Trade Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 29th September 2020 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, the hybrid Grand Committee will now begin. Some Members are here in person, respecting social distancing, while others are participating remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. I must ask Members in the Room to wear a face covering except when seated at their desk, to speak sitting down and to wipe down their desk, chair and any other touch points after use. If the capacity of the Committee Room is exceeded, or other safety requirements are breached, I will immediately adjourn the Committee. If there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for five minutes.

A participants’ list for today’s proceedings has been published by the Government Whips’ Office, as have lists of Members who have put their names to the amendments or expressed an interest in speaking on each group. I will call Members to speak in the order listed. Members are not permitted to intervene spontaneously. The Chair calls each speaker. Interventions during speeches or before the noble Lord sits down are not permitted. During the debate on each group, I will invite Members, including Members in the Grand Committee Room, to email the clerk if they wish to speak after the Minister, using the Grand Committee address. I will call Members to speak in order of request and will call the Minister to reply each time.

The groupings are binding; it will not be possible to degroup an amendment for separate debate. A Member intending to move formally an amendment already debated should have given notice in the debate. Leave should be given to withdraw amendments. When putting the Question, I will collect voices in the Grand Committee Room only, and I remind Members that Divisions cannot take place in Grand Committee. It takes unanimity to amend the Bill, so if a single voice says “Not Content”, an amendment is negatived, and if a single voice says “Content”, a clause stands part. If a Member taking part remotely intends to oppose an amendment that is expected to be agreed to, they should make this clear when speaking on the group. We will now begin.

Clause 1: Implementation of the Agreement on Government Procurement

Amendment 1

Moved by

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[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, listening to noble Lords who have contributed so far, it seems to me that they are losing sight of the fact that Clause 1 is really about enabling the UK to take advantage of the GPA, and they seem to be trying to make that much more difficult. Several noble Lords talked about a reduction in standards, and a race to the bottom was mentioned twice. Government policy is not to race to the bottom; it is not to diminish standards. We constantly hear that noble Lords in other parts of the House do not trust the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, said that we need amendments to allay his suspicions. I have to say to him that we do not legislate just to allay the suspicions of Liberal Democrat Peers; we legislate for effective legislation.

Many of the amendments are just telling the Government how and when they have to go and negotiate on certain things. If they were passed, they would be quite burdensome on the Government, who have quite a lot to do to try to get us ready for a post-EU trading world for the benefit of the UK. Nothing really happens if there is no outcome from most of the amendments, which seems to me a flaw in them.

I listened carefully to what the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, said about SMEs. There is an issue about SMEs having access to public procurement opportunities in the UK, as well as the rest of the world, which is what we are talking about getting access to through the GPA. The answer is not to go and negotiate with other signatories to the GPA. The issue of SMEs not having the access that they think they could have would be better dealt with by more specific and targeted government action to remove any barriers to SMEs taking part in government procurement, wherever they are. I hope that my noble friend can say something about what can be done to enable those SMEs which wish to take part in government procurement—not all do, especially not international government procurement —to do so.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Judd. Do we have Lord Judd?

[Lord Judd (Lab) [V]]

I am sorry about that; I did not have the unmute signal on my laptop; it came rather belatedly.

I want to say how much I support the speeches of my noble friends Lord Hain, Lord Hendy and Lord Rooker —and, yes, the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. When we are looking at legislation of this kind, it is very important to see what the purpose behind it really is. We know that there are strategists at work who are determined to change the British constitution and the British economy into a completely different constitution and economy from that which we have known for most of our lives. They want a free-for-all, with as few inhibitions as possible about what is done. They want to have a free hand. That is why the amendments in this group are so important.

At the age of 13—a long time ago—I had the privilege of being taken by my father to a conference in which he had very much a leading part. It was taking place in the ILO building in Geneva. I remember how impressed I was then by that post-war international consensus, which was determined to ensure that we had not only prosperous economies—which of course we wanted—but standards and work conditions worthy of a civilised society. We must not let that become eroded. It is essential to be vigilant, and we therefore need these safeguards in the Bill. How glad I am that we have this grouping before us.

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I hope that I have provided reassurance to noble Lords on the matters that we have debated today. I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

My Lords, I have received a request to speak after the Minister from the noble Lord, Lord Fox.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I am sitting here looking at the small surface wipes, which profess to kill 99.9% of all viruses. In his speech, the Minister used broadly the same terms twice, and substantially the same terms once, when describing the follow-on GPA agreement. That is equivalent to the 0.1%, which is important these days. Could the Minister tell us what is not the same, because “broadly” and “substantially” is not “identical”? Therefore, there is a difference. In what areas are we seeing variation?

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Amendment 6 not moved.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 7. I remind noble Lords that anyone wishing to speak after the Minister should email the clerk during the debate.

Clause 2: Implementation of international trade agreements

Amendment 7

Moved by