Economic Activity of Public Bodies (Overseas Matters) Bill

Debate between Baroness Neville-Rolfe and Lord Roborough

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deben (Con)]

If a Church of England or Catholic school says it will not buy from a country that is persecuting Christians, that is concentrating on its core responsibility. It is not avoiding it; it is what it is there for, which is to uphold the faith. Are we really going to dictate whether or not it should make that decision?

[Lord Roborough (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has an advisory speaking time of 20 minutes. May I respectfully suggest that we leave any further interventions until the end to allow the Minister to answer as many of the existing questions as possible?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I have already said that I am trying to answer the many questions noble Lords have asked. There have been a great many interventions on me and I have been very patient. I have also made some undertakings to try to clarify some of these points, including childcare, which would cover the schools that my noble friend Lord Deben mentioned.

Perhaps I could turn to Amendment 54, which requires

“the Secretary of State to provide a comprehensive list”,

of the bodies in scope

“before the provisions in Clause 1 can be brought into force”.

The Government are not able to provide a comprehensive list of bodies captured by the Human Rights Act definition. However, I have tried to be clear on the categories of bodies that includes. To repeat, these include: central government agencies and non-departmental public bodies; UK Government Ministers and devolved Ministers; local authorities; administering authorities of local government pension schemes; universities and higher education providers with public functions; publicly funded schools; and some museums and galleries in receipt of significant public funding.

As with any definition, there will be further cases at the margins where it is impossible to generalise without the full facts of a case. That, of course, is where the courts come in. Legislation often uses general definitions—for example, the Human Rights Act from which we have taken the scope or the scope of bodies covered by obligations under public procurement legislation.

Finally, I turn to Amendment 14A. This would remove from the Bill the powers granted to the Secretary of State to amend the schedule to make exceptions to the ban for certain bodies, functions and types of considerations, and to amend or remove regulations made under these powers. I understand concerns about the use of subordinate legislation—the noble Lord knows that—and we are lucky that we have such a good committee to supervise its use. However, these powers are necessary to ensure that the ban can evolve over time and operate as intended, for example in response to emerging global events.

I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, that the FCDO is fully supportive of this legislation, and all regulations made under this Bill would follow the normal procedure of cross-governmental clearance and, of course, be approved by the Foreign Secretary. In the event that in future the ban has unintended consequences for a certain public authority, it is right for the Secretary of State to have the power to exempt that body, or a function of the body, from the ban via statutory instrument—I think today’s debate shows that that is necessary—and this would be subject to affirmative resolution by both Houses.

These powers will also allow the Secretary of State to exempt certain types of considerations from the ban. For example, Ministers may decide to exempt a narrow type of consideration to ensure the ban can evolve in line with government policy. The powers future-proof the legislation to ensure the ban can continue to operate effectively and mitigate against any unforeseen circumstances.

Before I close, I should perhaps address the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, on the environment. The ban applies only to decisions that target a particular country or territory. For example, environmental campaigns, including ones against fossil fuels that are not country specific, are outside the scope of this Bill. I also reassure my noble friend that the power in Clause 3 cannot be used to remove any exception to the ban in the Bill as passed by Parliament. There is a schedule the noble Lord can look at, which includes environmental misconduct, which we are coming on to discuss.

I hope, finally, to address the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, with regard to why there is a separate clause in the Bill for local government pension schemes. The administering authorities for local government pension schemes are public authorities under Section 6 of the Human Rights Act. Capturing administering authorities of LGPS in a bespoke provision means that the Pensions Regulator can use its existing powers and procedures to enforce the BDS ban for the administering authorities of LGPS. That avoids the Pensions Regulator setting up a separate enforcement system for the Bill. I am happy to have a discussion with him; we often discuss pensions issues which are of limited interest sometimes to the whole House.

I hope that my response to this group of amendments —importantly, alongside the undertakings I gave in response to my previous group which we expanded a little to bring in telling examples—will help the Committee to understand why we have chosen the Human Rights Act definition and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment. I look forward to further discussion.