Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debateWednesday 10th January 2024
(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberEconomic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 View all Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill 2022-23 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 25 October 2023 - (25 Oct 2023)
18:45 - The House divided: - Ayes: 228 / Noes: 284 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 282 / Noes: 235 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Michael Gove)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am grateful for the opportunity to move the Third Reading of this Bill. As the House will know, this Bill was introduced before the King’s Speech, in the last parliamentary Session; it is a carry-over Bill. I begin by thanking all those who took part in the consideration of this Bill on Second Reading, in Committee and on Report.
Inevitably, following on from its introduction, debate around the Bill has occurred in the dark shadow of the events of 7 October and the continuing conflict in Israel and Gaza. That is why I want to stress, as I sought to do on Report, my gratitude for the thoughtful way in which every Member of this House has contributed to debate on this Bill. While there is, I know, a difference of opinion about the appropriateness of the measures we are bringing forward, everyone in this House is committed to ensuring that we act against antisemitism, everyone in this House is committed to ensuring that we can see a peaceful solution to the conflict in the middle east, and everyone in this House is committed to a two-state solution as the means by which we can bring peace to that troubled region.
The Bill upholds a principle that was originally outlined in our 2019 general election manifesto. During the course of consideration of the Bill we have heard from a number of organisations, both in Committee and in broader public debate about the Bill, all affirming its timeliness and importance in dealing with the continuing and growing threat of antisemitism, and upholding the importance of making sure that the UK Government speak with one voice, in a united way, on behalf of all of us, on foreign policy, as a reserved matter for the Government.
In that context, it is important to deal with one or two entirely understandable and legitimate concerns that have been raised about the interplay between the Bill itself and UK Government foreign policy. I know some particular concerns have been raised about clause 3(7). I assure colleagues that the clause does not contravene in any way our foreign policy or inhibit in any way the UK Government’s taking action if we believe there is activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories that requires to be called out.
We continue to raise, as the Foreign Secretary has recently, issues of illegal settler activity, and Lord Cameron has been clear with the Israeli Government that the UK Government are in profound disagreement with some of those actions and some of that activity. I will come on to that in just a second. I should say that the clause does not prevent the Government establishing sanctions or using travel bans against those who have been linked to blatant human right abuses. It is simply the aim of this legislation to prevent public bodies from adopting their own foreign policy, as such decisions should ultimately be the remit of the Government and this House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Michael Gove
I know, given the nature of the debate on this Bill, that a number of colleagues would like to intervene; I will try to answer questions briefly, because I know a number of colleagues would like to take part in the debate.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Hypotheticals are not always helpful, but I beg my right hon. Friend’s indulgence in this hypothetical on that particular point about the interaction between clause 3(7) and UK foreign policy. UK foreign policy is clear that illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are against international law. This Bill would provide that, if a pension fund were given an investment policy for expanding, say, an infrastructure fund proposal in the occupied territories, it would have no moral basis for refusing to invest, although that investment would be expanding Israeli policies contrary to UK foreign policy. Can the Secretary of State explain how to unpack that so that what he has just said is what I believe is true?
Michael Gove
It is specifically the case that public bodies, including the local government pension scheme and local authorities, should not be taking decisions that conflict with UK Government foreign policy, and we are absolutely clear that it would conflict with UK Government foreign policy if they were to engage in freelance activity of that kind. However, it is perfectly open to any representative, including any elected representative, to express their personal disapproval of the activities of the Israeli Government or any organisation that operates within the settlements.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I have been listening carefully to what the Secretary of State is saying on that point, but last year, the Government stated:
“The UK has a clear position on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: they are illegal under international law”.—[Official Report, 23 March 2023; Vol. 730, c. 412.]
To speak plainly, is not the Secretary of State ashamed that, through this clampdown on the democratic right to boycott, his Government are restricting the rights of those who want to take peaceful action against violations of international law, and are in effect siding with those breaking international law?
Michael Gove
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, who has taken a close personal interest in the conflict—I appreciate the sincerity with which he raises that point—absolutely not. There is a clear intention in the Bill, which is to deal specifically with the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign and its attempts to use the legitimacy of local government and other intermediate institutions to undermine the UK Government’s foreign policy. The UK Government, of whichever colour, must speak with one voice on behalf of the whole United Kingdom when it comes to foreign policy matters. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree, the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and the Foreign Secretary have, from this Dispatch Box and in the other place, been clear with the Israeli Government when they think that it is appropriate to criticise their actions and indeed those of individuals operating within the settlements, but there is an important distinction to be drawn between criticism of the Israeli Government, criticism of the acts of particular individuals and the nature of the BDS campaign itself.
I am grateful to Opposition Front Benchers—although we have our disagreements—and to Labour Friends of Israel for making it clear that the BDS movement itself is explicitly and regrettably antisemitic. It deliberately sets out to argue that the state of Israel as a home for the Jewish people should not exist.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I agree with the comments that the Secretary of State has just made. Israel is pretty much the only country that is targeted in this way despite the fact there are a number of appalling regimes around the world. On local authorities, does he agree that a lot of councillors should focus on their core job of running local services instead of virtue-signalling and clumsily weighing in on complex international issues?
Michael Gove
Not for the first time, I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. He summed up in that intervention two of the critical points in the Bill. First, local government has many important functions. Intervening in foreign policy in a way that can exacerbate community tensions is emphatically not one of them. Secondly, there has been a unique focus on the state of Israel. Of course, there are criticisms that can and should be mounted against the state of Israel, its Government and their activities. However, the BDS campaign singles out Israel for special treatment. We have not seen attempts by local government to criticise, for example, the actions of Bashar al-Assad in Syria or a variety of other regimes that have been targeting innocent Muslim lives.
Again, one point that was made clearly by the now sadly departed former Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, was that antisemitism is a virus that mutates over time. In the past, it was directed towards Judaism as a faith. Then it mutated to be directed towards the Jewish people through direct racism. Now antisemitism finds an expression through an attempt to deny the Jewish people the same right of self-determination and the same right to a homeland that we extend to all peoples.
Support for the Bill from Jewish organisations in this country—the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and so on—has been clear, but perhaps the most telling are the words of the Community Security Trust, which is there to physically protect Jewish people and communities. The CST is scrupulous in not offering any commentary on matters in Israel and the middle east or on foreign policy—it eschews doing so because it recognises the diversity of views within the Jewish community on some of those questions—but it has said that BDS
“has a chilling impact on Jews, a modern reminder of anti-Jewish boycotts. It also serves to legitimise the shunning of Jews from ‘decent’ society. And having been shunned…that’s a half way house to all manner of more abusive and physical outcomes.”
When we have seen a 537% increase in antisemitic incidents, I think it important to bear those words in mind.
Stephen Crabb (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making some extremely important points about the nature of the BDS movement. Is it not the case that, as he says, there have been very few examples of councils looking to use the levers available to them to protest against other international issues? Is that not because the whole BDS movement—in fact, the label “BDS”—has been entirely constructed as a weapon against the state of Israel? When we look at the origins of the movement, we see, unfortunately, that it is riddled from top to bottom with antisemitism.
Michael Gove
I am afraid that my right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. Again, to be more than fair, many prominent Labour voices have made precisely that point: the BDS campaign, those who created it and those who run it are very clear that they are singling out Israel. They want to see an end to Israel as a Jewish state.
I am very conscious of the fact that a number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to contribute to the debate. I also want to emphasise again that a horror and revulsion of antisemitism and prejudice of all kinds is shared across this House, as is a determination to see peace in the middle east. We have rehearsed the arguments, with great contributions in Committee and on Report, and I believe that this Bill is a targeted and proportionate approach to dealing with a unique evil. I hope that we will be able to support the Bill, but as I say, dissenting voices in this House must always be heard with respect. With that, I commend the Bill to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
Again, as I said on Second Reading and on Report, I speak with a heavy heart and in some dismay, but I tell those on my Front Bench that I will be voting against the Bill this evening.
This Bill obviously comes at a dreadful time, as we mourn the deaths of so many Israelis in heinous circumstances on 7 October and the deaths of so many Palestinians subsequently, many of whom still lie under the rubble. The fact that we in this House would seek to legislate against non-violent protest in such an illiberal and draconian way seems to me tragic at this particular point in time.
As the Secretary of State knows, there are broadly three areas in which I and other colleagues attempted to amend the Bill and have concerns. The first area is, as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, the separate identification in the Bill of Israel, and its conflation with the occupied territories and the Golan Heights. We believe that contravenes our undertakings at the United Nations and, indeed, in international law, which of course means that the Bill will spend a lot of time in the courts, if it eventually sees the light of day. At the same time, that is a cause of great dismay to our allies in the Arab world, who of course we need at the moment more than ever to join us in seeking peace in the dreadful conflict taking place in the middle east. That we should undermine our own status as fair dealers, as it were, in that part of the world seems to me an unforced error.
The second area of serious concern is obviously the impact on free speech. Again as the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, it seems to me incredible that we are putting elected officials and others in a position where if they just stand up in certain circumstances and say they disagree with the law, they will be committing a criminal act. It seems to me an incredibly illiberal and backward step that we would strike a blow against pluralism in that way. The Bill could stand without those restrictions on free speech, and as the Secretary of State will know, we attempted to amend it to remove them, but that attempt was rebuffed.
The third area is the sheer scale of the Bill’s impact and the number of organisations that will be drawn into it. It is not just the local government pension fund, of which I am a member, but also every university in the land and private sector companies that perform a public service of some kind and are contractors to the Government that will be drawn in. That is important because, as the Secretary of State will know, this subject is very litigious. There are lawyers sympathetic to Israel and those sympathetic to Palestine. From the Secretary of State’s speech, it seems that the Bill is aimed squarely at that particular conflict in this world. Lawyers on both sides will gear up, and an industry will arise to attack, defend, analyse and scrutinise every decision, and all these bodies will have to take significant internal legal advice to deal with it as well. Subjecting them all to this enormous burden seems to me disproportionate to the problem that the Government are trying to address.
Finally, my greatest concern is for the impact on British Jewry. As the Secretary of State has said, he is trying to bring this Bill in to deal with the growth in antisemitism in the United Kingdom, but my view is that the Bill will play entirely into the hands of the antisemites. I imagine that this Bill will be manna to those rotten social media groups and WhatsApp groups that espouse conspiracy theories about Israel and the Jewish community. They will see this, as Jonathan Freedland—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I call the SNP spokesperson, with no time limit.
Michael Gove
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I would like to thank everyone who has spoken on Third Reading, including my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), who was articulating the vital importance of recognising where antisemitism begins and where it ends. I also wish to thank those who spoke powerfully from a personal point of view: my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers), who has only recently returned from Israel, of which she has been such a strong friend and supporter, and the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). Our heart goes out to not only her family, but all those suffering in Gaza at the moment.
I wish briefly to address one misconception, which is that this Bill acts as an effective restraint—a gagging clause—on free speech. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) talked of faith groups being silenced and so on. As the explanatory notes make clear, individuals are in no way prohibited from expressing their view, however disagreeable we might find it, on the conflict in Israel and Gaza, or from expressing a view, which I would abhor, that the state of Israel should not exist. What is clear is that only public authorities, not individuals, are governed by this Bill. The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) rightly drew attention to the importance of freedom of speech, not least on campus and with academic freedom at its heart. I can reassure him, and he can be reassured, that whatever other misgivings he has about this Bill, it is not a direct assault on the principle of free speech. It is simply, clearly and tightly drawn in order to ensure that public bodies, public authorities, cannot abuse the position that has been vested in them as corporate bodies to more broadly undermine the foreign policy of the UK or, particularly in this case, as has been pointed out by a number of hon. Members and indeed by the Opposition Front-Bench team, to give succour to an explicitly antisemitic campaign. Again, I stress there will be different opinions across the House about the best way of securing Israel and of securing freedom for the Palestinians. The fact that debates are so intense in this House reflects the care and passion that so many Members bring to that debate.
However, the Bill is explicitly about making sure that citizens in the United Kingdom, who have been targeted by explicitly antisemitic campaigns, get the protection for which the organisations that stand up for them have been asking. In the spirit of the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council, I hope that as many Members as possible—
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?
Michael Gove
I will not as I have only seconds left. I hope that as many Members as possible will feel that they can support the legislation.