Clause 19 - Power to require information

Part of National Security and Investment Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 3:15 pm on 3 December 2020.

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Photo of Alan Whitehead Alan Whitehead Shadow Minister (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) (Energy and Climate Change), Shadow Minister (Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) 3:15, 3 December 2020

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear with me a few moments longer. Having unpacked “proportionality” in legal rather than colloquial terms, I want to put it back into the clause and see how it works, as far as the concerns of the Secretary of State go.

Indeed, the hon. Member for Glenrothes has questioned what we want to do on this clause in terms of the colloquial understanding of “proportionality”. I have mentioned how “proportionality” has come into the legal arena, specifically in terms of costs. Nevertheless, “proportionality” is now loose in the legal arena, so there is an interesting area of debate about it in general in the legal arena. That is not necessarily solely attached to the question of costs and civil litigation.

The problem is that there is virtually nothing to define that wider issue of proportionality in case law at the moment. Placing that word back into this particular clause suggests to us that the Secretary of State is restricted considerably on how that information may be gathered. The hon. Member for Glenrothes talked about research projects and various other things listed to us by our expert witnesses. I emphasise that I do not want to undermine those research projects or the presence of Chinese students. All I want to underline from that is that, on occasions, the process of getting hold of information and requiring people to give evidence can be convoluted. Indeed, it may require seeking information by going down paths that are not immediately apparent. As I say, it is not a question of someone turning up with a ring binder of things that can be perused.

In this clause, it appears that the Secretary of State may well have denied him or herself the ability to get hold of information, because it states that it has to be

“proportionate to the use to which the information is to be put in the carrying out of the Secretary of State’s functions under this Act.”

But he or she will not know about that information until it has been obtained. If there are difficulties in getting hold of the information, he or she will never know whether it is useful for carrying out his or her functions, because there is already a limit on getting the information in the first place.

I have brought the rather wobbly legal status of proportionality into the debate because it is potentially actionable through an obfuscation or refusal to put information forward by those actors. An actor who was required to give information could say, “It appears to me, your honour, that this request for information is not proportionate.” Of course, the Secretary of State may have a different point of view about what is proportionate from the person who is required to give the information.

There is also a vagueness in the application of the term “proportionate”. Although we think we know what it means in common language, that is not the case in the courts. That could be an additional issue that affects the Secretary of State’s ability to get the required information to make a judgment, over and above the fact that he or she may not know that until the information has been collected. So there are two procedural problems in the clause.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes said to me, to put it bluntly, “What exactly are you driving at? Perhaps it is not a good idea to appear to enable the Secretary of State to act disproportionately.” Of course, that is not what we are saying. We know that the Bill is more or less a giant amendment to the Enterprise Act 2002. Indeed, if hon. Members look at the back of the Bill, they will see that that is the only Act amended by it. Several amendments are made to the 2002 Act, but that is it—it is still sited within that Act. That Act was drawn up before the civil litigation changes to proportionality were put in place. The test set out in that Act, which is not amended by the Bill, is one of reasonableness, which is well understood, widely commented on and pretty clear.

If hon. Members consult the 2002 Act, they will see in clause 55 that the Secretary of State, in terms of enforcement, shall take such action

“as he considers to be reasonable and practicable to remedy”.

Therefore, we are not saying that the Secretary of State by acting disproportionately should act unreasonably. We are suggesting that the test that should be carried out is one of reasonableness, and should be in this particular clause. As the Enterprise Act already does, that would indeed prevent the Secretary of State going on fishing expeditions and undertaking actions that are wholly disproportionate because they would be unreasonable in terms of the definition of the Act. Our suggestion is to stick by that definition, which would be good enough to restrict the Secretary of State under the different circumstance that we are in today, in terms of seeking information. At the same time, it would give the Secretary of State the ability to take a path—I have said it is often a convoluted one—to obtain information that can be judged and used for the purpose of this Bill. I hope that the Minister will be favourably inclined towards that slight, but constrained, addition to his powers under this legislation.