbury (Laura Farris) have noted, that is due to the decisions that this Government have taken.

However, we cannot rest while the vaccines are being rolled out, and we have to take measures to protect our health and safeguard the NHS. That includes taking firm action to address the risk of new variants of the virus entering the UK and spreading through the population, potentially hampering that vaccine effort. There is no single measure that mitigates that risk entirely—it is the layers of actions that we have discussed today, in combination with the vaccine programme, that will turn the tide on the coronavirus.

As the Home Secretary set out last week, in the light of increasing concerns around new variants, mandatory quarantine measures for those arriving from high-risk countries are an essential next step to safeguard public health, and I assure the House that we are working urgently and will share those details shortly. But I stress that this essential step is just one part of a wider co-ordinated strategy to protect the nation. From the start of this pandemic, we have taken a robust approach to prevent imported cases of covid-19. That has included self-isolation requirements and the use of travel corridors to manage entry from high-risk countries. We have kept that approach under regular review, and changes have been made when the scientific evidence demanded it.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Robert Courts]

I am sorry, I will not, because I am so short of time.

That is why we acted quickly to suspend all travel corridors following the surge in cases this winter; it is why we recently introduced pre-departure testing requirements, whereby passengers require a negative test before being allowed to travel to the UK, to further protect against imported cases; and it is why all international passengers arriving in the UK are required to complete a passenger locator form.

On enforcement, recent statistics show that enforcement action and the hard work of border officials has resulted in almost full compliance from those entering the country. Border Force has made 3 million spot checks, and it now aims to achieve 100% checks to tackle PLF and PDT non-compliance at the border, along with 100% covid compliance checks.

National Security and Investment Bill

Matt Western Excerpts

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

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Enhanced protection of our national security is obviously at the heart of the Bill. It has come not before time, too. It has had a gestation period of something like seven years since the Intelligence and Security Committee first raised the matters that it addresses directly. As a member of the Committee, I will not repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), the Chair of the ISC, or the senior Opposition member of the ISC, the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), have said with regard to oversight of investments. I think the point has been well made, and I totally accept that the Minister gets those points.

Let us be clear, though, that if a potential enemy state can get critical information and technologies, it is highly likely to do so. In truth, as we all know, the UK is a primary target for a broad range of national security attacks from both foreign intelligence agencies and organisations, as well as companies, which certainly are operating at the moment. If a company that is British and world leading in a technology—for instance, artificial intelligence or robotics—is bought by a foreign investor from a country that is not particularly friendly to the UK, we must have a system to ensure that British technology, ideas and even hardware are not simply hijacked and possibly used against us. We have to stop that.

Unless the United Kingdom curbs the right of foreign firms and investors to obtain technologies through the means of mergers and acquisitions and similar, our advanced technologies could easily find their way into weapons systems of foreign, potentially hostile states. These days, weapons systems should be much more broadly defined. They include possible attacks on the way we live. For example, using the internet to turn off water purification and supplies or just sewerage would have a dramatic and immediate impact on British society. I reckon that is a weapons system these days. In future, investors will have no choice but to notify the Government if the ownership of certain businesses is to change hands. That is good news. I note, too, that the Secretary of State will also have the power to call in other businesses if he or she has concerns about national security. That is good, too: it allows for sensible flexibility.

In contrast to others who have spoken, I think we should be careful about defining exactly what national security involves because it changes all the time. It is difficult to pin it down. We know what it is, but I am worried about defining it.

Within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy will now sit this new investment security unit, which will be tasked with supervising sensitive sectors of our economy. I know that those sectors have yet to be fully defined, but most are pretty obvious—defence communications, energy, cryptography, satellite and space technologies and many more. But in the fast-moving modern world that we live in, it will also be important for the investment security unit to look actively at seemingly innocent technologies and systems, which in the wrong hands could bring our society to a grinding standstill. Others have mentioned the national grid: if that could be disabled by the simple means of remote instructions, the whole of the country’s electricity supplies could be turned off. Just think of how difficult that would be!

Keeping sovereign control over the methods of controlling something like the national grid is crucial. I presume and hope that the investment security unit will spend some time looking out for non-obvious threats. Having once been an intelligence officer, I know that trying to identify the threat, the signals that identify what is about to happen, is really difficult because they are embedded in a plethora of noise. But this investment security unit will have to try.

I am pleased that the Bill extends the current screening powers to allow the Secretary of State to investigate the acquisition of sensitive assets in intellectual property as well as the straightforward acquisition of companies. In short, I support the Bill and I am pleased that it has at last reached this stage.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). I join my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) and others in thanking the Bill Committee, the Clerks and others who supported us so well—including the expert witnesses from whom we got to hear during that fortnight. I had not sat through Second Reading, but we had a particularly enlightening series of sessions.

I wish to speak to new clauses 5, 6 and 7, which I will be supporting, along with the Bill.  I emphasise how strongly colleagues and I feel about how important national security is, and how much Labour prioritises it. That is why we welcome the Bill, following, as it does, unfortunately, the leadership of states such as the United States, Germany and the EU; perhaps we are just that much behind the curve. I am sorry to say that it is clear that the Government failed to recognise the clear and present danger of the commercial strategy of other powers. Although I very much support the Bill, as it introduces the greater powers for Government to intervene when corporate transactions threaten our national security, it is late, perhaps even a decade or more late.

As so many have said, national security has traditionally been viewed quite narrowly. Perhaps we have had the light touch of economically liberal Governments welcoming investment when in fact those acquisitions are aimed at reducing the competition, improving margins and protecting domestic interests. Also we have seen the purpose being to asset-strip those businesses of their intellectual property, often at considerable cost to the UK in terms of our knowledge base and expertise, but with the risk of seriously damaging our supply chains and having the consequent economic impact. Often this results in those businesses moving overseas. So overall, although the Government’s proposal brings the UK in line with other countries on national security, there is the need for greater powers on mergers and acquisitions, particularly in respect of what may be deemed to be beyond security but actually in the national interest, as in the US and France, where they have the powers to block takeovers of companies deemed strategic or that have major implications for national interests.

I am afraid that the past 10 years show that consecutive Conservative and coalition Governments have been persistently slow and muted in intervening to protect national security in a series of cases: Huawei and 5G has been cited frequently this afternoon: Pfizer and AstraZeneca—the proposal of course failed, but we can only imagine what would have happened to the cost of vaccines had those two companies merged and had we been reliant on one major player; Google and DeepMind; and now Nvidia and Arm technologies. Among a great many others, we have also had the takeover of GKN by Melrose and the acquisition of Cobham aviation. They are now owned by businesses based in a friendly state, which is okay and acceptable, but it is questionable how we are prepared to let some of these important businesses—important leaders in technologies—be disposed of, with the assets, the research and the intellectual properties of those businesses moved offshore, to elsewhere.

New clause 5 seeks to define national security. Interestingly, the right hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), the former Secretary of State, has stated that the Government had a very narrow interpretation of national security. It was surprising what came to light in the Bill Committee, where we heard that, as I understand it, in drawing up this legislation the Government had failed to engage with the Intelligence and Security Committee in the first instance. That was a shortcoming. The evidence sessions proved more than enlightening, particularly when we were hearing from some of the expert witnesses. Some of what we heard was deeply disturbing. The words spoken by Charles Parton of the Royal United Services Institute were some of the most alarming of all. He said:

“we should not underestimate the degree to which Xi Jinping and the Communist party intend, as Xi said to the first politburo meeting, to get the upper hand against western democracies… When you add that to his policy of civil-military fusion—using civil in the military context—and the fact that he has set up a party organisation specifically to push that forward, and the change in investment policy away from things such as property, football clubs and other things, very much towards benefitting China and its technology, we have to be a lot more careful than we have been in the past.”

I think he said that, perhaps deliberately, with extraordinary understatement. Perhaps most alarmingly, he added:

“I am not aware of a really good assessment of just how much technology has been bought, the targets and so on. Maybe the Government have one—I don’t know—but I do not think that they do.”

––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 6, Q2.]

Perhaps that is something that the Minister could answer when he sums up.

National Security and Investment Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Matt Western Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 11th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 10th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. I remind her that the legislation requires the Secretary of State to act in a quasi-judicial way, not as a political figure. I appreciate that by a normal reading, “appears” may appear unduly casual, but that is merely a question of the form of legislative drafting, which is consistent, I remind her, with previous relevant legislation.

In addition, I reassure the hon. Lady that the principles of public law apply in any case. The Secretary of State therefore needs to act reasonably in fulfilling his functions under the Bill. That includes having a reasonable basis, supported by sufficient evidence, for coming to the conclusion that a person appears to be an overseas public authority prior to disclosing information. I hope I have provided the Committee with sufficient reassurances, and I therefore hope that the Opposition will withdraw the amendment.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I just want clarification from the Minister on the point of that being semi-judicial.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Quasi-judicial.

[Matt Western]

Quasi-judicial; sorry. How does that square with the responsibilities of the Minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy?

[Nadhim Zahawi]

It is not a strange concept that a Minister acts in a quasi-judicial way in making such decisions.

I will now briefly turn to clause 55, which makes provision for specific restrictions in respect of information received under clause 54 from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. For the regime to function effectively, the Secretary of State needs access to the right information at the right time in order to make decisions with the fullest range of evidence available. One such source of information that might be invaluable to the Secretary of State is HMRC. Although the Government expect that the Secretary of State would seek first to secure the information he needs from the parties, it is important that such information can also be provided from elsewhere in Government, if it is held there.

Clause 55 provides that where information is received by the Secretary of State from HMRC or an onward recipient pursuant to clause 54, it may not be used for purposes other than the Secretary of State’s function under the Bill, and nor may it be further disclosed without HMRC’s consent. Clause 35 provides that disclosing information in contravention of clause 55(1) is an offence, as is appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

Even though the Minister has worked well with the CMA, as he has just said, and is assured that the relationship will work well, he has put it into legislation just to make sure that it does.

[Matt Western]

My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test has stolen my thunder—had I known that he was going to stand up, I perhaps would not have done so. It is interesting that paragraph (a) says “must” but paragraph (b) says “may”. Another valid point, beyond the semantics, is about the substance and the resource of the CMA, and whether there should be provision for that in the Bill. Can the Minister comment on the capacity of the CMA to support the demands and obligations set out in the clause?

[Chi Onwurah]

I will say a few words to the clause—reflecting the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, in particular—because there seems to be a theme in the Bill. I know that the Minister believes that the Bill is beyond improvement, and that he is reluctant even to contemplate any changes, as he said in response to the hon. Member for Glenrothes, but he must recognise that a consistent theme seems to be that requirements, or “musts”, are placed on others and the discretion—the “may”, if you like—is with the Business Secretary. The Minister himself observed that we are keen to allow the Business Secretary the necessary discretion to fully protect our national security, but does he see not that that would better achieved by clearly circumscribing the Business Secretary’s actions?

I also support my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington in his recent contribution. Throughout this Bill, we need to ensure that the resources are there when placing requirements on bodies. I hope that the Minister can give such reassurances. On that basis, we recognise that the clause should stand part.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 56 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 57

Data Protection

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

National Security and Investment Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Matt Western Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 10th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Sam Tarry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Those are valid points, and part of what we are driving at here is to be more prescriptive. The feeling is that we essentially need to allow the loops in the net to be closed enough such that we catch some of these companies. We do not want a situation where a number of companies have portions of them being owned by, for example, China or another country, and do not fall foul of any of the provisions currently in the Bill. In time, that could mean that countries and entities that were hostile to Britain’s strategic goals ended up having quick and strategic access to things around nanotechnology, agriculture and a range of other areas where they had essentially got their hands into something that I think should be protected far more closely by the UK.

To give an example, in the US—this is already under way—a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm backed by the Chinese Government had dozens of US start-ups in its portfolio. On 15 November 2020, the Office of the US Trade Representative said that 151 venture capital investments in US start-ups had featured at least one Chinese investor—up from 20 in 2010. We are not saying we do not want Chinese investment, but what we do not want is a situation where we are unable to have a grip when we find that loads of our technology companies —our most cutting-edge firms—are essentially all part-owned by the Chinese Communist party or one of its subsidiaries. That is why we have been more prescriptive in many parts of the new clause.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making some important points. One of the striking things about, for example, Canyon Capital Advisors is how the US authorities intervened when it was looking to take over a particular US tech company. However, when it came to Imagination Technologies, of course, the UK Government did not.

[Sam Tarry]

That is exactly the kind of example on which we are trying to use the new clause to provide more clarity and give more force to the Bill so it can deal with these sorts of thing. If, for example, public investment by Chinese venture capital groups in western countries—whether it be this country or others—is visible but is actually just the tip of the iceberg, that is going to be a real problem. One lesson that Richard Dearlove described clearly to the Committee was that we need to take a longer medium-term view that goes beyond just being the most free-market and economically attractive investment prospect, particularly given the rise of those geopolitical challenges. The Chinese are being explicit about what their goals are. They do not want to build Britain up; they want to take us for as much as they can get. This is about protecting ourselves and ensuring that those smaller things, which may just be going on under the net and may not hit some of the parts on mandatory notices, not the big headline-grabbing things, could be looked at.

I agree with an earlier comment made by the hon. Member for Glenrothes that one problem is that, while we need regular advice from intelligence services and of course it needs to come through to the Secretary of State, having a regularised timeframe in which we know that those things will get full scrutiny is incredibly important. Parliamentarians and the public will want to see if there are any patterns developing in types of investments and the way those investment vehicles are used to buy into some of the most advanced British technology companies.

This new clause does not require the Secretary of State to publish a list of countries; it simply requires that the Secretary of State, working with the agencies, maintains a list of state-driven risks, which feed into national security risks. Our drive, as the Opposition, is our concern that the Minister does not recognise the state-based nature of those major security threats.

If this new clause is accepted, it would provide those guarantees and the extra ability to bring together the agencies that would be able to compile that list of state-driven risks, which can then inform decisions. In that context, it is vital that the country is assured of the Government’s ability to act on intelligence and expertise in protecting British security against hostile actors.

National Security and Investment Bill (Tenth sitting)

Matt Western Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

I genuinely thank the Minister for the clarification that equity investments will be included in this bit of the Bill.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

We are focusing greatly on small and medium-sized businesses, but this can also happen to slightly larger organisations, which might be outside the commonly used definition of an SME. When a larger business is distressed because it has lost a major customer and finds itself in financial difficulty, it needs that cash injection, so that sort of assurance is important.

[Chi Onwurah]

As always, my hon. Friend makes a really important point, and one that I had not thought of. The point about this being applicable to medium-sized businesses is absolutely right. In some ways, medium-sized businesses can often be at a critical point; cash flow is so important, and they could suddenly become very distressed, but with the right cash flow or the right injection of capital, they could expand greatly.

Will the Minister consider this? During the pandemic, when certain innovations have become incredibly important, and cash and support are needed to significantly increase the volume of production—of a vaccine, shall we say, with which the Minister is intimately concerned—a delay of 30, 70 or whatever days will create a huge problem for a medium-sized or growing business, as well as for small businesses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for that, which brings me to the point that I wanted to make in response to him. I discerned that that seemed to be his point—that the Bill may cause harm to companies, but that rather than seeking redress under the Bill, or this clause in particular, they should seek redress or some kind of compensation through the well-oiled machinery of Government that provides support for small and growing businesses. I am afraid that that response will be met with undiluted cynicism among the many small and medium-sized businesses that have dealt with Government.

Again, we are talking about a fast-moving situation. Perhaps the Minister will provide examples of where, on such timescales, support has been provided. More importantly, if that is a consequence of the Bill, why would it not be addressed in the Bill, especially as we have a clause that seeks to address this issue in the case of notices of final order. I gave the example of OneWeb satellites, which was a major investment that took some time to come about, and we were not clear whether it was a strategic asset or national security. Clarity is critical.

[Matt Western]

This is important. I take on board exactly what the Minister is saying, but I am sure he can assure me on this. To give one specific example, Imagination Technologies is a fantastic company, which lost its major customer, which was Apple. Chinese-backed investment—private equity—then came in. The US refused the company the chance to buy into a US business in 2017. I would love to think that whoever was in BEIS in 2017 looked at it closely and offered support. This might be beyond our remit, but it is important that such businesses are reached out to. Will someone in the Minister’s team confirm that the Government tried to support Imagination Technologies?

[Chi Onwurah]

I very much hope that the Minister or his Department will respond to that. My hon. Friend gave an example of an innovative company in need of support from the Department. Presumably it was similar to the cases we are discussing now, and that support was offered. If confirmation is not forthcoming, we should perhaps look for it via a parliamentary question, which might help us.

I want to say one word about amendment 28, which seeks to ensure that the term of the reporting does not undermine what is reported or its effectiveness. The Minister said that if the £100 million barrier was crossed, another report would have to be made on any further expenditure. However, the amendment concerns a small amount of expenditure in a given period, followed by a larger amount, and whether the periods in which the expenditure was made might mean that a report did not have to be made. The Minister also did not address the question of why £100 million was the right threshold for making a report. On that basis, I wish to press the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made.