National Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Matt Western

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

[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.

National Security and Investment Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Matt Western

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

[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.

Occupied Palestinian Territories

Debate between Stephen Kinnock and Matt Western

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful, balanced and considered speech. On that point about the international response, could the accords that have been struck with the UAE and Bahrain provide an opportunity for the UK Government to work with them and with Europe to gain extra leverage to bring about some sort of change in Israeli policy?

[Stephen Kinnock]

That is absolutely a step in the right direction, although I think it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, for the reasons that I have set out. The reality is that as long as the basis for the talks is the so-called Trump-Netanyahu plan, it is a non-starter, because that plan violates international law.

We should explore the potential for the International Criminal Court to play a role. The Israeli Attorney General’s office has already warned the Israeli Prime Minister that annexation could trigger an investigation of

“senior Army officers, civil service officials and heads of regional councils of West Bank settlements”.

It is essential that the UK condemns any further creeping annexation, but condemnation alone will never be enough. To this end, the UK Government must take the following steps with urgency. First, they must immediately recognise the state of Palestine on the basis of the 1967 lines. The UK Government argue that recognition should follow successful negotiations, but the logic of this argument is deeply flawed and partisan. It suggests that we are happy to see a 53-year-old occupation persist, legitimising the illegal actions of the Israeli Government and contributing to the brutality and violence that shame us all.

Secondly, the Government must ban all products that originate from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Profiting from such products is tantamount to profiting from the proceeds of crime, and it must stop. When we trade with these settlements, we are essentially telling the world that international law does not matter, and such trade legitimises and facilitates the existence and expansion of the settlements. In 2014, it was right that the UK, as part of the European Union, prohibited trade with Crimea following its illegal annexation by Russia. It is crucial that we are consistent in our application of international law.

Thirdly, the Government must act to end the involvement of UK-based companies within the illegal settlements. In March, the UN published a list of companies that are involved in the settlements, which included JCB, Opodo and Greenkote PLC. Charities actively involved in illegal settlement projects should not be eligible for the privileges of charitable status, including tax exemption. What steps will our Government now take to hold these companies and charities to account? I look forward to hearing the Minister’s views on these points. These measures must be put in place immediately: no more excuses, and no more obfuscation from this Government.

Standing here in the Chamber today, it is easy to forget the human cost of this conflict. Visiting the west bank and East Jerusalem with Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East and the Council for Arab-British Understanding in 2014, I saw how the settlements touched the lives of those in the occupied territories. I think of the father from Gaza I met in Makassed hospital who was nursing his four-year-old double-amputee son and worrying about his wife in another hospital 20 miles away, who had also had both her legs amputated. I think of the Bedouin community of Khan al-Ahmar, whose residents live in perpetual fear of military demolitions and harassment. I think of the quarter of a million children across the Palestinian territories who the UN identifies as in need of psychosocial support and child protection interventions. What future can these children look forward to? What hope can we offer them? A 10-year-old child in Gaza will already have witnessed three wars and nothing but the siege.

I therefore rise today to convey this simple message to the Minister: act now. Act now to show that Britain is still a country that will give voice to the voiceless and stand up for the rights of the oppressed. Act now to show that Britain is still a beacon of hope and a country that stands tall in the world and strives relentlessly for peace and justice. Act now to help us to believe that yours is a Government who still believe in the rule of law.