Naz Shah
Main Page: Naz Shah (Labour - Bradford West)Department Debates - View all Naz Shah's debates with the HM Treasury
Local Government: Ethical Procurement
Naz Shah Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)
It is lovely to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Streeter. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden).
Spending is inherently political, as we can see when we think about the Chancellor, and austerity and its effect on communities. Watering down and limiting the impact of local democracy because of disagreement about Government policy is wrong. Only this week a constituent came to see me about divesting from the West Yorkshire pension fund. I will take that up on behalf of my constituent, and it is only fair that councils make their decisions ethically.
If we are to have a nanny state that tells councils where they can and cannot invest, where will the line be drawn for procurement? I am disheartened, because Conservative Members are trying to skew the debate and turn it into an anti-Israel debate. BDS is about upholding international law. Nobody in the House is saying we should boycott Israel; what we are saying is that councils and people should have a legitimate right to make decisions on procurement.
I will not be on the wrong side of history in this House. It was a shameful patch in our history when this House voted against sanctions on South Africa. That is not how I want to go down in history. I feel that we are moving towards governing in the shadows, with people making bigger and bigger decisions without bringing them to the House and without due democratic process. A smaller and smaller group of people is making decisions that affect bigger and bigger issues. That is surely not acceptable to the House.
To raise the matter of international law again, in 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that all states have an obligation not to provide aid to Israeli violations of international law. The question is international law, not boycotts. I feel very disheartened that Conservative Members are trying to stifle debate by bringing up the issue of anti-Semitism, and that narrative is playing out while we are trying to have an honest conversation. That is all it is about. In local procurement, should we not go green or buy fair trade? We need to stop what is happening at some point, and here is where it must stop. We cannot endorse the change, and we cannot carry on with it. I certainly will not vote for it.