LONDON — Conservative MPs who take a hard line on China are pushing a series of amendments aimed at toughening up the U.K. government’s upcoming procurement bill, POLITICO’s London Playbook newsletter reported.
The bill — which will be introduced as part of Britain’s post-Brexit reform of procurement policy — will introduce rules for firms competing for government contracts and strengthen ministers’ power to exclude companies that are deemed a national security risk.
Some MPs in Rishi Sunak’s ruling Tory Party don’t think the legislation in its current form goes far enough.
Alicia Kearns, the Tory chair of parliament’s influential foreign affairs committee, has put forward a series of amendments that would require the Cabinet Office to maintain a “high risk” list of companies that could only sell surveillance equipment to public authorities with explicit ministerial approval. The amendments are backed by three other select committee chairs — defense committee chair Tobias Ellwood, business committee chair Darren Jones and women and equalities committee chair Caroline Nokes.
“The current proposals in the bill put all the responsibility on contracting authorities to take national security decisions. We know this approach doesn’t work,” Kearns told POLITICO.
She added: “This bill is a chance to protect our country from China’s techno-authoritarianism, and efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to engineer our dependence on them, to weaken us at home and abroad — to fail to act now would be to fail to defend our people.”
Iain Duncan Smith, a former Tory leader, is also seeking to toughen the bill. His proposed amendment to the legislation — backed by 12 other Tory MPs so far — seeks a blanket ban on Chinese companies supplying the government with surveillance equipment.
“I am assured that the government is taking seriously the threat posed by companies subject to certain Chinese laws, particularly security laws. I have good reason [to] hope that the amendment will be accepted,” Duncan Smith said.
Kearns and Duncan Smith are in talks with ministers. A Cabinet Office official said the government was “working closely with these MPs.”
