National Security and Investment Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 17th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood), who is my dad’s Member of Parliament. Considering the number of Conservative MPs who are self-isolating, I am glad to see Minister in his place. May I take this opportunity to wish good health to the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), who is also self-isolating?

I welcome this Bill and I am glad that the Government are at last addressing the important issue of protecting important assets when foreign acquisitions threaten national security. However, I fear that they have dragged their feet on this matter and that that has led to paralysis rather than strategic planning in several sectors, most notably civil nuclear power.

In 2016, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), delayed approval of Hinkley Point C because of fears of the potential for a controlling influence by the Chinese state firm China General Nuclear Power Group. While approval was subsequently granted, that illustrates the governmental hesitation that has beset this vital industry—an industry that depends on long-term certainties—for years now.

It has taken more than four years for the Government to bring forward the proposals in the Bill to allay those fears. In that time, the nuclear sector, which offers both reliable low-carbon energy and high-skilled, well-paid, unionised jobs, has suffered paralysis. Our fleet of nuclear power stations is ageing and needs renewing. The Government promised an energy White Paper in summer 2019, which has been delayed and delayed ever since. In that time, we have seen Hitachi withdraw from its planned investment in a nuclear plant at Wylfa because of the Government’s hesitation in agreeing a funding agreement. The whole sector, and thousands of people in quality jobs, including almost 4,500 civil nuclear workers in my constituency, are still waiting to hear a clear plan and direction from the Government. We must not lose those jobs, and the planet cannot afford stalling over this green energy sector.

We know that part of the reason for the delay has been fear of foreign influence in our strategic assets. Dozens of Conservative MPs have even formed an internal lobbying faction called the China Research Group to focus on the threats that they perceive from China. That led to the banning of Huawei from our 5G network back in July. That makes it all the more extraordinary that it has taken so long for the Bill to be brought forward. Labour has called consistently for tougher powers on takeovers since 2012. I hope that now this legislation is finally here, the Government will have no more excuses not to act to give the assurances and firm grounding that nuclear firms reasonably request.

Alongside the Bill, I look forward to early publication of an energy White Paper that lays out the groundwork for nuclear energy that is environmentally and economically secure, and where the UK’s national interest and national security are protected.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that the fact that 57 items of our critical national infrastructure—including, of course, nuclear, but also other energy and airports—are reliant on Chinese supply chains demonstrates the abject failure of this Government to bring forward a proper industrial strategy?

[Charlotte Nichols]

I agree that, given the national security risks posed by actions being taken by the Chinese state, including what our military refers to as sub-threshold activity, we should, as a nation, make sure that we have a Bill that ensures that our national security is protected from the Chinese state and anyone else, anywhere in the world, who seeks to damage our national security.

Developing a robust takeover regime is essential if we want firms in our key sectors to grow and provide good jobs here in the UK, and this Bill is a key part of that. I worry, though, that it misses the opportunity to go much further in strengthening powers that prevent damage to the UK’s national economic interest, as well as our national security, as in the case I have outlined. I therefore hope that the Government will consider amendments in Committee to widen the scope of what constitutes national security.

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[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

It is such a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), and I genuinely hope that your naughty finger will not be pointing towards me at any point in my remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker.

We on the Opposition Benches will not oppose the Bill, because it is a step in the right direction. It is good to see the Government finally recognising the need to put national security at the heart of how we deal with foreign investment. However, the Bill fails to address the broader issue of how takeovers and acquisitions should be regulated to promote our broader national and economic interests and, indeed, the interests of British workers and their families across the length and breadth of our country. In that sense, it draws a false distinction between national security and economic security, because it is absolutely clear that the two are intrinsically linked.

In order to properly reflect on the effectiveness of this legislation, we therefore need to go back to first principles and ask ourselves this single basic question: what is the economy actually for? It is only by reaching consensus on that fundamental point that we shall be in a position to assess the extent to which the Bill will make a positive contribution to the lives and livelihoods of our constituents.

The British economy is unbalanced, it is unstable and it is therefore profoundly lacking in resilience. It is too reliant on the financial services sector at the expense of manufacturing—our manufacturing sector has collapsed since the 1970s from 30% of GDP then to just 9% now. It is too London-centric, thus failing to harness the talents of so many people from other areas of our country; it is too inward-looking, with persistent trade deficits; it is too unequal, pushing the proceeds of growth to the wealthiest 1%, and it is too short-sighted, constantly aiming for the fast buck rather than long-term, sustainable prosperity driven by patient capital.

Every piece of legislation that is brought forward by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy should be relentlessly focused on fixing those faulty foundations of our economy—those fundamental weaknesses—and every step that the Business Secretary takes should be a step towards an active industrial strategy that is designed to drive a modern manufacturing renaissance. He should be focused on home-grown industry, home-grown investment and home-grown technology. Those critical steps will help to build that sense of purpose and resilience into the UK economy that we are so desperately missing.

The culture of the UK’s corporations is also in urgent need of change. The prevailing business strategies are driven by short-termism, with the delivery of fast buck profits to shareholders taking precedence over all other considerations. Addressing that will require a new deal between shareholders, companies and their workforces, and between the public and private sectors. Far too many of the corporations listed in the FTSE 500 are characterised by a transactional, rootless form of ownership, which militates against the investment in R&D, innovation, skills development, new technology, plant and machinery that is desperately needed if we are to put our economy on to a more balanced and sustainable footing.

The Government’s laissez-faire approach makes a major contribution to this short-termist culture, because it opens the door to acquisitions by foreign companies, resulting in the UK’s having by far the highest number of successful hostile takeover bids of any advanced economy in the world. Time after time since 2010 we have seen our strategic national assets being flogged off to the highest bidder. Let us just look at the case of Arm, a jewel in the crown of the British tech industry, which is in the process of being sold to Nvidia, or Cadbury’s, an iconic British brand, sold to Kraft without any proper consideration of what that would mean for the long-term sustainability of the business.

Moreover, our sovereign capability is profoundly undermined by the fact that much of our critical infrastructure is not in our own hands. In fact, 57 of our critical national infrastructure supply chains depend on China, from our energy suppliers to our airports, our pharmaceuticals and our personal protective equipment. The repercussions of that overexposure have been felt during the pandemic. Our lack of capacity to produce PPE has cost the UK taxpayer an eye-watering amount of money; a breaking story today shows that a Spanish businessman has pocketed £21 million of British taxpayers’ money simply for acting as a broker between the Government and overseas suppliers—a potent symbol of systemic failure.

Let me be clear that many of these so-called private takeovers and infrastructure investments are carried out by companies and investment vehicles that are a front for authoritarian state actors who have wider political and national security agendas and whose values are at odds with our commitment to democracy, liberty and the rule of law.

The crucial point here is that our values should not be for sale.

The most obvious and pressing case, of course, is the Chinese Government, who are relentlessly expanding their influence economically, politically and militarily. We need only recall the case of Imagination Technologies, which was recently the target of a hostile takeover attempt by an investment vehicle with direct links to the Chinese state. Of course, there are also substantial Chinese stakes in Hinkley Point and other sizeable chunks of our critical national infrastructure.

Successive Conservative Governments since 2010 have been naive and complacent in their approach to China, exemplified by David Cameron and George Osborne’s disastrous “golden era” strategy. It is time for this Government, this House and, indeed, the entire country to wake up to the reality of these matters and to come to the realisation that, while we must always seek constructive engagement with China, we must take a clear-sighted, hard-headed approach to defending our national interest and our sovereign capability.

I also take this opportunity to raise another more specific way in which the Government’s lethargic tendencies have proved costly to British business and weakened the economy as a result. The Government have been naive about the deliberate attempts to weaken UK businesses through market distortion by the undermining of competition laws. The most obvious example of that is the deliberate over-production of steel way beyond global demand and the subsequent illegal dumping of that steel on European markets.

The result of those illegal uncompetitive practices combined with Conservative inertia has been the weakening of UK steel companies and the opportunity for foreign investors, many of whom come from countries that are the origin of the dumping in the first place, to buy up our strategically and nationally important asset. Some 80% of China’s steel industry is state owned, and the key point is that the illegal dumping of products from those state-owned industries into European markets is an example of the practices that are undermining the international rules-based order.

That in turn has a damaging and direct impact on our industrial base and on our communities and their families—the workforces that are directly impacted. It is a perfect example of how the global is truly local. We need a level playing field, and this legislation should be about—this is everything that the BEIS Department should be about—developing that level playing field so that our workforce is not competing with one hand tied behind its back against a system that is rigged against it from the word go.

This Bill is a big missed opportunity to strengthen the UK’s wider industrial strategy and for the Government to show that they are committed to building an economy of purpose and resilience. Moreover, it fails to reflect the impact of coronavirus on UK businesses and the increased vulnerability in the face of vulture capitalists and state-backed actors that are waiting to pounce. This legislation only really seeks to protect the UK’s national security and appears to do little to support the UK’s wider national interest, such as the need to protect jobs and support communities in this time of national emergency.

Focusing on the all-too-narrow scope of the Bill, I also have genuine concerns about the process for arriving at a decision on whether to block a takeover. Currently, the plan is that the process sits firmly within BEIS. That is an issue, first, because such a decision would have huge cross-departmental impact, so it would surely be better to create a multi-agency taskforce to rule on key decisions. Such a taskforce would include the Treasury, the Home Office, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the intelligence and security services, and the Ministry of Defence. It could follow a similar model to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. All the signs were that BEIS was a cheerleader for the Huawei deal, when it was clearly against our national interest to go ahead with that deal. That does not augur well for its ability to police the effective implementation of the Bill.

Secondly, handing all the decision-making power to the Business Secretary could lead to problems further down the line, should a future incumbent—I am in no way implying that such a fate would befall the current Business Secretary—be influenced by political or commercial interests in this country or overseas.

[Sir John Hayes]

I had not intended to intervene again in the debate, except that I want to emphasise, and perhaps amplify, the point that the hon. Gentleman has just made. The legislation brings us into line with other Five Eyes players—the intelligence community with which we work directly—but he is right to say that the mechanisms that they use are different, in some cases, from the ones employed in the Bill in exactly the way he describes. Will the Minister look at those mechanisms and see what more we can learn from them as the Bill is improved during its passage through the House?

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[Stephen Kinnock]

The right hon. Member has pointed to the fact that it is such a broad, cross-departmental issue that it requires more than just one pair of eyes—if he will excuse the pun—to look at it.

Time and again, we have seen that the takeover regime is not fit for purpose. It is welcome that we are finally coming into line with other countries on national security, but we are still behind on takeovers that would harm the national interest more broadly. Protecting our national security is only one element of protecting, nurturing and developing the vital sectors of the future that we know are crucial for our economy.

Given the economic dislocation and potential corporate vulnerability caused by coronavirus, the case for action is stronger than ever. I will support the Bill, but we need to see improvements and further regulation to protect British business and the broader national interest.

National Security and Investment Bill (First sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to you, Mr Parton. I do not want to hog the floor, as I am sure many colleagues want to ask questions. Thank you very much.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I do not know whether you can see me, Charlie, but I am here. I am sitting at the back due to social distancing, but it is good to see you.

Going back to your point about resourcing the investment security unit, can you give a bit more detail about what would be an ideal outcome from your point of view? Would it be that we need specificity in the Bill that key representatives and experts of the intelligence services, of the Ministry of Defence, of the diplomatic corps and of other agencies be formally named in the legislation, so we would have that reassurance that the body doing the screening had all the necessary breadth across the spectrum of both the economy and national security?

Charles Parton: That is a good question; it is not necessarily for me and I do not necessarily have the experience to lay down precisely how it works. For me, I think, first, that all those organisations you have mentioned—although others also on the economic side, such as the Treasury and BEIS—perhaps should be there to set the parameters of what needs to be referred. I think that, as a sort of preliminary filter, one would hope that there was an ability for most companies, and most universities as well, very quickly to put forward the deals or the pieces of work that they felt might be coming up against the parameters set by such a Government body.

For a quick decision, is the topic one that is suitable, or does it need a little more investigation? Should we be working with this organisation, or in some cases this particular Chinese academic or company, which may have links to the military or to the repressive regime? The experts, as it were, which means the SAGE-type committee, surely should be very quickly—companies and academics need to move quite quickly—making a preliminary estimation of whether this needs to be referred upwards to a Government Committee that wants to look at it in more detail.

I do agree with you that the range of interests needs to be representative if the decision is to be perceived by all sides as acceptable when it is eventually made.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thanks very much; that is very helpful. On this point about making sure that we have the most effective and streamlined system in place, one of the areas where the Bill diverges from legislation in similar jurisdictions, such as Germany and Japan, is that it does not contain a definition of national security as such.

In the Japanese and German cases, they refer to national security including concepts of public order. I refer in particular to your comments about organisations out there in the marketplace, whether they are universities or businesses, needing to have clarity to know what needs to be referred and what does not. They need to know where the amber or red light is flashing, and where it is clearly a green light and not an issue. Would that be aided and facilitated if the Bill contained a definition of national security?

Charles Parton: It is a bit like defining terrorism. It is really quite difficult to be all encompassing. Sometimes, I am in sympathy with the Chinese legislation that adds at the bottom “and other offences” or “and other things”. I think it is quite difficult, even if people are convinced that they can effectively define that. It is not only national security; there is a question whether you are aiding crimes against humanity or the genocide that is going on in Xinjiang. I am using loaded terms there, but I think they are justified. There must be some mechanism for ensuring that those, too, are brought to bear, but I am not expert enough in legislation to be able to say, “Yes, we need a watertight definition of ‘national security’.”

Certainly, the Bill must convey to companies and academics the need to clear a range of topics. That will not be specific, but, at best, they must be encouraged to consult almost as a default, so that they are not caught out. The other question is, what happens if they don’t? What sort of sanctions are they under if they do not consult, when it is clearly something they should consult on, for reasons either of security or of repression and crimes against humanity?

[The Chair]

Thank you very much. I now call Andrew Griffith.

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[The Chair]

This will probably be the last question, from Stephen Kinnock.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thank you very much, Chair, for giving me another bite at the cherry. Mr Parton, as a final point, I thought it might be useful to remind the Committee of the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the Chinese Communist party and the Chinese business community. Based on your extensive experience in China, could you briefly outline how the Chinese Communist party in essence runs the business community; the role that it plays in ensuring executives are appointed who are sympathetic to the party; and the whole way in which the nomenklatura works? That will help us to understand the extent to which Chinese business interests in this country are, in essence, the same as the interests of the Chinese Communist party.

Charles Parton: That is a very good question.

[Chi Onwurah]

Could I just add to that? That is an excellent point, but could you also say a little bit on how China responds to proposed takeovers that might implicate its national security, if those takeovers are allowed? How does it respond to that investment into its companies?

Charles Parton: Those are both good points. First of all, divide it into the state-owned sector and the private sector. In terms of the state-owned sector, the top executives of the big state-owned companies are appointed by the central organisation department of the party. That is the organisation that is, as Mr Kinnock has said, in charge of the nomenklatura: the top 3,000 to 4,000 party officials. Of course, a lot of state-owned companies are also owned at the provincial and lower levels, and there, too, the top executives are party members and beholden to the party. Let us not forget that most foreign investment by the Chinese is state owned, so it is not just a fair bet but a fair certainty that any state-owned enterprise investing is fully politically controlled.

When it comes to the private sector, Huawei has spent a large amount of its time insisting that it is a private company—I really do not care. And I do not really care that the national security law says that any individual or organisation must help the party or security organs when called upon. The brute fact is that, in the way the system is run in China, if the party tells you to do something, the only response from private business to an order is to say, “Certainly, Sir. How high do you want me to jump?” so this debate is entirely irrelevant. The party is now pushing committees into all private enterprises—foreign and local—and it would be a very unwise head of a private company who said, “No, Mr Xi Jinping. I don’t think so.” If nothing else has been shown by what has happened with Jack Ma, China’s second-richest person, and the Ant Group finance company in the last few weeks—there are, of course, financial risk reasons they might want to control Jack Ma’s Ant Group—it is, “Sorry, you are beholden to the Communist party.” That was a very fierce reminder of it.

In terms of this debate, I do not think we should be under any illusion that if a party says to a company about its technology or whatever, “Well okay, it’s all very well that you’ve got that, but we want it fed into our People’s Liberation Army organisations and science and technology system,” no company is going to say, “Oh no, that’s not right. We won’t do that.” For instance, when Huawei says, “If we were asked to do something against our commitments, in terms of what we do abroad, that would threaten security, we would not do that,” it is rubbish. They know that.

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[James Wild]

Q In the Bill, there are 17 sectors listed where mandatory notifications are required. They include transport and communications, as in some of the points that Mr Western was raising. Should others be added to that?

Also, do you think that although we need to look at the Bill as to what it does, we should also recognise that it does not solve all the problems and threats from hostile states—that the intelligence activity and other things we do to raise the cost of theft of IP need to be seen holistically across the piece, and that the Bill cannot solve all the problems?

Sir Richard Dearlove: The Bill is a step in the right direction. What is important about the Bill is that it raises parliamentary and public awareness of the issue. Everybody takes a big step forward in being sensitised to the problems in the future.

To be honest, I do not have any suggestions right now to add to the list, but I might look at that and see whether there are certain areas. For me, the Bill is almost a symbolic move—one that is long overdue and signals a change in attitude at Westminster and on the part of this and future Governments. It is a very healthy, pleasing and important development.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thank you very much, Sir Richard, for the evidence that you have given us today. The Intelligence and Security Committee defines critical national infrastructure as

“certain ‘critical’ elements of infrastructure, the loss or compromise of which would have a major, detrimental impact on the availability or integrity of essential services, leading to severe economic or social consequences or to loss of life.”

Would the Bill benefit from having that definition of critical national infrastructure embedded in the middle? Linked to that definition, should special measures be taken to raise our guard even higher when it comes to any kind of investment in our critical national infrastructure?

Sir Richard Dearlove: I would certainly see that as advantageous, because it defines a clear area where you start and from which you can make judgments about the involvement of foreign firms being given space or activity in those areas. That is not a bad idea at all, actually.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I know time is short, so thank you.

[Simon Baynes]

Q Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Sir Richard. When and why did we let down our guard to China and where would you restrict its access? You made that comment in your statement, and you have commented already on areas such as nuclear power. Can you add to that to give us a bit more of an idea of other strategic areas where you think we should restrict its access?

Sir Richard Dearlove: I think we were over-enthusiastic about becoming a favoured trading partner with China. I am not going to name names, although I think I have done in one or two instances where, let us say, certain Ministers were incredibly enthusiastic and uncritical about building a commercial relationship with China. Part of that was driven politically, in that if we are going to not be a member of the EU, we need alternative relationships. I am not sure I would see it quite like that.

There has been a big emphasis on building a privileged position with China, which has led to people such as myself shouting from the sidelines and being pretty unpopular. For example, the 48 Group Club that the Chinese set up in the UK is extraordinary. They recruited a whole group of leading British business and political figures into that group who were designated cheerleaders for a burgeoning relationship with China. Huawei was an important part of that. The composition—the British membership of the Huawei board—was a very impressive line-up of people who were there to persuade us to drop our guard.

Anyway, I am glad that that is now largely history. A lot of the people who were involved are very keen to jump ship and be disentangled from those involvements. I am sure that, in time, the economic rewards that they were offered to go on to those boards and things were pretty significant. So the Chinese knew how to play us and that is why we got ourselves into this very difficult position on 5G.

Sorry, what was the second part of your question?

National Security and Investment Bill (Second sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Flynn]

Q Obviously, the consultation in relation to the 17 sectors, which was mentioned earlier by a colleague, is going to run beyond the end of the Bill—perhaps, I imagine, of its being implemented. The Government may well just get it through the House, but were that to happen the consultation would still be ongoing, so, again, I am sorry to try to pin you down on this, but do you think that would create a level of uncertainty that investors simply would not be comfortable with, and that they might well look elsewhere unless the Government were clear about having a system in place that makes things more flexible for business?

I am sorry to flip back again, but on smaller-scale early-stage ventures, we said this could be an issue, and again, I am sorry to pin you down: could it, or will it, be an issue? Where would you lean in that regard? Will we find that investors seek to go elsewhere with this a little bit more, where the timing is a little easier?

Michael Leiter: I think it will be an issue unless you are confident that small-scale, early-stage investors can have their transactions quickly reviewed within roughly 30 to 45 days. If it is longer than that, that will make the investment climate, I think, worse than other competing markets. I think that could have an impact.

On your first point, let’s face it, business always likes predictability, so you always want certainty, but deal makers have to understand risk and understand some uncertainty. That is inherent. I will say, it is not that the US has done this remotely perfectly. The US announced almost two years ago now that it was going to further define foundational and emerging technology that would then be subject to different levels of review under CFIUS. Here we are, almost two years later, and we still do not have that. The fact is that there has been uncertainty, and there will be uncertainty on your side as well. Having those definitions clarified as quickly as possible is good.

Do I think that a lack of clarity for three, four or five months about these sectors will suddenly stop investment in the UK? No. I don’t want to exaggerate it to that degree. You can try to pin me down, but the fact is this is all a matter of balancing, and there is no clear answer about when people will stop or start investing. More clarity is better. The faster there is clarity, the better, and to some extent, a lack of clarity will push people to look at other markets.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, and thank you very much, Mr Leiter, for your insightful evidence. I was wondering about the acquirer definitions, which are an important part of the equation, and the extent to which the legal structure and ownership base of the acquirer should play a role and, perhaps, be more clearly defined in the Bill, in terms, also, of what the triggers are for the screening process. If the acquirer is a state-owned enterprise or a state-backed investment vehicle, should that trigger a, for want of a better word, tougher or more robust screening process? If so, what might that look like in practice, and do other regimes contain that differentiation between a private sector acquirer and a state-backed acquirer?

Michael Leiter: Thank you for the question. The answer is that many regimes do draw such a distinction, which is generally a good thing, but there is an exception to that as well. This is important on two points, one of which I have already raised so I will not belabour. Understanding the ownership structure of private equity to understand how the Bill will or will not handle limited partners who are managed by a general partner at a fund is very important. That is a significant amount of investment, and clarity on that point is critical.

In the United States, for example, foreign limited partners in US private equity are fundamentally, overall, not considered for CFIUS. For foreign private equity investing in the United States, foreign limited partners are considered. Again, that is broad brush, but that is fundamentally how it works. With respect to sovereign wealth funds or state-controlled investments, there is a perfectly good argument that yes, the standard of review might be a bit more rigorous. In the United States, the way that works is that if a foreign Government-controlled entity invests in what is known as a TID business—one that that deals with critical technology, critical infrastructure or sensitive data—in the United States, and if they own more than 25% equity, that is a mandatory filing. So, it is increasing the likelihood of a mandatory filing if you are controlled by a partner.

Using such a standard makes sense. Right now, I do not believe the Bill provides many opportunities for that. You are already saying that, in the 17 sectors, all will be mandatory and there is no de minimis threshold. From that perspective, whether you are a sovereign wealth fund or not, it will be mandatory in a large scale of matters. You could of course say, with a dollar threshold such as you have now, that in the voluntary sector, if it was a state-sponsored entity, that would also be mandatory. I think there is some sense to that, but I would move slowly on that because, as I have noted several times, you are going to have a relatively high number of mandatory filings in the first place.

There is a second important piece to this, though, about whether you actually want to change it for Government-controlled entities. That is, especially in the case of China, but other countries as well, the distinction between state controlled and not state controlled is becoming less and less. Again, in some western democracies, it is quite clear whether it is a state-controlled entity, but to the extent a foreign Government can influence a private sector actor, that distinction starts to fade away, at least partially. Under your regime, it is not clear to me, other than expanding some voluntary into mandatory, how that will apply, and I think, to some extent, the distinction is losing some of its fineness.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q I have a small follow-up question. The points that you have been making about private equity are very interesting. Large swathes of our social care system in this country, particularly residential care homes, are owned by private equity companies. Do you think it would have a material impact on the assessment of a private equity company if it was looking to invest in the social care sector, which one could argue is critical national infrastructure?

Michael Leiter: That raises two excellent points. First, yes, I think private equity is quite methodical about thinking of those restrictions. Whenever I deal with private equity in the Unites States, whether it is US private equity, foreign private equity or sovereign wealth funds, there is always a consideration of the way in which the business in which they are investing may be subject to a national security review and whether or not they will, even if approved, lose access to critical information, technology or other management control of the business in a way that would make it a less attractive option. From a US Government perspective, I think that is entirely appropriate; it is the entire purpose of the national security reviews.

It could affect the choices of private equity in the UK, but one still has to identify what the national security risk would be—and not just what the national security risk might be, but the extent to which, if the investment was allowed, the Government could still put in place restrictions that would eliminate or mitigate that national security risk. That leads me to make two very quick points.

First, there has been much commentary about defining what national security means. I would not welcome to go down that path; frankly, I think it is a bit of a fool’s errand. The Government will define national security as they may. Certainly, they should not overreach in extreme ways, but this is not one that I think legislative language is well tuned to trying to capture. That is not to say that it should not be limited in practice, but trying to capture it in legislative language is, I think, exceedingly hard. Again, it changes over time, depending on technology, access to data and other factors. One can imagine certain things that, before covid, we never would have considered to be issues of national security, but that are today. Capturing language for that is quite challenging.

The second piece is making sure that you have a good regime. We have been talking so much about screening, punishment and what falls into the bucket of review. There has been much less discussion here, and there is much less discussion in the law, about what mitigation and rules and enforcement there will be. If you permit a foreign investor to invest in one of these sectors and you put in place certain protections to protect British national security, how will you actually make sure that that occurs? It is wonderful to have these rules, but unless you actually have the regime and follow these things and ensure that there is enforcement and monitoring of them, you will have spent an enormous amount of time and money but actually not protected national security, so I think we should not give short shrift—[Inaudible]—deal is closed and approved but still being monitored by the Government for the very national security risk we are trying to protect against.

[The Chair]

We have to end this session at half-past 3, so I think that this will be the last question and it will come from Simon Baynes.

National Security and Investment Bill (Third sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 26th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Nadhim Zahawi]

We lost you while you were talking about a “degree of unpredictability”, Lisa.

Lisa Wright: Okay. In my view, if you were to broaden the regime out from national security to take into account other considerations, that would introduce quite a degree of unpredictability and would, I think, potentially impact negatively on people’s assessment of the investment climate in the UK—I am sorry if I am repeating myself. However, my understanding is that the existing intervention regime will remain, so national security will come out of it, but the Government will still be able to intervene in transactions on other public interest grounds under the Enterprise Act. That regime has some limitations, but those powers will still be there.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q Thank you very much for the really excellent evidence you have already given us. I want to go back to what Mr Boney said about de minimis thresholds and whether you might look at introducing de minimis thresholds for particular areas, sectors or industries that I guess you would say are considered to be low risk from a security point of view and highly beneficial to the UK economy, which should therefore affect our thinking about how you might filter this whole process. But are there not other considerations on filtering as well? In essence, this is a risk management process and you have to identify the highest risks. Surely issues of critical national infrastructure would place a type of acquisition into the high-risk quadrant. If the acquirer is close to a state or Government—particularly a hostile Government—that would place it in the high-risk quadrant. Therefore, on having a more filtered process, is the de minimis threshold the right way to go, or would it not be better to have a strategic approach based on a hierarchy of risks?

Christian Boney: I think the de minimis concept is potentially relevant and helpful in the context of thinking about what needs to be subject to mandatory notification. If you are not within the mandatory notification regime, that does not mean that the Government cannot exercise the call-in power so long as the relevant tests in the legislation are satisfied; it just means that the relevant company does not have to make a notification. There are elements of the mandatory sectors where some form of de minimis has already been included. Energy is a good example of that, and that makes sense in the context of energy.

I think it is worth exploring whether, within any of the other sectors, where we are more likely to see start-up, early-stage companies operating, there is benefit in introducing some form of de minimis regime solely in respect of the mandatory notification requirement. As I say, if a small-scale company operating in critical artificial intelligence is receiving investment from somebody who we view as a hostile actor, that transaction might escape mandatory notification, but that does not mean it escapes voluntary call-in by the Government at the point they become aware of it. That is something that might be worth exploring.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Thanks very much. Does Ms Wright want to add anything?

Lisa Wright: No.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q I want to explore a bit further the issue of critical national infrastructure, which is defined by the Intelligence and Security Committee as the Government’s 13 sectors ranging from energy to transport infrastructure and anything that relates to public health. With covid, we have seen the massive importance of how we have been overexposed in certain supply chains, and that might have an effect on our thinking about critical national infrastructure. To what extent does that influence your work on mergers and acquisitions and your thinking about whether such mergers and acquisitions in areas of our critical national infrastructure are in the national interest?

Christian Boney: If I am following the question correctly, I think it is the correct balance to strike to say that people pursuing significant M and A activity involving the UK’s critical national infrastructure should expect to go through a notification process and should expect their transaction to be at potential risk of examination and call-in. From my experience, corporates undertaking transactions in the spheres of national infrastructure and so on expect that. It is what they see in other countries and jurisdictions, so it is something they come to accept as part of doing deals in top-tier democratic nations.

Lisa Wright: I agree with all that. I guess I would also add that people are well aware that these considerations change over time. This year has shown that more than ever. People have an eye on what might not have been an issue yesterday; today, it might be different. We saw the amendments coming through to the Enterprise Act earlier in the autumn to bring in the power to allow the Government to intervene on public health grounds. People are very conscious of the fact that this changes, and they keep an eye on it from that perspective.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Q Thank you both for your submissions this morning. I want to go further into the issue of how you, the Government or the agency it sets up to do this makes a judgment about whether a small or start-up company really falls within being a threat to national security. I imagine that that might be quite a difficult judgment to make. I am putting to one side the issue of mandatory notification, which Mr Kinnock has looked at in more detail. I am saying that once it has been notified, how do you make the judgment about whether it is a threat to national security?

I would have thought that there are two aspects to that. One is the nature of the acquirer, which is partly what you have already alluded to. The second part is that I would have thought that it is quite difficult to ascertain whether something at the cutting edge of technology is or is not a threat. I would have thought that that is a really difficult judgment to make in practice. Do you have any thoughts on that, and what experience do you have of other regimes trying to make that kind of judgment?

Lisa Wright: I think there are probably a number of ways to tackle that question. I guess that an answer is that it is ultimately a question for the Government. They are the ones who understand the threats and the intelligence. As advisers, we can look at the guidance and cases that have happened in the past, and we can speak to the unit, which, as we understand it, will be open for engagement and will welcome that. We can guide clients through the process, using the touch points and information that is available to us, but ultimately it is the Government that are in possession of the full set of facts and considerations that go into the decisions about whether that particular transaction is a problem or not. I guess what that speaks to is having the right people in the unit and getting them plugged into the right people elsewhere in Government to arm them with the ability to make these assessments.

Christian Boney: To pick up on that, I agree entirely with what Lisa said. It is not necessarily an easy thing for the advisory community or clients themselves to make a judgment about whether they are presenting risk to national security. That is why this concept of real-time, interactive engagement with the unit that is set up to police this regime is going to be so important.

In the world I operate in, one of the regulators we deal with is the Takeover Panel, which is fantastic at being responsive, with real-time engagement. It results in a dialogue and an interaction that helps advisers navigate their clients through a regime that is not straightforward at times. That is the kind of practice that could usefully be learned from in the context of the investment security unit, because that kind of real-time feedback and informal advice will be very helpful in helping companies make the judgment about which side of the line they fall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Q Professor, that was excellent and I am very grateful for it. I will follow on from that thought and ask about the proposed powers within the regime for the Secretary of State to gather that information, which, as you quite rightly remind us, is not necessarily secret but about understanding the technology, or a particular piece of the technology, within the sector. What are your thoughts on the regime for the Secretary of State to be able to gather that information to inform a decision or to call in witnesses, so that they are able to really understand that particular issue and therefore make a decision on it?

Professor Martin: I suppose the mantra, if I had one, would be, “Broad powers, sparingly used, with accountability mechanisms”. It is incredibly hard to be specific about this, for two reasons: one is that new areas of technology crop up, as they invariably do, and the other is that sweeping categorisations are needed on the face of legislation.

I am not a deep technical expert—although others are available from my former organisation—but if you take sweeping, umbrella titles like “quantum” or “artificial intelligence”, there are huge swathes of that where, actually, not a lot of these powers in the Bill will be used. There will be companies that will be doing very interesting things—10 interesting things—of which only one would be caught by this Bill.

If you take areas like specialist quantum computing and so forth, I think the community of interest and expertise is actually relatively small and has relatively good relations with Government—not least because, again, while it is not perfect, the whole system of research council funding and Government investment in funding technological research is pretty good, by international standards—so you end up knowing these people. One of the reasons that this sort of policy evolution came about, which has led to the publication of the Bill before you—I remember this from discussions within Government—is that people were volunteering to come to us. World-leading experts, people who had been funded by the Government—I will not go into individual cases because it is commercially sensitive and possibly security sensitive—would come to Government and say, “Look, we’ve had this inquiry from a Chinese behemoth,” or even, “We’ve had this inquiry from a US company,” and so forth: “What do you guys think about this?” and, invariably, we would have to have an informal influencing discussion.

I do not think that some of the businesses to which this will apply will be screaming that this is horrible Government regulation and intervention in areas where that should not be made. There was already a dialogue; there was just no legislative framework. Of course, that meant that companies that felt a loyalty to the UK and so forth but that also had to look after their commercial interests were sometimes in a real bind.

To try to answer your question, I think that the powers should be fairly broad. I think there should be accountability and transparency mechanisms, so that there is assurance that they are being fairly and sparingly applied.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q This is very interesting evidence. I want to ask you a little bit more about China. As you rightly pointed out, much of this is in the public domain, and the Made in China 2025 strategy is very clear about the objective, which is to achieve global technological dominance. Given your experience at the National Cyber Security Centre, can you share with us a little bit more about how that would manifest itself in practice? What do you see as China’s next moves, in terms of rewriting the rules on technology and on creating that dominant position that you have talked about? How do you see that manifesting itself?

Professor Martin: I think there are broadly two or three areas in which China is very interested in doing that. I can make some comments on motivations, because I think they are very important, and then I will finish with how that manifests itself in UK casework.

Clearly, China has set out a stall, which it published in Made in China 2025, in which it said it wants to be the world’s pre-eminent leader in a number of key areas of technology. It mentioned artificial intelligence and quantum, and it is throwing vast sums of state money and long-term strategies at them, unencumbered by the need to seek re-election and popular consent, so it is a very powerful movement. That is the first thing: it is trying to build up its capability.

China is also trying to change, at least for itself—we will come to that in a minute—the way the internet works. It was reported earlier this year that Huawei and other major companies in these international standards bodies are looking at something called new IP protocols, among many other things. To give you a sense of what the motivations behind that are, at the minute when traffic flows around the internet, despite some popular impressions to the contrary, it is actually pretty hard to work out what is going through it. Therefore, it is relatively difficult to censor, although China has managed it in some ways. The new IP protocol will make it much easier to work out what sort of traffic is going through and being rerouted, so it makes it much easier to control. China is trying to dominate and essentially get a lead in the strategic technology, and also to change the character and culture of the technological age from one that started off fairly anarchic to one that is much easier to control. That is what it is trying to do.

Why is China trying to do that? A lot of this is about the assertion of its own power for itself—the regime, power, Chinese nationalism and so forth. I think it does intend to extend its sphere of influence, but I have never seen that as the primary motivation. One of the interesting things, post the pushback from the Trump Administration and the US sanctions on Huawei, is the extent to which China will now accelerate its desire for self-sufficiency, and the extent to which that leads to a separate pole of technological influence that may become less interested in countries such as the UK, European Union countries and North America.

To date, how has that manifested itself in cases in the UK? Ms Onwurah has already mentioned the Huawei controversy. If you take Huawei as a company, I think it shows the different ways in which this can manifest. The Huawei 5G controversy is going to be dealt with by a Bill that I believe is coming to the House next week, not this one. The 5G controversy was not about investment; it was about selling to British companies to build stuff. Obviously, that case has been very heavily analysed.

I think that the more interesting case in the last 10 years involving Huawei was its acquisition in 2012 of the Centre for Integrated Photonics—a world-leading British firm in a really key area of technology. That, in my view, was pretty strategically damaging. If we had our time over again, that is the sort of thing that the Bill might well notify. I know you have taken evidence from the likes of Charles Parton and people with huge China expertise. The fact that the acquisition of the Centre for Integrated Photonics did down Britain’s technological development was probably a by-product. The point is that Huawei could buy world-leading research, which China could then take and appropriate for itself very cheaply. That is what it will continue to do to build up its own capabilities.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Given what you just said about the nature of the threat, how should that inform the composition of the investment security unit, which is going to be placed in BEIS and will be the primary locus for the screening of acquisitions? Would you say that it needs to have absolutely leading expertise in technology in the issues that you mentioned—quantum and so on? Should it also have China experts and people who speak Mandarin?

Professor Martin: One of the reasons that this is so difficult, as I said in my first answer to Ms Onwurah, is that I can think of at least three areas of expertise that the unit is going to need to draw on. Technological, yes, because of what technologies will matter. Geopolitical, yes, and I do not have a strong view on whether it needs Mandarin speakers because the UK has a strong and intelligent foreign service mission in country in China and all over the place that can provide input. But the third thing is actually quite a lot of commercial nous—patent laws and so forth.

This is where there is a distinction. This is not all about China. It is layered, and there will be things that we would not want to see going even to quite friendly countries. Arm is a case in point, with the concentration of power in a couple of US companies—particularly when one of them is derived from UK technology. That is not comparable as a strategic threat to Chinese dominance—I hope the Committee does not think I am saying that—but there are times when it would be a damaging foreclosure, if you like, of UK freedom of action and freedom of choice. We know that the US has a strong and sometimes aggressively used extraterritorial legal system in which it can use the power of US companies and block trading with US companies and so on, so we need people who understand those areas where we think, “We are not sure we would want that to leave the country at all” as well as people who understand Chinese. That involves a lot of expertise in things like patents, international law, US commercial law, sanctions and so on.

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

Q Professor Martin, I have been listening with interest—it has been fascinating—especially when you were talking about the need to balance national security, the national interest and economic security. I have been reading the very good briefing by the Law Society of England and Wales, which suggests that the Bill could be improved by the insertion of a definition of national security. Do you agree?

Professor Martin: I do not vehemently disagree with that suggestion, but I am not persuaded by it. It is not a new issue. I remember cases—they have nothing to do with this—going back to the aftermath of the so-called global war on terror, with demands during inquiries for definitions of national security. I am not sure what that would achieve other than it would be heavily litigated. In terms of both definitions of national security and the categories of technology, a better answer is a drumbeat of reviewable activity, which is by definition transparent, about how the Government interpret the scope of the Bill, if it becomes an Act, and the sort of cases it applies to so that, over time, you build up a broadly accepted framework—of course, not everyone will accept it—that is seen to be fair and rational.

National Security and Investment Bill (Fourth sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 4th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 26th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Nadhim Zahawi)]

Q I was going to ask you about whether the Bill is proportionate between being very focused on national security—albeit, as you quite rightly point out, there is a spectrum of that—versus public interest, but I think that you have answered that issue in saying that you would very much guard against expanding it.

James Palmer: I will just explain why. I remember working when the public interest regime still applied. The move away from the public interest regime started in the 1980s. Pre the 1980s, this country was not an international investment destination; it really was not. We have earned that position. Whatever one’s politics—I am not party political—this is something that the UK has earned. We have done that by moving to being pretty open-minded in foreign investment. We have actually not worried that much about national security considerations being controlled through ownership, because again this debate has been—sorry, let me first come back to the Minister’s point.

I am very nervous that if you open it up to public interest, you vest that authority in a politician; forgive me, but that is what leads to lobbying, to short-termism, and to completely inconsistent decision taking. I am afraid that whatever Ministers at the time may say about these decisions, there is no external credibility on the predictability of those. It does not matter whether Ministers think they are doing it in good faith or on security grounds. It does not come over that way.

On broadening it to public interest, I completely agree. I am very grateful—because I know that there was a debate about this—that it has been rightly focused just on national security, albeit with a broad ability to intervene to protect the national interest.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Q Thank you very much indeed for your useful and interesting evidence. I want to ask about some tangible examples, just to get a sense of where you stand on this spectrum—in this debate between economic openness and national security. You have made your position on it quite clear, which is that we should not sacrifice one to the other. Do you think that the Arm-SoftBank transaction would have gone through under this regime?

James Palmer: My own view is that I actually hope so, because I think that there is a debate here. We all identify a business that has been established in the UK, and we regard it with pride as a national asset. I completely understand that. I am not just interested in global M and A; I am interested in investment in the UK. My goal is not just M and A. It is the investment, which we will not get without M and A at the end, because investors want to know that they have the ability to realise.

My own judgment—I am not an economist, but most of the economic evidence that I have seen supports this—is that you do better by allowing people to come in, allowing them to sell, not necessarily completely untrammelled, but on a broadly liberal perspective, giving them the certainty and confidence to do that.

I think what we are debating here is about those things that are generated solely in the UK—for example, research, work and ideas that are funded by the UK Government. I can see why the UK Government might want to keep control over those things and link their funding to a level of control. If someone takes funding on that basis, I can see that. I do not know enough about the history of Arm, but it was acquired by a Japanese parent, not by a so-called hostile actor. If we are not going to allow Japanese businesses to buy into our technology businesses, I think we look like a less interesting technology investment and growth destination. We might hold on to a business for another five years, but what businesses are we losing for our children and grandchildren in 10, 20 and 30 years’ time? That is how I look at the question.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q What about AstraZeneca and Pfizer, which, of course, did not go through, mainly because of the political debate that raged around it?

James Palmer: Partly. I was involved in that as well—not entirely, actually. By the way, I think there is a misunderstanding about hostile versus agreed deals. Agreed deals, politically, are regarded as generally okay, and hostile deals as not. But it is about price normally. In occasional cases, there may be other factors, but I think that should not be the determinant of whether a deal is favoured or not.

On AstraZeneca-Pfizer, the challenge there is that AstraZeneca is not just a UK company; it is a global company. Most of its business is not in the UK; it is all around the world. It was built up by making acquisitions all around the world. If we say that it cannot be acquired by an American pharmaceuticals company, what message does that give to businesses that want to come and headquarter in the UK to then go and buy elsewhere? The UK has been a net acquirer globally, and I think that our openness is what has allowed us to do that.

I completely understand the concerns about jobs, and I completely understand the concerns about science and the preservation of skills, and I do not dismiss those, but I worry that by trying to hold on to what we have today, we lose the appeal in the long term, a bit at a time, to people coming in the future. It seems to me that if we are going to have research in the UK, which I think we will, it should flow from our research skills, not from holding on to things that want to leave.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Thanks very much. Do I have time for one more?

[The Chair]

If it is very quick.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Could you just say a word about comparable jurisdictions, such as the United States, where their CFIUS law brings into play the extent to which the acquirer has a history of compliance with US law, and the same for us—not just the acquirer, but perhaps also the state that that acquirer comes from?

James Palmer: There is an interesting issue about compliance with law. You need to be careful, because clearly, the draft legislation envisages—as, by the way, I think, the current very broad discretion, which catches an awful lot of transactions, gives discretion to do—allowing quite a bit of leeway to exercise judgment as to what is a national security issue. If you have an investor that is clearly law-abiding and not about to try to put toxic software into your systems or whatever it might be, you are going to worry a lot less about them, so I do not want to limit the discretion.

Do I think that you need to draw out compliance with law in particular? I am nervous about doing so, because it could become a hobby horse for a company that has breached some law somewhere or other. If a big global company has 50,000 employees, people make mistakes; someone somewhere will do something that will transgress. So I worry about it missing the substance. I think there is a discretion to look more substantively, rather than being too much tied to whether they are law-abiding or not. Again, there is clearly a China focus here—I am neutral on that issue; that is for you—but you are not going to know whether a Chinese company is law-abiding outside China or in China, in particular if it has not invested outside China before.

The only other thing I would say on comparator regimes is that the whole debate on this has been framed, as it was in the 2017 paper, around the main rationale, which was, “Other countries are doing this, so we need to look at it.” A much better rationale, which has also been articulated by the Government, is, “We’re coming out of the EU. We’ve got EU-based legislation at the moment. It’s actually the right time to take stock, rather than necessarily that the old regime was hugely defective.” I do not think it was as defective as everybody is saying.

We keep talking about France, the US and Australia. My firm is the largest law firm, or one of the largest law firms, in Australia, and we are in all the markets—France, Germany, Italy and Spain—that keep being cited. Those countries are our very friendly trading partners, but none of them has the reputation for being as open and free trade-oriented as this country. I think we need to be careful about setting comparisons with the most controlling of our friends, not the least controlling, because there are a whole load of countries that have not been named in any of the discussions that are not doing any of this.

Take Ireland and technology. Maybe, under pressure from the EU, they will introduce something, but the Irish have been trying to grow technology; so have the Danes and the Swedes, and the Dutch as well. The Dutch will come out with some proposals in this area, but my expectation is that they will be much more limited. The Dutch are very internationally competitive. For new industries—for green tech, which we really want to be in—the Nordic countries are significant competitors, and I do not think they are going to have all this. I think that, for investors, that is a factor we just need to bear in mind as we try to find the right balance.

[The Chair]

We have less than five minutes left, so I suspect that this will be the last question. Mark Garnier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Western]

Q Going back to my previous question, do you think that we should think about areas such as climate change and other things that are perhaps not necessarily of immediate urgency—some would say, of course, that climate change is urgent—as matters of national security?

David Offenbach: I do not think that there is anything other than the 17 already mentioned and the ones that I mentioned, most of which came up in the debate last Tuesday. I think that telecoms might be mentioned as well, but the list really covers all the areas where national security is a significant risk.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thank you very much for this useful and important evidence. I have one relatively specific question based on your expertise in real estate. The statement of political intent states:

“Land is generally only expected to be an asset of national security interest where it is, or is proximate to, a sensitive site, examples of which include critical national infrastructure”.

Do you think that scope is too narrow? For example, we know that property in London is used to launder large amounts of money—nefarious organisations often own property in London and use it for nefarious purposes. London is sometimes referred to as a laundromat for dark money. Do you think that that is a national security risk and should be included in the scope of the Bill, and that the land definition in the statement of political intent should reflect the money laundering issue?

David Offenbach: I am not sure I quite agree with the statement of intent as part of the Bill papers. The drafting of that section of the Bill is wide enough to include the issues that you raise. It would be open to the Minister to intervene in the cases that you mention without any change to the drafting of the Bill being necessary.

[The Chair]

If there are no further questions at this point, I will say thank you very much, Mr Offenbach. The next witness is not due until 3.15 so we will have a 10-minute suspension.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Q Welcome, Mr Butler, and thank you very much for your attendance. Reflecting on the changing nature of the national security threats that we are now facing, which you alluded to in your answer to my colleague, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, how do you think the Bill builds on the Enterprise Act 2002? It has been 18 years since that legislation was introduced, so it would be great to get your take on that. Given your CV, it is worth getting your reflection on that while we have you here.

Creon Butler: I think—I am sure many people have said this—it is very clear that the previous legislation needed updating and was not fit for purpose, given both the way in which the global economy as a whole has evolved and the way in which the threats have evolved. It is both necessary and urgent to update that, and the way the Bill has done that, in terms of this first phase of creating the powers both to collect information and to intervene, makes a lot of sense. We have to fine-tune it and make sure it works properly, but this is a good first step. As I said, though, it is really important, if you are going to have such broad powers, to define exactly how you will use them—and much more precisely than the Government has done hitherto.

The further point is that this piece of legislation does not do everything. Alongside it, we need to strengthen our ability to collect the information we need about those threats. There are a number of elements. One that I have some experience of and that is really important is the question of who actually owns and controls companies that are operating in the UK—the question of beneficial ownership transparency. If you do not know that a hostile power is influencing a company that might be registered in an overseas territory or something of that kind, you will not be able to take the steps that you need to take.

A further area—it is a step in the right direction, because it gives us the powers to engage with this issue —is through international co-operation. Looking forwards, we need to strengthen and enhance our international co-operation with like-minded partners by going beyond the Five Eyes and including other really key partners, such as Japan, the EU and so on. That will enable us to do two things. First, it will enable us to share information about the things that can happen, such as the techniques that hostile powers are using. You may see it come up first in one country, and if we can share that information, we know that we can be prepared for that. Even more importantly, you may have a hostile power that does a number of things in different parts of the world, and it is only when you see the entire picture that you can see what the threat is.

Having that kind of international co-operation to do that is really important. These powers are necessary to get us in the same place as some of our key allies, in terms of what we can do. I do not think we are ever going to be able to standardise the areas of intervention or the nature of powers, but we should push very hard to enhance the sharing of information in the way I described.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thank you very much for the very interesting evidence that you are providing. I want to focus on the acquirer risk element of the Bill. The statement of political intent states that

“the National Security and Investment regime does not regard state-owned entities, sovereign wealth funds—or other entities affiliated with foreign states—as being inherently more likely to pose a national security risk.”

Do you agree with that assessment? Logic would seem to suggest that the closer an entity is to a foreign Government, the more likely it is to pose a risk to our national security.

Creon Butler: Clearly, some state-owned enterprises can be a significant risk, but some clearly are not. VW has a significant state element in it through North Rhine-Westphalia, but that does not make it a national security risk. At the same time—this goes back to the point I was making about who actually controls companies —you could well have a company that is registered in another country and, particularly if that country does not have very beneficial ownership transparency laws, as even some very close allies such as the US do not, the company emanating from it could have ill intent towards us.

For that reason, I think the Bill is right not to make a special regime for companies that are state owned, because that could go wrong in two ways: either you could be looking at only one set of companies when there are others that are potential threats, even though they come from close allies, or you may end up spending a lot of time looking at companies with state shareholdings that are really no threat at all. Clearly, when you come to do the analysis, whether there is a stake from a hostile state will be an important part of the analysis that you do in assessing that threat. I think the Bill gets it right in not creating a special regime, but that does not mean that this will not be an important part of the analysis that you do in assessing the threats.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q The Bill does not suggest a special regime, but it also seems to say explicitly that the state-owned characteristic should not be considered, because the statement of policy intent says that it is not inherently more likely to pose a national security risk. It does not seem to do either of the two things you are suggesting.

Creon Butler: I did not read it quite that way. I read it more as meaning that that is not a reason for having a special regime, but when it comes to doing the assessment, you look at whether there is a state element of ownership and from which country that state element of ownership comes. That would be a factor when you are examining the likelihood that that particular investor could pose a threat to us. I am not a lawyer; I just read it that way. If the way you are reading it is the correct way to read it, I do not think that is quite right.

[James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

Q Mr Butler, given your experience in the National Security Secretariat, I want to ask you a few structural questions. How you think the NSS should be linked into the new investment security unit in BEIS?

Creon Butler: It is a constantly evolving picture. The benefit that the NSS can bring is a strategic overview. When you want to put the element of national security protection in the context of broader economic security issues, it is really important that the NSS plays a key role. I do not know the precise detail of exactly what the linkages are between the new unit and the NSS. I would think, from the way I worked in the NSS, that they will be very close in term of people, exchanges, links and so on.

In terms of the respective roles, the strategic role is one that the NSS should play, looking at this element alongside all the other elements of national economic security. As I understand it, it is very important that this unit has a very strong operational focus and effectiveness, the skills that enable it to do this, and the space in which to do it. If I was in charge of designing the relationship, that is how I would design it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Bowie]

Q Earlier on today, and two days ago, we discussed the link between national security and national interest, and I am sure you would agree with me that attracting inward investment is very much in the national interest. We have just heard from the hon. Member for Aberdeen South about the effect that this might be having. We do very well as a country in terms of attracting inward investment; I think we are No. 1 in Europe. As the Bill stands right now, do you think it will have a detrimental effect on our ability to attract inward investment to the UK?

Will Jackson-Moore: Not as the Bill stands in its own right. As you say, we are the largest inbound country for venture capital, for private equity and for infrastructure, and we have been seen as the gold standard for the location in Europe to invest into. Many other European territories have equivalent legislation, but again it is about the application of the legislation, in particular the process, the ability to pre-clear and the timelines actually being met. To understand some of these technologies is not going to be straightforward. These are emerging, cutting-edge technologies in some cases, and the talent required to assess that will not necessarily be easy to attract. Some consideration needs to be given to partnering with research institutes or academia in specific areas, so that there is a panel available to assess certain technologies, not only to understand its position right now but also its trajectory—where that technology may go in the next two or three years.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q Thanks very much for that helpful evidence. I want to focus on this issue of the target risk and the type of asset that is potentially being acquired. I am interested in the role of private equity in the residential care home sector. Large swathes of our residential care homes are owned by private equity companies. I just wonder whether you think residential care, and social and public services of that nature, should be defined as a critical national infrastructure?

Will Jackson-Moore: It is not something I have specifically considered. It certainly would not that be within what I considered to be a matter of national security under the auspices of the Bill. I do not think I am in a position to comment any further.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Q I am sorry; I saw that you have done a lot of work with private equity and thought that you may have been involved in that aspect of it. On sovereign wealth funds, do you see the China Investment Corporation—I do not know if you have ever done any work with it—as an arm of the Chinese Communist party?

Will Jackson-Moore: I am not in a position to talk about specific individual organisations. A number of sovereign funds in China are very well regarded in the international capital markets. However, in terms of their interaction with Chinese Government, that is not something that I have a perspective on.

[Mark Garnier]

Q My apologies for not being here at the beginning. I am interested in your work on sovereign wealth funds and private equity funds, in terms of working out the value of an investment asset. We heard evidence in the first session this afternoon—I do not know if you were here—than the fact that this Bill will restrict the number of potential buyers out there might then restrict the amount of interest coming in to start with; an investor with a target company to invest in may have limited numbers of people that they could sell it to when they want to exit, which will adjust the price. Have you had any thoughts about that at all?

Will Jackson-Moore: As I mentioned earlier, the UK is the gold standard for a location to invest in, particularly within Europe. Investors like investing in the UK because of the fairness and transparency, UK law and UK courts, and as a place to be based and to live, so there is an inherent benefit to doing UK-based transactions. However, and as we sit here right now, on a scorecard-type approach, the UK is not as attractive a location as it has been historically. We have the uncertainties of Brexit and we have a number of other territories looking to recover and rethink their economies given the situation we are all in, so there will be more—

National Security and Investment Bill (Fifth sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 5th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Chi Onwurah]

The hon. Member makes an important point that goes to the heart of our concerns. I do not wish to detain the Committee for too long on this, but it is important to discuss the way in which the skills and resources of our national security services, who do so much to keep us safe and secure, will be used to work with the Department to identify potential triggers for a call-in. Some guidance will be given in the statement issued by the Secretary of State, and we will debate that shortly, but what was mentioned many times yesterday during the debate on the Telecommunications (Security) Bill was the capacity and the need for institutions such as our Intelligence and Security Committee to have a more concrete role. Not all of their expertise and knowledge can be in the public domain. As we heard yesterday, the Committee first issued concerns about Huawei back in 2013. If, back in 2013, the business Department had been able to benefit from that expertise, knowledge and insight the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport would be in a different position today.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend rightly says, the fundamental purpose of our amendment is to ensure that the screening process takes place upstream so that the multi-agency and highly technical capability of intelligence agencies and the Ministry of Defence can be deployed in advance of the Secretary of State—who otherwise may be in a state of isolation—making an initial decision about whether there is a trigger event or whether action is required. The amendment would ensure that the screening process is done by multiple agencies that can then give the Secretary of State advice that is well informed and rooted in an understanding of the risk that we face.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for putting it so clearly, and I hope that addresses the concerns of the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. We want the screening process to benefit from the knowledge of our intelligence agencies and others before the Secretary of State calls it in. Our national security depends on having those robust contributions from across Government and the agencies in guiding decisions. In some cases, this may rely on the established sensitive channels of information and access and communications that have marked the work of the Intelligence and Security Committee. That is the best way to guard our national security, relying on our world-leading intelligence agencies, diplomatic service and our civil service expertise across Departments and not just on a single Secretary of State.

During the evidence sessions last week, we heard from an academic expert witness that institutional capacity in this area usually involves a multi-agency review body. We heard from the former head of MI6 that

“the co-ordination of Government Departments is one of the really big challenges”.––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 23, Q25.]

I am sure everyone who heard Sir Richard Dearlove’s evidence was struck that his years at MI6 had clearly taught him that this is a big challenge and that it is important to have co-ordinated and organised multi-agency input. We heard from the recent head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre that the new body

“needs to be broadly based and multidisciplinary.”––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2020; c. 85, Q103.]

The consensus of academic and intelligence service experience is that we need an approach that includes different agencies upstream of the calling decision.

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[Chi Onwurah]

I welcome this debate. If by that the hon. Member is asking whether I think human rights have a relationship to national security, that was very well debated yesterday in relation to the Telecommunications (Security) Bill. A number of his colleagues strongly made the point that there is a relationship between modern-day slavery and our national interest and national security. I do not have the expertise to identify what the agency should be. The Low Pay Commission is not an organisation that I had considered, but I am happy to take his advocacy for its being part of this multidisciplinary approach.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is being incredibly generous. Not wishing to second-guess some of the scepticism that we may be picking up from the Government Benches—[Interruption.]

[The Chair]

Order. Can we have just one meeting?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Thank you, Mr Twigg. As I was saying, not wishing to second-guess the scepticism that I may be picking up from Government Members, one reason I support the amendment is that I think it brings additional focus to the process. Without a clear definition of what national security is in the Bill, and a clear institutional capacity for the Secretary of State, the Secretary of State will be left with an open-ended process. By having a multi-agency, strong institutional capacity we will streamline the process. Our amendment is about cutting bureaucracy out of the process, and streamlining and focusing it. I hope that hon. Members will consider that when they take their sceptical approach.

[Chi Onwurah]

As always, I am immensely grateful to my hon. Friend, who does well to remind us that part of the underlying issue, which we will debate later, is the lack of any definition of national security. Rather than just considering the scepticism, let me focus on what we are trying to do. Given the lack of any definition of national security, is it not right that it should not be left to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to decide what the key issues are on national security? Fundamentally, I think that is the question that Committee members must consider.

The amendment seeks to fill the gap that expert advice and international precedence highlight. It enshrines credible decision making in law and, in doing so, protects our security and gives businesses confidence that the decision to call in has been grounded in evidence and expertise, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, who will find certain provisions of the legislation most burdensome and who may have the most to lose from lengthy processes once the call-in procedure happens—the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine referred to those processes. It grounds a mechanism for effective accountability for the call-in decisions of the Secretary of State.

Amendment 4, which would amend clause 4, has a similar aim. It would require the Secretary of State to consult with the Intelligence and Security Committee before publishing a statement under section 3, which sets out the scope and nature of how the Secretary of State would exercise the call-in powers. That statement would include details of sectors that might especially pose risks, details of trigger events and details of factors that the Secretary of State would consider in deciding whether to act. It would also include details of the BEIS unit’s resourcing, if amendment 9 were agreed to.

The measures are a seismic shift in terms of the UK’s approach to mergers and acquisitions and it gives significant powers and discretion to the Secretary of State. It suggests that the Government may publish a statement setting out the scope of the call-in powers. As part of our discussion this morning, we have talked about the way in which security threats evolve over time in the light of technological change—for example, security threats that we did not recognise in the past led to the Huawei debacle—and also, importantly, in the light of political changes, so it is understandable that our understanding of some of those changes will be imperfect and will rely on sensitive information. However, the critical point is that the fact that there will be change and its sensitivity should not preclude the need for accountability.

In other areas of national security, the Intelligence and Security Committee holds Government to account through proper scrutiny and with access to sensitive information. I refer again to the debates on the Telecommunications (Security) Bill and the Second Reading of this Bill, where members of the Intelligence and Security Committee demonstrated their understanding of the key issues around national security and their ability to make a contribution—I think it is fair to say that they are very willing to make a contribution. It is only right that we bring the same level of scrutiny to measures in this Bill, on matters of critical national security. The amendment would bring the scrutiny of the Intelligence and Security Committee to changes in the Secretary of State’s call-in powers, ensuring that these major powers consistently act to protect our national security.

Scrutiny is especially needed in this area. We have had the Enterprise Act since 2002, but there have been only 12 national security cases under it. That speaks very clearly to the lack of experience and an acute need for scrutiny as we now move up to almost 2,000 annual cases. Several witnesses in our evidence sessions emphasised that we were going from effectively zero—a standing start—to Formula 1 performance levels, and that as such, we needed to ensure that we put in place the resources, the expertise and the support to enable that to be effective and not unnecessarily impede our business, our economy and our foreign investment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention. It is great to have scientific knowledge in Committee and in the House. I welcome the contributions and scrutiny that a scientific background can bring. She is right that there is a tension. The technological environment is fantastic and innovative, with its start-up and enterprise culture. We have great centres of development and innovation, from Cambridge to Newcastle. I am sure hon. Members can mention other centres of great technological development that lead to lots of local start-ups in different areas. All or many of them may be caught by the provisions of the Bill, and that is a concern, but our amendments have been tabled to put in place parliamentary scrutiny.

Parliamentary scrutiny of the call-in process should be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon said, upstream of the actual call-in notification. This is about the definitions of the sectors to ensure upstream scrutiny. Small businesses, particularly start-ups, seek finance, often foreign investment. There are enough barriers in their way and we do not want to create more unnecessarily, but our amendments are about clarifying and ensuring the robustness of the definitions before they hit the coalface of our small businesses and start-ups, whose interests I want to protect. The Opposition are champions of small businesses, are we not?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Indeed we are. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I reiterate that what we propose is, through consultation, removing bottlenecks—the key word in the intervention from hon. Member for South Ribble. By improving consultation and ensuring that we have the best possible expertise, we will make the Secretary of State’s life easier, not more difficult. It is about removing bottlenecks, not adding them.

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[Chi Onwurah]

I am struggling to see how that would happen. How would Parliament, after the Bill becomes law, decide that the Intelligence and Security Committee, as opposed to or in addition to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, should have a role. How would that happen in practice?

[Stephen Kinnock]

There are plenty of examples of Select Committees getting involved in the upstream work of Government—for example, giving feedback on White Papers. Parliament and its Select Committees consistently get involved in the work of Government in that context.

[Mark Garnier]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Whitehead]

Yes, indeed. The hon. Member is quite correct to draw attention to clause 22, which concerns false or misleading information. It relates to where someone has, at the time of the trigger event, concealed or misled or sought to deceive those concerned with the trigger event about the nature of the event. I would suggest that that is a different case from what we are trying to establish today. It is not that anyone has tried to deceive anybody or maliciously mislead anybody at the time of the trigger event, but new material may come to light or become available within five years of the initial trigger event that might cause a further call-in notice to be introduced. According to the definition set out in the Bill, that looks like it might not be possible.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and he is being very generous in doing so. He rightly talks about new material or information, but what about the evolving nature of geopolitical threats? There may well be countries that are not considered to be hostile actors now, but political changes one, two or three years down the line could have a massive impact on whether we see that country as a threat to national security. It could become a hostile actor.

[Dr Whitehead]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which was reflected in the evidence sessions on this Bill. I want to dwell on that briefly, because he makes a really important point. These matters are evolving. Not only that, but the nature of databases evolves. The nature of what we do and do not find out evolves. There are circumstances—my hon. Friend mentioned a particularly important one—where the Secretary of State could be excessively curtailed in the diligent pursuit of his role in terms of call-ins and trigger events if no amendment is made to this clause.

The expert evidence we received from Dr Ashley Lenihan of the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics gave rise to a couple of important considerations in terms of how evolving circumstances or new information might be important. Dr Lenihan made a very important point, similar to that made by my hon. Friend, when she stated:

“Dealing with the kind of evolving and emerging threats we see in terms of novel investments from countries such as China, Russia and Venezuela needs the flexibility to look at retroactively and potentially unwind transactions that the Secretary of State and the investment security unit were not even aware of.” ––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 24 November; c. 34, Q36.]

Speaking of existing databases, Dr Lenihan also stated:

“They do not cover asset transactions; they do not cover real estate transactions, which are of increasing concern, especially for espionage purposes.”––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 24 November; c. 35, Q36.]

I note that there has been a lot of concern in the United States more recently about real estate purchases in strategic locations, which may give rise to espionage or other national security concerns. As Dr Lenihan emphasises, existing databases do not cover such arrangements but might do in the future and might find it necessary to do so in the future. Under those circumstances, new information could well come to light.

Dr Lenihan also gave an interesting example—this is not strictly in line with our considerations today—of how information might come to light in a way not easily anticipated by those doing the initial call-in notice and trigger event. She referred to the purchase in the United States of a US cloud computing company, 3Leaf, which had gone bankrupt. Huawei—as it happened—quietly bought up the assets, employees and patents of that bankrupt company. That was not noticed at the time by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States regulators, because they did not pay attention to bankrupt companies, as opposed companies that continued to operate. That went quietly unnoticed, uncommented and unactioned until, Dr Lenihan informed us, a Government staffer happened to notice on his LinkedIn account that someone he thought had been partially running 3Leaf was listed as a consultant for 3Leaf for Huawei. He thought to himself, “How can this be?” Only through his attention and reporting back was that acquisition unravelled in the United States. No one was providing malicious information or seeking to mislead at the time. It was just that new information came to light, in that instance through surprising mechanisms. However, an important issue came before regulators and the security services. That emphasises that clause 22, important though it is, does not cover those sorts of circumstances and eventualities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

Could the Minister say a little more about what the problem is with not having the Minister’s or the Secretary of State’s hands tied? Our amendment simply says that if information comes to light that creates cause for concern, the Secretary of State may, if he or she so wishes, look into it again. It is not an obligation; it simply makes sure that the option is there.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I was going to address that at the end of my remarks, but I will touch on it briefly and hopefully reiterate it at the end. It is about certainty and proportionality. Everything we are doing by legislating in this way has an impact on businesses and the certainty of attracting investment and growing, as the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, reminded us in her opening speech.

As I was saying, a draft of the statement was published alongside the Bill. Following commencement, if parties involved in trigger events are concerned about them being called in, they will be able to remove any doubt about this by notifying the Secretary of State of their event. They will then be entitled to receive a quick and binding decision on whether the Secretary of State will call in the event.

I will turn briefly to amendment 10, which seeks to extend the Secretary of State’s power to issue a call-in notice in respect of a trigger event that has previously been called in when no new material information becomes available within five years of the trigger event. After a trigger event is called in, the Secretary of State has—

National Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 6th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 1st December 2020 Public Bill Committees

Several countries give a sense of the factors that might guide national security reviews, which is really what we are asking for here, without excluding areas from the definition. The US FIRRMA legislation—Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act 2018—provides for a “sense of Congress” on six factors: countries of specific concern; critical infrastructure, energy asset, critical material; history of US law compliance; control of US industries that affect US capability and capacity to meet national security requirements, which is very important; involvement of personally identifying information; and potential new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. The amendment seeks to encourage the Secretary of State to do likewise.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

Just to add to the argument that my hon. Friend is making in her very eloquent manner, this is also about having a smart approach to regulation, whereby we do not take a one-size-fits-all approach but recognise that there is a hierarchy of risks. By pointing out in the definition of national security what key factors make up that definition, we will point both the business community and the Secretary of State to that hierarchy of risks and make sure that there is additional screening, monitoring and assessment of those risks where they are considered to be higher because they contain the factors in the definition.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As a past employee of a regulator, Ofcom, he really appeals to my sense of regulatory best practice in speaking as he does about the importance of smart regulation that is not tied to narrowly defined legalistic definitions of national security but allows, as he says, a hierarchy of assessment of the different interests. We all need to take responsibility for doing everything we can to ensure that kind of smart judgment can be made by small businesses. We encourage giving as much guidance as possible—I see the Minister nodding, so I hope that he will be receptive to the amendment.

Finally, amendment 9 would mandate Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy unit resourcing updates. I will speak briefly to amendment 9, because I know that other hon. Members wish to speak to it. This amendment provides that a statement from the Secretary of State about the exercise of call-in power may include details of the resources allocated to reviews of national security within BEIS.

The driving thought behind this, again, is to ensure that the Secretary of State’s life is made as easy as possible by consistently looking at the resources available to do this very complex and difficult job, particularly given that we are transitioning, as one witness put it, from a standing start to potentially thousands of notifications.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship so soon again, Sir Graham. Following on from the eloquent exposition of those last two amendments by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, I would like to focus on amendment 9. The amendment is simple. It tries to help the Government help themselves.

Amendment 9 provides that a statement from the Secretary of State about the exercise of a call-in power may include details of the resources allocated through reviews of national security within BEIS. We know that this is a significant and large change that the Department will have to absorb. For that to be effective—in whatever state the Bill ends up passing through Parliament—there will clearly be a need for proper resource allocation and for Parliament to scrutinise that process.

The Bill transforms the UK’s merger control processes. It locates the merger control processes away from the Competition and Markets Authority, which is a new development. The CMA had a history of experience of overseeing those sorts of processes. At the moment, there is no such expertise in BEIS.

While massively expanding the scope of the intervention, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central said, moving from only 12 national security interventions in 18 years to potentially over 1,800 is such a significant step change, so it will be important for Parliament to have the ability to monitor that. It is unprecedented. The Government have neither a precedent nor a plan—none has come forward with the notes to this Bill—to assure the House of how the shift will be managed. That is why we felt it was important to put forward this amendment.

I believe this amendment has support on both sides of the House. Crucially, hon. Members across the House have raised legitimate concerns about the capacity and capability that will be required to manage this major shift. My colleague from the Transport Committee, Greg Clark, said,

“It is an enormous challenge for the Department to set up a new unit, especially since the current regime…has dealt with a very small number of transactions each year.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 228.]

Similarly, James Wild said,

“It is crucial that the structures and resources are put in place to ensure that the timetables for review and assessment in the Bill are actually met.”—[Official Report, 17 November 2020; Vol. 684, c. 266.]

I think both of those points are extremely pertinent.

I do not see this as a controversial amendment. I think it is important to allow the Bill, once passed, to function effectively and with proper oversight. It also provides the appropriate scrutiny, ensuring that this critical part of our national and economic security functions effectively and efficiently. I am sure that in amendments to come we will debate where the balance should be between economic freedoms and our responsibility to safeguard our citizens. But clearly, on the simple idea put forward in this amendment, the Government will have to be transparent about the capability and capacity of BEIS on investment security, as many other countries around the world do.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend is setting out the case very well. To add to that argument, this is also about reassuring us as Members of Parliament. A Bill is all very well—it puts it all down on paper—but what really matters is putting it into practice. How does the implementation work? The investment security unit will be the key place for that. We need assurance that that crucial part of this process will have the capability to deliver. The amendment we are putting forward is also an assurance amendment—that when Parliament votes this Bill through, we can be assured that the implementation capability will be there.

[Sam Tarry]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have shaped our own Bill, we have been learning about regimes in other countries and comparing and contrasting provisions. For example, in the US—we have heard evidence on this from Michael Leiter earlier in the week—they look in detail at only around 240 cases, and then they look at 100 in a short form. We are saying that will have up to 1,800, and at the moment we do not have any guidance on what would be a more detailed and thorough investigation. Clearly, we need to have confidence about the amount of resources and about the fact that the Department has proper oversight of that and has been doing things properly.

This is not just about making our country the most attractive destination to do business; it is also about ensuring that we have the resources in place so that we do not slip up. We do not want another Huawei situation. We do not to be in a place where we do not have the resources, and where the former head of MI6 has to come to our evidence session and say that successive Governments have placed too much emphasis on building the economy at the expense of our security.

One of the evidence sessions last week touched on the idea of moving from just a few dozen cases to 1,000-plus being investigated. We do not know exactly when those cases will come. If there is suddenly a glut of cases at the same time, we need to make sure that the resources are there to deal with all of them. In that way, we will not have smaller companies, in particular, which are not getting the media coverage that some companies have had, falling through the net. As we know, very small, innovative technology companies sometimes develop some very radical forward-thinking technologies, and we might not even notice that they have been bought out or taken over by a state-owned business or by a business that is aligned closely with another state that may not share British values or interests.

I will leave it there, Sir Graham. This is about helping the Government to help themselves, allowing Parliament to have oversight and ensuring that the resources are in place, so that we get this right and do not have to revisit it after a calamity in a few years’ time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am pleased to speak to this group of amendments, which relate to clause 3. This clause provides for a statement to be published by the Secretary of State, setting out how he expects to exercise the call-in power. Clause 1 requires that this statement is published before the power may be used. There are three amendments in this grouping—amendments 1, 2 and 9—and I will speak to each of them in turn.

I advise the Committee that we have interpreted amendment 1, including with regard to the Members’ explanatory statement, as seeking to amend clause 3(1) rather than 3(3). The effect of this amendment, as we believe it was intended, is to require the Secretary of State to publish the statement. As I set out on Second Reading, the Government are committed to providing as much clarity and predictability as possible for business when it comes to the use of the new investment screening regime that is provided for by this Bill. The proposed statement will provide valuable information to businesses and investors, and help them to determine whether they should submit a notification about their trigger event. Indeed, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament, publish and not withdraw the statement before the call-in power may be used. In effect, this means that the Secretary of State will need to have published a statement to use the call-in power, which is crucial to the regime.

Of course, as the security landscape changes over time, he may wish to publish an updated statement at a future point; this will need to go through the same consultation and parliamentary procedure as the original statement before it can take its place. I assure hon. Members that the Secretary of State has neither the intention nor the power to run this regime without having first published a statement.

I will now turn briefly to amendment 2, which would allow for the Secretary of State to include a definition of national security in the statement provided for by clause 3. The Secretary of State’s powers under the Bill are expressly predicated on investigating and addressing risks to national security. When exercising these powers, the Secretary of State is required to proceed on the basis that national security is strictly about the security of our nation. That is because what national security means is a question of law, which has already been answered by the highest courts of the land as being the security of our nation.

The Secretary of State will obviously need to comply with the law when exercising the powers in the Bill. There is therefore no need to define what national security means in the Bill. As Dr Ashley Lenihan—a fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics, who was quoted earlier by the shadow Minister—mentioned in last week’s evidence session:

“What we have seen is that most foreign direct investment regimes of this nature all refer to national security. I do not know of a single one that actually defines it or limits itself to a particular definition”.––[Official Report, National Security and Infrastructure Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 38, Q42.]

Furthermore, as national security is a term used in the Bill, it would in any event not be appropriate for the Secretary of State to define the scope of the term in the statement; the statement is not legislation and is not subject to approval by Parliament.

Wanting to understand the Government’s aims and expectations for these powers is entirely reasonable—there is no discussion about that. However, I refer the Committee to the comments of Michael Leiter, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP, who told us that he would consider that

“it is a bit of a fool’s errand”––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 49, Q55.]

to define national security. Instead, the statement will set out how the Secretary of State expects to use the call-in power, and we plan to include details of the types of national security risks in which the Secretary of State is especially interested.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I just want to come back on the point the Minister made about other regimes not using a definition of national security. The United States Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act provides a sense of congress on six factors: countries of special concern; critical infrastructure, energy assets and critical materials; history of compliance with US laws; control of US industries that affect US capability and capacity to meet national security requirements; involvement of personally identifiable information; and potential new cyber-security vulnerabilities. In his comments, the Minister said that no other regime includes a definition of national security, but that sounds like a definition of national security to me.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Aberavon for his comments. I was quoting from the evidence that Dr Ashley Lenihan provided. She said:

“I do not know of a single one that actually defines it or limits itself to a particular definition,”––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 38 Q42.]

if that is what he was referring to.

Instead, what I am trying to share with the Committee is that the statement will set out how the Secretary of State expects to use the call-in power. Within that, we plan to include details of the types of national security risks in which the Secretary of State is especially interested. These include certain sectors of the economy and types of acquisitions relating to entities and assets that may raise concern. I think I have said enough on that.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let us take the example given by the hon. Member of Nortel collaborating with Huawei or any other entity. They have to satisfy themselves that if they wish to acquire something else in future, they will effectively have to go through the same process of national security clearance. Collaboration between entities or in academia are covered under the separate guidance, including from the agencies, on who they collaborate with, but I think that is a different issue. Once an asset is created that has a national security implication for the United Kingdom, the Bill comes into play.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly agreed to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6

Notifiable acquisitions

[Stephen Kinnock]

I beg to move amendment 6, in clause 6, page 4, line 27, at end insert—

‘(4A) The Secretary of State must have regard to the protection of critical national infrastructure when making regulations under this section.’

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the protection of critical national infrastructure when making notifiable acquisition regulations.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I congratulate the Minister on his recent appointment as the vaccine tsar. I must say, he is taking multi-tasking to a whole new level, and we wish him well.

I rise to speak in favour of amendment 6, which is closely related to amendments 7 and 8. Sir Graham, should I speak to amendments 7 and 8 as well now, or to amendment 6 alone?

[The Chair]

Just amendment 6.

[Stephen Kinnock]

Thank you, Sir Graham.

Before we go down into the weeds of it, it is worth taking a step back and thinking about the fundamental purpose of the Bill. The amendments are informed by that fundamental purpose, because we wish to be constructive and to support the Bill, but also to improve it. We feel that if our amendments are not accepted, it will be a real missed opportunity to achieve something even better. We can take this Bill from good to great—an objective I am sure the Minister would support.

The aim needs to be around national security, yes, but also about economic resilience, because underlying economic resilience is actually what is required for our national security. The two are fundamentally intertwined. To build that resilience, we need sovereign capability. We need, as a country, to have a business culture based on purpose, rather than on fast bucks and short termism. We need resilience so that we are a country with a healthy and viable manufacturing sector that enables us to export more, because we would argue that the persistent trade deficit we face as a country has an impact on our national security. We also need to develop that sovereign capability. As the covid crisis has demonstrated, we have ended up being far too exposed to highly extended supply chains, many of which go through countries that are not our natural allies. That has left us lacking in resilience. The Bill is about managing risk, and our risk levels are far too high because of the economic model we have fallen into.

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[The Chair]

I was not proposing anything; the hon. Gentleman was.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Member for Clwyd South for his intervention. I take that point absolutely, but I think it is important sometimes to go back to the mindset we have around this legislation. The Opposition feel that there are opportunities to strengthen the Bill. Every single Bill that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy puts forward should be informed by that need to strengthen our sovereign capability and make us less reliant on risky supply chains, and to be somewhat more realistic about the way that the world and globalisation work. It really was just contextual, but I do take the hon. Member’s point that we should remain within those parameters. I think the mindset is really important.

On the issue of exposure to highly extended supply chains and the way in which we have had the floodgates open for hostile foreign takeovers, this country has the highest number of hostile foreign takeovers in the entire OECD. That really speaks volumes about our economic model.

In terms of relations with China, the Bill is not an anti-China Bill as such, but we all know that the key economic development of the last few decades has been the rise of China. The reality is that we have been naïve and complacent in the way we have dealt with China. Previous Prime Ministers announced a so-called golden era, whereby we were going to open our markets to China, the Chinese were going to do the same, and they would gradually align with the international rules-based order, its norms and even its values, some thought.

That has been an unmitigated disaster. None of that has happened. In fact, what we have seen is that the benefits of the golden era have flowed almost exclusively from west to east. We are still running a £19 billion trade deficit with China and we are still seeing extremely hostile political acts, not least what is happening in Hong Kong and the persecution of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. Both economically and politically, the strategy has failed.

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[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. In addition to the critical issue of the state of many small businesses after covid, there is Brexit. The low value of the pound means that our distressed assets will be cheaper on the global market.

[Stephen Kinnock]

My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. As we have constantly said, this is about risk and the hierarchy of risks we face. Risk is always sensitive to what is happening in terms of the global economic outlook. As she rightly points out, Brexit and leaving the transition period will be a seismic event for our country. It will have a massive impact on our currency and the strength of the pound. Combining that with the covid situation means that we have to be careful. We have to be vigilant and ensure that we defend our national interest. That is why it is important that our mindset involves taking a holistic view of our national interest, particularly in the turbulent times in which we find ourselves. This is fundamentally about saying that our national security is not for sale. Our national security does not have a price tag, and it has to be the primary consideration.

With those contextual comments in mind, I move on to amendment 6, which considers a particular aspect of our economy. It focuses on the asset side of the ledger in terms of this Bill—namely, critical national infrastructure. Our amendment would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the protection of critical national infrastructure when making notifiable acquisition regulations. Going back to China, it is remarkable how much of our critical national infrastructure is in the hands of Chinese enterprises or state-backed investment vehicles. This is happening now, right under our noses, and needs to be taken into account in discussing this amendment.

In essence, our amendment offers a way to ensure that critical national infrastructure is given particular and extra consideration in the national security and investment assessments within the regime. Given that the Bill fails to define national security, it does not, by definition, reference critical national infrastructure.

To drill down further, the Government’s consultation on the Bill lists the 17 sectors that might come under the regime’s mandatory notification process, but it does not explicitly list the UK’s critical national infrastructure. In fact, there is not a direct overlap. Five sectors are not included in the 17 that are in the consultation, but they are in our critical national infrastructure. The 17 range from advanced materials, advanced robotics, artificial intelligence, civil nuclear, communications, computing hardware, critical suppliers to Government, critical suppliers to the emergency services, cryptographic authentication, data infrastructure, data infrastructure, defence, energy, engineering biology, military and dual use, quantum technology, satellite and space technologies, to transport. However, the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure defines 13 areas as critical national infrastructure, including several sectors that are not included in the 17: food, Government more broadly––not just critical suppliers––health, space and water.

If we look at the impact of the pandemic and think about what critical national infrastructure means, we see that the 17 sectors are already out of date. Given our experience with covid and the concerns about food supply, that is clearly an issue we need to examine closely. Water is crucial to our wellbeing as a nation, yet it is not included in the 17. Our amendment argues that critical national infrastructure should be taken as an asset class. If defined as an asset class, the landscape moves and the definitions of sectors move, but there is clarity about critical national infrastructure always being within the scope of the Bill.

[Matt Western]

As always, my hon. Friend makes important points. To amplify those, if we had been sitting down and writing this Bill 10 years ago, which would have been a pretty good thing to have done, with hindsight––

[Matt Western]

I think I chose my time horizon pretty well. Had we been doing so, we may not have been considering these 17 categories, traffic light systems, underground systems, public transport or railway infrastructure in a way that we have to nowadays because we understand just how interconnected things are. We understand what the threats and risks are from these sorts of investments from possibly rogue organisations, states or businesses.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend. This is genuinely not an attempt to make a party political point. There is no doubt that we should have seen the impact of the rise of China long before 2010. This is something that has been going on for a long time. President Xi Jinping was appointed in 2013 and there has been a qualitative shift in China’s outlook and the way in which it is engaging with the world. There is an increasingly aggressive and assertive set of economic policies. One of the experts said that the objective is to dominate the global technology scene. That is an explicit objective in the Made in China 2025 vision that the President and the Chinese Communist party adhere to. While we are not trying to make party political points here, a lot has changed in the last seven years.

[Dr Whitehead]

Does my hon. Friend consider that had these provisions, as amended, been in place in, say, 2015, the Government would not have signed the Secretary of State’s investment agreement with the Chinese state nuclear corporation, giving it control of a nuclear power plant and the right to build its own reactor, staff it with its own staff and run it entirely according to its own interest? Does he think that it was perhaps naive to do that? Might greater protection have been afforded for future deals under this sort of arrangement?

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[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank my hon. Friend. His intervention is telling because it points to a fundamental failing at the heart of Government in terms of being joined up and credible. We cannot condemn aspects of China’s activity and its increasingly assertive behaviour —potential military threats to Taiwan, and sabre-rattling in the South China sea—while opening up our nuclear energy capability to that same hostile foreign actor. Security is about our credibility, resilience and ability to stand strong and united, because we know that the Chinese Communist party will exploit weakness and division. Consistency is vital—consistency and security are two sides of the same coin.

To answer my hon. Friend’s question, I profoundly and sincerely hope that the investment to which he refers would not have passed this test. Frankly, if it had passed this test, the Bill would end up not being worth the paper it is written on. This is about the implementation of the Bill and the Government’s capability to stand up for our national security and critical national infrastructure, which is at the heart of the amendment.

It is worth pointing out that the Intelligence and Security Committee defines our critical national infra- structure as

“certain ‘critical’ elements of infrastructure, the loss or comprise of which would have a major detrimental impact on the availability or integrity of essential services, leading to severe economic or social consequences or to loss of life.”

I am convinced that no Member present would argue with that definition or against putting those considerations at the heart of what Parliament and the Government stand for.

We must include critical national infrastructure. It would follow best practice—our allies the United States and Canada both include critical national infrastructure in their list of key factors to assess as part of national security, so we would not be reinventing the wheel but simply following best practice. In the expert witness sessions, I asked Sir Richard Dearlove specifically whether he thought that a definition of critical national infrastructure should be included in the Bill. He said:

“I would certainly see that as advantageous, because it defines a clear area where you start and from which you can make judgments”.––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 24, Q31.]

As I said the start of my comments, sovereign capability is what this is really about, and our sovereign capability is profoundly undermined by the fact that so much of our critical national infrastructure is not in our own hands. Supply chains are over-extended and often depend on actors that perhaps 10 years ago we did not see as we do now, which has to be taken into account. I urge hon. Members to consider the amendment seriously, because it goes to the heart of what Parliament and Government should be about.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Amendment 6 would require the Secretary of State to have regard to the protection of critical national infrastructure when making notifiable acquisition regulations. I welcome the intention of the hon. Member for Aberavon to ensure that the protection of critical national infrastructure is considered by the Secretary of State. Indeed, I take it as a ringing endorsement of the approach the Government have taken in clause 6 to define the specific sectors and activities subject to mandatory notification clearance.

As the hon. Gentleman will know, we intend to introduce regulations under the clause once the Bill has received Royal Assent, and we are currently consulting on the sector definitions, which cover much of the critical national infrastructure that he quite rightly shared with the Committee, including energy, civil, nuclear, transport, communications and defence. We are publicly consulting, in particular with sector experts, the legal profession, business and investment communities, to ensure that those definitions provide clarity and certainty, and are focused on the specific parts of sectors and activities that can pose risks to our national security. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that, in developing any notifiable acquisition regulations, the Secretary of State will always take into account the national security needs of the country within the critical national infrastructure sectors, the advanced technology sectors and the wider economy.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister for giving way; he is being very generous. Does he not see the advantage of including this point on the face of the Bill? It makes an important statement—it is a political statement, really—about the need to ensure that, whatever the regulations say, critical national infrastructure is embedded in the Bill.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says. The word that slightly worries businesses is “political” statement. I think that that is a concern. I think his intention is right, and the reason why we have taken the route of mandatory notification for the 17 sectors is precisely the point he makes. I assure him that the Secretary of State will always take into account the national security needs of the country within the critical national infrastructure sectors. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman will recall that the Government introduced a statutory instrument to include health in the Enterprise Act 2002 when the covid pandemic hit.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

I am grateful to you, Sir Graham, for refocusing our attention on the amendment. Suffice it to say that national security is always taken into account when it comes to nuclear or energy, as it was at the time of those agreements. The point I am trying to make is that we must be flexible to ensure that the new regime can adapt to the threats of tomorrow. That is the right approach to ensure that we can keep this country safe. Of course, any such regulations will be subject to parliamentary approval through the draft affirmative procedure, giving Members of this House and the other place the opportunity to ensure that the mandatory notification and clearance regime works effectively. As such, I cannot accept the amendment and I hope that the hon. Member for Aberavon will seek leave to withdraw it.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister, but I am afraid that we will have to push the amendment to a Division, because it is so fundamental to how we see the purpose of the Bill. We have heard lots of assurances today along the lines of, “Trust us. We are on the right track. We get it.” I hope the Minister will forgive us, but we prefer the “trust but verify” model. Therefore, we think that this provision should be in the Bill, and I will have to press the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

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Control of entities

[Stephen Kinnock]

I beg to move amendment 7, in clause 8, page 6, line 38, at end insert—

“(10) The fifth case is where the acquisition involves state-owned entities or investors originating in a country of risk to UK national security and creates any change of influence.”

This amendment would mean that any acquisition involving state-owned entities or investors originating in a country of risk to UK national security and creating a change of influence would count as a person gaining control of a qualifying entity.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 8, in clause 8, page 6, line 38, at end insert—

“(10) The fifth case is where the acquisition involves changes to material influence in industries critical to the UK’s capability and capacity to maintain national security, including economic security.”

This amendment would mean that any acquisition which involves changes to material influence in industries critical to national security would count as a person gaining control of a qualifying entity.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I am very happy to have the opportunity to set out what we are trying to achieve with this amendment. While the previous amendment was very much about protecting our assets, this one focuses on the characteristics of the acquirer. It is absolutely clear that any successful screening regime has to be based on a solid understanding of both aspects—both the asset and the acquirer—and that both are equally vital to the successful implementation of the regime.

Harking back to the debate we had about an earlier amendment, the objective here has to be smart regulation. What do we mean by that? If we try to catch everything, we end up catching nothing. We have to prioritise. We have to have a screening system that has a smart, nuanced and well-informed understanding of risk, both in terms of the prioritisation of our assets and the prioritisation of understanding the characteristics of the acquirer. It is on that basis that we prioritise action, and when our investment security unit needs to intervene.

The amendment is focused very much on the characteristics of the acquirer. It is about ensuring that we guard ourselves against the influence of foreign powers that wish to do harm to our country—those that have an agenda. The Minister said earlier that companies get a bit worried when we use the term “political”, but national security is a fundamentally political consideration, because it is about our political analysis of the threat from hostile foreign actors and our understanding of what the national interest is in a holistic sense. We have to give that political leadership. We cannot expect the business community to take that decision for us; we have to give a lead on understanding where the investment is coming from and what the characteristics of the company or investment vehicle are. Fundamentally, going by the old adage that he who pays the piper chooses the tune, where there are state-owned and state-backed entities, it is absolutely clear who is paying the piper and who is choosing to the tune.

The amendment we have tabled would mean that any acquisition involving state-owned entities or investors originating in a country of risk to UK national security—a fundamentally political calculation—and creating a change of influence would count as a person gaining control of a qualifying entity. By including state-owned enterprises explicitly on the face of the Bill, we would be ensuring particular regard to the issue even where shareholding levels are low.

We understand the thresholds for trigger events, but what we are saying is that when the characteristics of the acquirer ring particular alarm bells, that should apply regardless of the shareholding level that is being considered by the acquirer. We know the threat from state-owned enterprises is disproportionate; that is why we are recommending a kind of disproportionate action in this amendment, to address the reality of the characteristics and to ensure that we are carefully guarding against potentially malign actors.

Again, this is not a new concept. Other countries use it in their regimes, and we are simply proposing that we follow suit and have a smarter strategy and approach to regulation at the moment. The clarity that we need, of course, is from understanding that where allied states are involved and the transactions are efficiently screened for approval there is little cause for concern, but with this amendment, even small and discrete investments from hostile states and from state-backed entities within those states would be fully captured.

Let us turn to the expert evidence that we received, particularly from Michael Leiter, the legal expert and lawyer, who said:

“With respect to sovereign wealth funds or state-controlled investments, there is a perfectly good argument that yes, the standard of review might be…more rigorous.”—[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, 24 November 2020; c. 48, Q54.]

Let us be absolutely clear: we do sometimes see so-called private takeovers, where often the state-backed entity is rather obscured within the ownership structure. They are carried out by companies and investment vehicles that are in fact a front for authoritarian state actors, who have wider political, national security and geopolitical agendas and whose values are frequently at odds with ours.

A recent obvious example is the attempt by an investment vehicle backed by the Chinese state to take over Imagination Technologies. The company was the target of a hostile foreign takeover attempt, and that investment vehicle had direct links to the Chinese state. Then there are even more obvious examples, to which my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and for Southampton, Test have referred, particularly around Hinkley and Bradwell, where there is a clear ownership structure coming directly from the Chinese state.

We must also recognise the broader agenda with things such as China’s belt and road initiative, which is about creating debt-trap diplomacy. It is about building influence by entering other economies in such a major way that those economies effectively become dependent on the Chinese state. Of course, that comes with lots of strings attached, and it is part of the deal that those countries are not able or permitted to speak out when the Chinese state behaves in ways that we would not find acceptable. I hope that the Government and the Minister will seriously consider the amendment, because the characteristics of the acquirer must be taken into account if we are to have a smart regulation system that prioritises and does what the Bill sets out to do.

[Nadhim Zahawi]

This group of amendments would provide for certain cases to count as a person gaining control of a qualifying entity. The amendments are to clause 8, which defines the circumstances in which a person gains control of a qualifying entity for the purpose of the Bill.

Amendment 7 would ensure, as the hon. Member for Aberavon mentioned, that any acquisition involving state-owned entities or investors originating in a country of risk to UK national security and creating a change of influence would count as a person gaining control of a qualifying entity for the purposes of the Bill. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s intention to ensure that national security is comprehensively protected. I reassure him that the Bill provides no carve-out or special treatment for state-owned entities or overseas investors where they acquire control of a qualifying entity or asset. They will be subject to the mandatory notification requirements in the same way as any other acquirer, and the Secretary of State will have the power to scrutinise any acquisition of control by such parties where the legal test for call-in is met. That includes the acquisition of material influence over the policy of the entity.

However, the Government have been clear that the regime is nationally agnostic, and that each acquisition will be considered on a case-by-case basis. The draft statement of policy published alongside the Bill simply states that the regime will not

“regard state-owned entities, sovereign wealth funds—or other entities affiliated with foreign states—as being inherently more likely to pose a national security risk.”

I strongly believe that this is the right approach. We must recognise that many such organisations have full operational independence in pursuing long-term investment strategies with the objective of economic return, raising no national security risks.

Moreover, the clause already sets out the circumstances that constitute control of an entity based on levels of shareholding and voting rights and material influence. Amendments such as this could, for example, capture increases of equity stakes at any level, even though many could not realistically be expected to give rise to a national security risk. Developing a list of countries of risk would likely be a moving feast that would quickly become out of date in response to changing geopolitics and would most likely harm Britain’s diplomatic relations and place in the world, giving rise to a chilling effect on investment in these shores.

Amendment 8 would create a new case of a person gaining control of a qualifying entity for “changes to material influence” in industries critical to the UK’s capability and capacity to maintain national security, including economic security. Once more, I welcome the emerging cross-party consensus that the Bill must capture more subjective acquisitions of control, rather than solely levels of shares and voting rights. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that acquisitions of material influence over the policy of an entity are very much in the scope of the Bill. That applies within the 17 sectors but also to the wider economy. Parties can notify the Secretary of State of a trigger event concerning the acquisition of a material influence, and he will have the power to proactively call in such a case if the legal test is met.

I should clarify that material influence is not a scale. It is the lowest level of control that can be acquired over a qualifying entity, which captures acquisitions of smaller stakes or other rights or interests in entities, such as board representation rights. As such, it is not immediately clear to me what circumstances such an amendment would bring into the scope of the Bill, given that it would capture changes to material influence. None the less, I admire the ingenuity of the hon. Gentleman’s seeking, at least in part, to define national security through the amendment and its explicit reference to economic security. As he will know, the Bill does not define national security, and, as I said on Second Reading, I think that is a real strength, not a weakness.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

I think that the Bill is proportionate and I think that national security is not dependent on a particular country. Malignant actors come from different nationalities. The Committee heard from a number of experts last week the reasons for not defining national security, not least because it might limit the Secretary of State from being able to respond to new and emerging threats that did not fall within the definitions set out in statute. For these reasons I cannot accept these amendments, and I would gently encourage the hon. Member for Aberavon to withdraw them.

[Stephen Kinnock]

rose—

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment in his intervention.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the Minister for giving way—sort of. One of the key sentences in the Government’s statement of policy intent is in the section on acquirers, which says:

“Clearly, national security risks are most likely to arise when acquirers are hostile to the UK’s national security, or when they owe allegiance to hostile states or organisations.”

I recognise that the statement of policy intent is a draft, but clearly somebody in government thought it a good idea to put that sentence in there, and I absolutely agree with it. It is therefore very difficult to understand the disconnect that appears to exist between the Bill, which is agnostic on different national actors, and the statement of policy intent, which explicitly talks about when acquirers

“owe allegiance to hostile states or organisations.”

On that basis, the amendment touches on a crucial issue and we shall be pushing it to a Division.

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[Nadhim Zahawi]

I do not wish to keep repeating myself, but I have set out the reasons why I cannot accept these amendments. I would again gently encourage the hon. Member to withdraw the amendment, but I suspect we will be heading to a Division.

[Stephen Kinnock]

We are moving back and forth here. As I set out, the issues around the characteristics of the acquirer are so important to ensuring that we have a smart approach and the sentence within the statement of policy intent is so absolutely spot on that we will push the amendment to a Division to show our support for that section of the statement.

Question put, That the amendment be made.

National Security and Investment Bill

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

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

The Bill is so close to doing all that that I will support it whatever the Minister does, but I do hope he will think about adopting new clause 4. As he has seen, it has cross-party support, and has been tabled with great respect for his work and the work of the civil servants he has pulled together to draft the Bill. He has done a fantastic job of it. I very much hope that he will look at the new clause, consider its merits and pull it together. We know the dangers; we have only to look at the silencing of people like Jack Ma of Ant Group, and the intervention in various other businesses around the world by some of the state-owned enterprises that are now sniffing around British businesses, to see that the risk is sadly real. I hope the Minister will look at the new clause, and will use all the extraordinary experience and skill that he has at his fingertips—many of us wish that we had it—to consider where we go and how to do this best.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab) [V]]

It is always a pleasure to follow the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who is doing sterling work in an area of increasing concern to this House and our country; the impact of hostile state actors plays an increasingly important part in how we think about our country’s place in the world. He is doing outstanding work in thought leadership and political leadership in that context.

It was a privilege to serve on the Bill Committee, and it has been a real privilege to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), who has led the team in an exemplary manner. She has been assiduous in the scrutiny of the Bill and in bringing us together around the amendments—more than 30 of them, I think—that we tabled in Committee.

Unfortunately, while I have huge respect for the Minister in charge of the Bill, he chose not to integrate any of our amendments into the Bill, which is a pity because, as my hon. Friend just pointed out from the Dispatch Box, we have approached the Bill in a spirit of constructive engagement with the Government. We wish to see its substance put in place as rapidly as possible; it is long overdue. It is a pity that that spirit was not reciprocated by the Government when it came to some of our amendments, which we genuinely tabled not for any partisan reasons, but to try to improve the Bill as much as we could.

However, we are where we are. We are through Committee, and we are looking at the Bill as it is. As has been mentioned, we heard from experts in Committee, including the former head of MI6, Richard Dearlove, and Charlie Parton, one of the leading experts on China, and their contributions were enlightening. It is worth touching on what they talked to us about, because it sets out the backdrop against which the Bill is being put on to the statute book.

I will mention two of the key takeaways from that evidence. First, the impact of covid on the ability of the British economy and businesses to withstand a hostile foreign takeover is deeply troubling; it increases their vulnerability. It feels very much like we are out on choppy waters in a relatively difficult economic climate, and are relatively isolated, of course, having left the European Union. We need to ensure that we do all we can to hold on to our strategic national assets. We should not allow them to be snapped up by investment vehicles and businesses that are sniffing around, to use the term of the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), our business sector, potentially taking over businesses in a way that would be deeply damaging to our economy and national security.

The second key trend that was highlighted was, of course, the rise of China. It was made very clear by Mr Dearlove, Mr Parton and others that successive Governments since 2010 have been profoundly naive and complacent about how we respond to the rise of China. We had the so-called golden era, which was supposed to be about economic integration, and supposed to lead to China beginning to align with the rules and norms of the international rules-based order. Clearly, the opposite has happened, and as a result of that naivety and complacency, we find ourselves very exposed, and in a position that could lead to the undermining of our sovereign capabilities. The Bill is being introduced against that backdrop.

I will speak in favour of new clause 5, which is really important, and on which I worked with colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, but first I will talk about the Bill’s intentions, and whether it will achieve its goals. The Bill seeks to protect Britain’s national security from the threats posed by hostile business takeovers, and by investment vehicles that are not aligned with the UK’s values and interests, and are potentially even actively hostile and seeking to cause harm to our country. However, there is potentially a flaw at the heart of the Bill. A key part of our national security is our economic security; indeed, I would argue that it is a foundation stone of our national security. It underpins our long-term national security, in the sense that if we lose control of key parts of our economy, it leads to an undermining of our sovereignty, our sovereign capability, and our prosperity. That has a knock-on effect on our resilience and our national security.

We need to put our sovereign capabilities at the heart of the Bill, and ensure that when the Government do national security assessments, they look at long-term, strategic, structural threats in addition to the more immediate threats to our national security of espionage, intellectual property theft, and a range of others.

That is why in Committee I honed in on two issues that I felt were most critical: our critical national infrastructure, and enterprises and investment vehicles that have clear links and allegiance to other states. On the first point, the Bill unfortunately neglects to define critical national infrastructure. The Government consultation lists 17 sectors that might come under the national security regime’s mandatory notification process, but it does not list and define critical national infrastructure as an asset class in itself.

There is a difference between the list of 17 sectors in the Bill and the 13 sectors that the Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure, which is of course a Government body, defines as critical national infrastructure. The missing five sectors are chemicals, defence, finance, health and water, which I would argue are crucial to our national interest. Potentially hostile foreign takeovers in those crucial sectors should give all of us, and certainly the Government, pause for thought. Those sectors form the basis of the safety and security of every citizen of our country, so I strongly recommend that critical national infrastructure be defined as an asset class in the Bill, and that the gap be closed between those 13 sectors and the 17 listed in the Bill.

Our critical national infrastructure of course needs protecting. Sir Richard Dearlove, in response to my question in Committee about including a defintion of critical national infrastructure, said:

“I would certainly see that as advantageous, because it defines a clear area where you start and from which you can make judgments”.––[Official Report, National Security and Investment Public Bill Committee, Tuesday 24 November 2020; c. 24, Q31.]

The truth is that we have failed to protect these critical national assets for a decade. Just look at the involvement of Chinese-based investment vehicles in our water, energy and nuclear sectors. This is a serious problem that needs to be fixed urgently. It is also part of the laissez-faire approach that successive Governments have taken since 2010. It leads to a short-term business culture that opens the door to acquisitions, and to our having by far the highest number of successful hostile takeover bids of any advanced economy in the world—certainly as defined by the OECD.

Our strategic assets have too often been flogged off to the highest bidder. The case of Arm—a jewel in the crown of British tech—has been mentioned by several hon. Members; it is, of course, in the process of being sold off to NVIDIA. Huawei acquired the Centre for Integrated Photonics and of course DeepMind was sold to Google; I absolutely agree with the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who said that that was one of the most egregious decisions taken by a Government in recent political history.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Could I interrupt the hon. Gentleman to say that we have quite a few more speakers? We do have a fair amount of time, but I am hoping that speakers will take about 10 minutes, and he has now taken 15, so I hope that he might be bringing his remarks to a close before too long.

[Stephen Kinnock]

With apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am indeed finishing now.

Protecting our national security is just one element of protecting, nurturing and developing the sectors that are vital for the future. Technology sovereignty will be the defining issue of the coming decade. The economic dislocation we have seen from covid means that the case for action is stronger and more urgent than ever.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

I shall heed your remarks, Madam Deputy Speaker, and try to keep my contribution short. In truth, I have not been involved thus far in this Bill, but I am my party’s defence spokesman and I therefore take a view on it.

Given the constituency I represent at the very top of the British mainland—north coast, east coast and west coast—I intuit from what I see that the Russian navy is no stranger to those waters. Therefore, the defence of the realm is in my mind personally as well as in speaking in the Commons. As I have said many times before, we do, alas and alack, live in a world where there are states that are not about the best interests of the United Kingdom. As other speakers have said, we see the Chinese threat and we see the Russian threat. It is within that context that I say what I say.

I want to make three or four very general points; as I say, I will try to be fairly speedy. The first is about the amendment that seeks to place an annual security report before the Intelligence and Security Committee. Yes, we have heard that the Government are proposing to bring in something similar to this amendment in the upper House, but it would be no bad thing for us to agree on it at this stage, and then let us see what the Government come back with if they decide not to accept it. In recent days, we have seen on the other side of the Atlantic the whole notion of parliamentary democracy come under some challenge. Here in the mother of Parliaments, the idea of Parliament as supreme and of reports brought back to Parliament is very much a part of our democracy. It is a vital mechanism in securing the way we do things nationally and our freedoms.

On the Chinese point, the sale of DeepMind to Google, and Arm, which will go to NVIDIA in due course, is regrettable, to say the least. Let us make no mistake: this is a quite deliberate act by China and other Governments who are hostile to us. At the end of the day, there are front organisations that are trying to get a grip on cherry-picking those parts of the British economy that are fundamental to our workings. That is extremely dangerous, to say the least.

The scope of the public interest test is important to the Liberal Democrats, as we have been saying for a long time. First and foremost, this Bill, which I support entirely, is important to the safety of the realm—to protecting British interests—but at some stage I would like the public interest test to be broadened out. Mention has been made of China. We know how incredibly badly the Chinese are treating their Muslim minority in the west of the country. It amounts to something approaching genocide: let us not muck about with this. When companies buy up a British company or business, I would like the public interest test to be applied, for instance, on child labour and on modern slavery. The trade deals should be examined in that context as well. At the end of the day—we have said it many times in the House of Commons and the House of Lords—we disapprove entirely of the way in which the Chinese have treated the Uyghurs. We have to try to take action to try to influence that. If we can stymie a trade deal on that front, that might be a very good move for the future.

I have discovered—it is a curious factor during my three years in the Commons—that on defence matters there is often broad agreement across the House, which is very encouraging. The idea of constructive opposition is important, and what comes back from the upper House will be of extraordinary interest. I hope that the lesson has been learned, and that when the Bill is enacted there will be a sensible approach to stopping the repetition of DeepMind and the sale of Arm. I give huge credit to the Chairmen of the Foreign Affairs Committee and of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who have worked assiduously, as have their Committees, on a cross-party basis, to protect the best interests of our nation. There I shall conclude my remarks.