National Security and Investment Bill

Committee (1st Day)

My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person, respecting social distancing, others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down, and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other touch points before and after use. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded, or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.

I will call Members to speak in the order listed. During the debate on each group, I invite Members, including Members in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk, if they wish to speak after the Minister, using the Grand Committee address. I will call Members to speak in order of request.

The groupings are binding. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only. I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says “Not Content” an amendment is negatived, and if a single voice says “Content” a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely wants their voice accounted for if the question is put, they must make this clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.

Amendment 1

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause— “Objective of this Act (1) The overarching objective of this Act is to allow the Secretary of State to safeguard national security in respect of economic and social harm.(2) When making decisions under this Act, including for the purposes of assessing a risk to national security, the Secretary of State must have regard to the objective in subsection (1).(3) The Secretary of State must also have regard to the effect of the application of this Act on—(a) technology investment;(b) the research and innovation environment; and(c) business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises.”Member’s explanatory statement This amendment sets an objective for the bill in relation to national security and includes a number of other elements to which the Secretary of State must have regard.

My Lords, Amendment 1 is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. At Second Reading the Minister described the Bill as

“a major upgrade to the Government’s powers to screen certain acquisitions on national security grounds”,

which builds substantially on the Enterprise Act 2002. It certainly is, but perhaps in the Bill we are dealing with architect’s drawing of the upgrade, rather than a 3D model.

First, let me say without equivocation that those of us on our Benches see the need the Government to scrutinise potentially sensitive transactions, and we think that an upgrade is timely and sensible. However, as the Minister has acknowledged, there is the rub. Defining what is sensitive and what is a transaction of concern are key to the effective operation of the Bill. As we progress through the amendments ahead of us, I would say that virtually all seek to better define the operational process of the new investment security unit within BEIS and to ensure that the disquiet it has caused is alleviated.

At Second Reading, the Minister spoke about reflecting

“the modern economic and investment landscape in the UK.”—[Official Report, 4/2/21; col. 2332.]

In fact, what is proposed here is culturally different from what successive Governments have practised. Blair, Cameron—including and excluding us—through May to Johnson have all, so far, rightly or wrongly, pursued a distinctly hands-off approach. It is not hard to understand the alarm that the Bill might cause in the outside world.

Its publishing sends a message about the future nature of interventionism. This concern comes not just from the traditional free traders of the City but from universities, industry trade associations and sectors as wide as space and bioscience. The abiding link to these academic and industrial concerns is that these are, by necessity, international and collaborative activities.

My Lords, in principle, I do not support proposed new clauses such as this, whether they are called objective clauses or purpose clauses. I have tabled them myself in the past, but they are usually not much more than an excuse for another Second Reading debate, and we had a little of that in the introduction from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

Amendment 1 could be positively harmful. It confines national security to “economic and social harm”. The obvious item omitted is physical harm, but other harms could be missing. Purpose or objective clauses would be used as an aid to interpretation of the main body of the Act so, if they are there, they have to be comprehensive in their drafting if they are not to act as a constraint on the operation of the Bill.

Similarly, the “have regard” matters in proposed new subsection (3) could act as a constraint on the Secretary of State. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, explained the rationale for his list, but I could not see why “technology investment” was singled out compared to other kinds of investment—for example, in manufacturing capability or intellectual property. What exactly is meant by “research and innovation environment” is unclear from the drafting, and is the omission of “development”, which is the normal companion to “research”, significant or not? Singling out SMEs, which we are all aware are important to our economy, implies that larger enterprises are not important in the considerations.

There is a good reason why Bills do not often contain purpose or objective clauses. They are traps for the unwary and can do more harm than good.

My Lords, there are very wide-reaching powers in this Bill and, to start where I ended my Second Reading speech:

“I am not against the notion of interventions, but the Bill should be more than notion and compulsion, and I hope that it is possible to include more direction and balance.”—[Official Report, 4/2/21; col. 2364.]

That is exactly the aim of Amendment 1. It aims to be positive rather than negative, by defining an overarching objective. One might debate whether it could be slightly different, but the idea is to have an overarching objective to safeguard national security in respect of economic and social harm. “Social harm” is a very broad term. Recognising that broad scope, it specifically lists that the Secretary of State must

“have regard to the effect … on technology investment… the research and innovation environment … and business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises.”

I can almost hear the Minister assuring us that the Secretary of State will have regard to a lot of things, and that would be right, but it is also necessary to make sure that there are correct messages given by the Bill—messages that endure and give confidence to the business sectors most likely to suffer, perhaps entirely unnecessarily, from rumours, concern or finger-pointing from competing jurisdictions.

If we take the starting point that the Bill has good intentions, that there are similar moves internationally, that we have perhaps been too slack in the past, and that there are inevitably burdens arising from both notification requirements and notification concern, that will lead to unnecessary voluntary notification. One wonders if there are not more mechanisms that can give an all-clear signal.

Maybe some will become clearer or develop over time but, wherever that is possible, as we work through the Bill, I am mainly looking to see what incremental steps can be made towards certainty. That can be helped right at the start of the Bill by using the combination of broad objective plus a list of the most sensitive “have regard” matters. This appears in various other pieces of UK legislation, not least in the financial services legislation that is occupying both my time and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on the days either side of this sitting. Therefore, I hope that the Minister sees the advantage of taking that approach here.

My Lords, I will disappoint my noble friend Lady Noakes by making a comment that is more a Second Reading comment than anything else. But it is important we see this Bill in context. The genesis of this Bill is, I assume, largely about Chinese influence and the debates we have had about Huawei and so on. I want to raise only one issue on the context; it is the way in which British commerce and the economy are so intricately and deeply linked with China. Is that globalisation? I am not sure.

We all know how much we buy now comes from China on the one belt, one road programme or elsewhere. The interdependence between western consumers and economies and the Chinese economy is extraordinarily deep-rooted. I am going to use a little example—a silly one, you may say. Old-fashioned fellow that I am, I try to buy British if I can. Looking for a butter dish online, I bought quite an attractive one from the English Tableware Company. I thought that was pretty safe, until the moment it arrived. I turned it over and found it was made in China, which seems quite strange to me. I took it up with the company, and it came back to me saying its products were all ethically sourced and it had checked the suppliers. Of course, we have no idea about the working conditions or possibility of slave labour in Chinese factories.

We know quite a lot about what is sadly happening in Xinjiang, and that the Chinese Communist Party sees commercial influence as intricately linked to broader power. We should all remember what has happened to the relations between China and Australia since Australia demanded an investigation into the roots of the Covid crisis. The Chinese apparently talk about civil/military fusion. Butter dishes may not be of huge importance to intelligence, but they reflect the broader context of the intricate involvement of western economies with the Chinese economy.

My Lords, I declare my interests as stated in the register. My noble friends Lord Fox and Lady Bowles have cogently outlined the purposes of Amendment 1 and the importance of having a framework of this kind for the Secretary of State when he is exercising his powers under the Bill.

I am taken by the fishing analogy which has been used in relation to the Bill. On these Benches, we support the trawling process and its purpose, but a large number of questions in consequence need answering about the extent of the net, the size of the mesh, and which species will be taken on board and which discarded, and how long that will take. We will come to those questions later in Committee. This amendment asks the broader question: what impact on the broader ecology is the trawling having? The Secretary of State cannot be oblivious to the impact on the investment ecology, as set out in the proposed new paragraphs, but must take account of the impact of what he or she is doing. I am sure that the Minister will want to give us assurances on many questions to do with the Bill as drafted. But we need certainty about this aspect and how the Secretary of State will exercise these considerable powers yet not thereby damage what we have in the UK—a thriving investment climate. As my noble friend Lord Fox has pointed out, it is not just the City but universities, trade associations and sectors such as space and biosciences that have raised concerns about the width of the Secretary of State’s powers.

Today, we have seen the outcome of the sector consultation, all 111 pages of it, which allays concerns somewhat, but I anticipate that many will still believe—as I do—that the net is being too widely drawn. This amendment is designed to constructively allay that concern. I hope that the Minister will recognise its merits. It is far from harmful, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested it was. She asked why we singled out these three elements: it is because, looking at the sectors, it is precisely those areas that we believe are most likely to be damaged if a net is drawn too wide. I am going to resist the temptation to pick up the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Robathan, because I am conscious we are not on Second Reading, but he has raised some interesting questions.

My Lords, it was clear at Second Reading, and again today from when the noble Lord, Lord Fox, began, that everyone across the House agrees that national security is the number one priority.

The discussion therefore is twofold. First, will what is, and is not, covered in this legislation be clear enough? Secondly, is the balance between security needs and the desire for economic growth, research, innovation and freedom to invest, correctly delineated? On the first issue, it is obvious that the new regime must be based on the best advice coming from across government, as well as on emerging and current threats, and the behaviour and developments of our adversaries. We will come in the next group to the definition of national security.

This first amendment is focused more on the second question that I posed. Will the unit take sufficient account of technology investment, research and innovation, and business opportunities, particularly for SMEs? From everything said at Second Reading and even today, that is an important discussion. We should not expect the Bill, nor its new unit, to be the generator of investment, research and development—that is for an industrial strategy—but the Government must have a careful eye on whether the workings of the Bill have a detrimental impact on technology investment and innovation, while ensuring that the economy does not override security interests. That is a difficult judgment. If it were not, there would never be any problems for the Government to solve.

I read today—others may already have been aware—of possible changes to the listings regime to help the City compete with New York, Amsterdam and Frankfurt in attracting fast-growth companies by creating an “agile” new economy focused on innovation and technology. We welcome such moves and attention being given to making Britain a more attractive place in which entrepreneurs can take companies public.

I am grateful to noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Fox, for their introductions to this debate. I thank them for proposing this new clause and for enabling a further discussion on the purpose of the Bill.

Amendment 1 seeks to establish an objective for the Bill and include a number of elements to which the Secretary of State must have regard when using his powers. Let me say at the start that the intent behind this amendment is to provide a clear statement of the scope of the Bill, to prevent so-called mission creep and give certainty to businesses and investors, while avoiding the pitfalls of attempting to define “national security”. However, the legal effect of the amendment presents us with a number of challenges.

The amendment would require the Secretary of State when exercising his powers under the Bill to safeguard national security in respect of economic and social harm, which is reasonable. It is indeed possible that economic or social harms could give rise to risks to national security, but so could other harms such as physical or military harm. For example, a hostile actor could use control over a piece of critical infrastructure to put UK citizens in physical danger or they could acquire companies in the UK defence supply chain and thereby degrade our military capabilities.

The absence of other harms in the factors listed by the amendment suggests that the Secretary of State may not use his powers under the Bill to safeguard national security from those harms that I have outlined. It is also unclear how he should have regard to the factors in subsection (3) of the proposed new clause. As the amendment does not say that they are to be regarded as part of national security, that would suggest the scope of the Bill is being expanded beyond national security. It is important to note that the government position on the issue of defining, wholly or in part, “national security” remains consistent with when amendments in a similar vein to this were discussed at Second Reading and in the other place; I have discussed that with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, previously. The Bill does not set out the circumstances in which national security is, or may be, considered at risk. That reflects long-standing government policy to ensure that national security powers are sufficiently flexible to protect the nation. It also does not include factors which the Secretary of State must or may take into account in assessing national security risks on the face of the Bill.

I am grateful for the Minister’s gratitude. I am also grateful to Members of the Committee who have spoken, but I am a little shocked by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who seems to have an internal inconsistency. I always think of her as such a logically consistent Peer, but in one breath the amendment was dismissed as legislative fluff and in the next it was the most harmful thing that could happen to the Bill; I suggest that it is either one thing or the other. I appreciate the Minister’s solid response.

My noble friends Lady Bowles and Lord Clement-Jones added to the point that is central to this. The culture of how the Bill is delivered by the investment security unit will be central to how it is viewed in the outside world. If the unit has a combative and aggressive culture, that will affect the way in which the investment community regards investment in this country. The amendment seeks to explicitly influence the culture of that organisation, but I am very happy if the Minister’s lawyers can find better ways to do so. However, a Minister simply saying something will not make the unit run that way. In the end, that will be the measure of how successfully the Bill sets the balance between seeking to assure national security while not throwing out all the good things that our current investment world has.

I look forward to debates on other amendments that seek different ways to do the same thing but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 1.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.