Contributions
1,148 recent contributions in Hansard
HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Seventh sitting)Clause 11 is intended to provide an exemption for certain asset acquisitions, which would otherwise be trigger events. The power to call in acquisitions of control over qualifying…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Seventh sitting)Hear, hear—I agree with every word. For the benefit of the Committee, I will begin with clause stand part, before turning to the amendment. The Secretary of State’s power to call…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)Quite right.03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)Clause 21 makes provision in respect of the persons on whom the Secretary of State may serve an information notice or an attendance notice outside the United Kingdom. The clause…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)Is the hon. Lady is talking about a period when the Secretary of State was not aware of the transaction being void? If he is unaware of it, he is unable to act. It is only once he…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question; I will write to him on that point, rather than attempting to go through our thinking on this. He raises an important point…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)Clause 15 places a duty on the Secretary of State to consider whether to retrospectively validate a notifiable acquisition that was not approved by him before it took place. As I…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Eighth sitting)Let me make clear to the hon. Lady what I actually said, which was that whether clauses 14 and 18 say that the Secretary of State “may” or “shall” make such regulations, the…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Seventh sitting)I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. As I was laying out, there is precedent from other screening legislation in Germany, France and elsewhere. Of course, the hon.…03 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)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…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)Clause 6 defines the circumstances covered by mandatory notification. The Bill calls them notifiable acquisitions, on the basis that they must be notified and cleared by the…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)It is therefore right that the Secretary of State keeps a constant watch on the regulations. Indeed, it is vital that he has the flexibility to re-assess and, if needed, seek to…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)To discuss this amendment, I believe it would be helpful to revisit briefly the role of notifiable acquisition regulations under the regime. A key part of the Bill is the ability…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)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…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the Hinkley Point deal with EDF, the operator and junior partner in that is CGN.01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)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…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)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…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)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…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)My hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest addressed the issue of the administrator’s acting on behalf of the creditors. The important point to focus on—I will happily write to the…01 Dec 2020HANSARDNational Security and Investment Bill (Sixth sitting)I turn now to clauses 5 and 10, alongside schedule 1, which set out much of the detail on the circumstances covered by the Bill. Clause 5 begins to set the scope of what may be…01 Dec 2020