National Security and Investment Bill — House of Commons, 2021-04-26
Topic: Defense
Julian Murray Lewis (Independent, Unknown): The Intelligence and Security Committee greatly appreciates the work of the Minister and of his predecessor on this important legislation. I was on the Committee in June 2013 when we identified the risks posed by foreign investment and takeovers to the United Kingdom’s critical national infrastructure, citing Huawei as a case study—and we know what happened after that. We strongly support the Government’s decision to address those risks and we welcome their assurances that national security concerns sit at the very heart of the Bill. That is exactly as it should be However, what was not as it should be, with the Bill as originally drafted, was the lack of adequate oversight arrangements for those security concerns and for the process when they are weighed against business and other commercial concerns by the new Investment Security Unit. The Government ought to accept amendments 11 and 15 from the other place, introduced on a cross-party basis by former Security Minister and current ISC member Lord West, former Cabinet Secretary and former ISC member Lord Butler, former party leader and former ISC member Lord Campbell, and former Defence Secretary Lord King—who was of course the first Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee when it was established. Their amendments make provision for that previous lack of oversight. They would require the annual report produced by the new Investment Security Unit in BEIS to include, for each final order and notification made, the Secretary of State’s decision, along with the security services’ assessment of the national security risks uncovered. They would allow the Secretary of State to move any classified information into an annex and to provide that classified annex to the ISC. With the amendments in place as they currently are, we could be confident that the Bill will create the robust regime needed to protect the United Kingdom Given the powerful speeches from all quarters and the size of the majority in the other place in support of the amendments, it is surprising and disappointing that the Government remain opposed to them and are seeking to overturn what is clearly common sense. The amendments provide for the ISC to scrutinise the highly classified national security elements and the weighing of those classified elements against commercial concerns There appear to be three arguments employed by the Government against the amendments. The first claims that because BEIS is not listed in the Justice and Security Act 2013 or in the associated memorandum of understanding on the scope of our work, the ISC cannot look at decisions taken by the new unit in BEIS. That is based on a false premise During the passage of the 2013 Act, the Government explicitly and repeatedly told Parliament that the Act and the MOU would provide the ISC with oversight of all security matters across Government. The MOU mechanism, again, in the Government’s own words, was a "flexible" way to ensure that the list of organisations working on security matters and therefore subject to ISC oversight would be kept up to date.