My Lords, I agree absolutely with the Government’s aim in that there are certain British interests that they wish to protect. However, the way the Bill is drawn leaves an area of opacity and inconsistency with other important and analogous publications. I draw your Lordships’ attention to the revised version of the integrated review produced in 2021, which refers to:
“Our interests and our values: the glue that binds the”
nation. It continues:
“The Government’s first and overriding priority is to protect and promote the interests of the British people through our actions at home and overseas. The most important of these interests are: … Sovereignty … Security … Prosperity”—
and it explains each of those terms. The explanation of prosperity is extremely vague, but the descriptions of both sovereignty and security are quite clear. Those two descriptions are different from “the safety or interests of the United Kingdom” in the Bill, at least as I understand it. My plea to the Minister is for him to accept that there may be some opacity in what we are presented with, and for him to go back and consider this—alongside other publications that the Government have produced, including the integrated review—so that we can have something which is consistent across the board by the time we complete the Bill.
4.15 pm