My Lords, once again the noble Lord, Lord Collins, seeks to assist the Government by ensuring that some of the wide-ranging powers sought by Ministers have a little sunlight shone upon them. We support what the noble Lord has said about making the Minister’s actions more transparent and accountable, but we worry—the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has in some ways made reference to this—about the broad categorisation of foreign policy objectives in defining when sanctions are appropriate.
We discussed this issue on the first day of Committee and, although I realise that the noble Lord has carried over the aims as stated in the Bill, we feel that “foreign policy objectives” is too wide a concept. Clearly, if our foreign policy objective were, say, trade with India and we decided, for some reason, to put sanctions on Pakistan and, as described in the Bill, all those associated with that country—as, again, we debated on our first day in Committee—a large number of law-abiding citizens could potentially be caught up in that. That may be regarded as far-fetched, but we always have to look for unintended consequences, given that unexpected things happen in politics.
As we have said before, it is all very well the Minister potentially quoting the Human Rights Act or the European convention, given that some members of his party have spoken of repealing the first and withdrawing from the second. It is therefore important that we ensure that legislation is watertight. With that caveat, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for trying to assist us in making Ministers under this Bill more transparent and accountable.